Never Seen

Chapters

TABLE FOR ONE
BROKEN WINGS
RUNAWAY
Interlude I
RAIN
STRANGER
GHOSTS
SPECTACLE
FOR NOW
FOREVER I
FOREVER II
Interlude II
Interlude III
Interlude IV
UNDRESS
GET IN, LOSER, WE'RE GOING TO KLUGETOWN
LIKE MAGNETS, WE ARE

TABLE FOR ONE

Gallus walked down the road, responding to the distress call with the kind of haste that was expected of him. He wasn't worried, however. In fact, the scenery around him made him feel just a little less lonely.

It was autumn. Nearly sunset. Griffonstone’s dirt roads were sprinkled with houses made from straw and granite, and each one was glowing from within with orange light. Nearly everygriff had a fire going by this time of day, and sometimes a lost breeze would slither against Gallus’s side, warming him with the remnants of those fires as he passed. Any tree that he happened upon was either dead or losing its last leaves, and seeing one would make him smile. Winter was coming, and he had a home to spend it in.

Gallus had taken an almost perverse pleasure in celebrating the Blue Moon Festival ever since he came back to Griffonstone. During his early childhood, stranded on the streets, the idea of being warm in winter was inconceivable. Now he could eat, be merry and drink to his heart’s content in front of his own fireplace, with the snow falling thick and heavy outside, and when he did it felt like he was both leaving his past self behind while simultaneously spitting in his sad, orphan face. But that wouldn’t be for another couple of months.

At the end of the road lay a large house with two doors on opposite ends, and two salt and pepper patterned griffons sitting looking away from each other, in front of the door that was closest to him.

Gallus felt his heartbeat speed up as he increased his walking speed, and when he was in earshot he began to bob his head, trying his best to grab eye contact with either of the griffons in front of the house. Neither gave him any acknowledgement, so he decided to get within a few metres and sit down on the ground.

He had been here before, and done the same thing, and the end result always turned out the same. To his left was Gilroy, the local librarian that would knit sweaters in his free time and sell them for six times the amount of wool that he used. To his right was his twin sister, Glenda, who was one of the local blacksmiths, and personally made about three quarters of the tools that were currently in Griffonstone.

When the whole housing resurgence a few years back was starting to look expensive, the siblings thought themselves clever by purchasing a single house and erecting a wooden wall in between, furnishing each side until it was two homes in one. On paper, it was a rather nice set-up, but the opposite turned out to be true for Gilroy and Glenda. Their living situation spiraled slowly into monthly, then weekly, then daily fights about who was making more noise, or who was responsible for screwing with the plumbing, or who was devaluing the property more.

Gallus waited patiently. One of them would speak soon, and then he would launch into his questions, but only when one of them spoke.

He waited further. A minute went by.

“Gallus,” said Gilroy. “Nice of you to come.”

Gilroy’s voice had always sounded like a viola to Gallus. In the hands of a hippogriff. An overexcited one that didn’t particularly know how to play, and thus was simply sawing at the strings.

“What’s the problem this time?” Gallus asked.

“There’s no problem,” Glenda muttered, glancing over to him. She sounded much more pleasant than her brother. More of a sad saxophone than a viola.

Gallus rolled his eyes. “Then why did one of you call me here?”

A moment. Then, Gilroy looked to Gallus.

“So,” he began, “six years ago Glenda was dating Greta—you know her, right? Gilda’s friend? Yours too, I guess. Well, Greta ended up liking me more than Glenda and I honestly didn’t mean to but she comes to me one day and she says, ‘You’re so much cooler than your sister,’ and I said ‘Oh, really?’ and she said ‘Really’, and then she kisses me right on the beak.”

At this, Glenda made a soft sound of disgust.

Gilroy continued, not noticing. “You’ve seen Greta, right? How can any griffon in the world resist her? So we end up spending a few months together, and Glenda’s still mad about it. So now whenever we’re asleep she sneaks into my place to eat my food.”

“Is that true?” Gallus asked, looking to the griffon’s sister.

“Of course not,” said Glenda. “Look, Gilroy’s just too stupid to remember when he eats his meals, so when his food runs out too quick, he blames me. It’s not that hard to figure out, dude. Tell him off so we can all get on with our lives.”

“My favorite thing about you,” Gilroy said, “is how good you are at pretending that you’re not a petty cockroach.”

“You wanna say that to me again?” Glenda growled, turning to face him. Her wings were on the cusp of flaring, barely restrained as they quivered with anger.

“Peace!” Gallus called, taking a few choice steps towards them. Thankfully, they stopped and turned to him. “Chill out. Calm it.”

“I can’t even buy sweet rolls anymore because I know that she—” Gilroy pointed to Glenda. “Is going to eat them all when I’m sleeping. I know what this is about, and it’s not me.”

“That’s weird,” snarked Glenda. “If it’s not you, then who could it be about?”

“You—”

“I know you meant me, idiot. I’m saying that only a complete birdbrain would believe your story, and Gallus over here went to fancy pony school and worked a fancy royal pony soldier job. He’s way too smart to fall for your swindling.”

“My swindling is top notch. You’re just jealous that I’m better at poker.”

“Take that back!”

The siblings crouched down, about to punce. Thinking quick, Gallus swiped at the ground, sending a volley of dirt between them. Again, they turned to stare at him.

“Can I talk?” Gallus asked, waiting for a moment before continuing. “Look, you guys go through this every other week. We figured this out two years ago. Glenda, don’t eat Gilroy’s sweet rolls. Gilroy, stop eating too many sweet rolls. That goes for any other food, too.”

“Cool,” Glenda said, “but you got me all kinds of messed up if you think I’m gonna let all that stuff he said just now slide.”

“Me too,” Gilroy huffed.

“Actually, you are,” Gallus commanded, volume growing louder. “You’re both going to forget that this or anything you said just now happened, and you’re gonna pretend that you like each other until you’re not pretending anymore. You know why? Because Blue Moon Fest is coming up, and we all decided we weren’t gonna be total jerks when that came around anymore, right?”

The siblings were quiet. Then, they gave a collective “Okay.”

“Good,” sighed Gallus. “Now apologize.”

“Fine,” said Gilroy. He side-eyed his sister for a moment, then offered her a closed fist.

She looked at it like it was a math problem, but her frown slowly unraveled into a happily neutral expression, and then bumped talons with her brother.

“That’s—that’s not what I meant, but that works,” Gallus said. “Can I go now?”

“Sure,” said the siblings, already flying away from him.

Gallus watched the two griffons enter their home, and then he turned around. The dirt road he had traveled was only a slight incline from where he was, but it was still annoying to walk up regardless. He wasn’t looking forward to doing it again, and it wasn’t like he could fly. Not anymore.

There was a vague memory from the morning in his mind, and it whispered sweetly to him that Gabby was grilling salmon for dinner, but he wasn’t sure if he was remembering correctly. Hopefully, he was. He loved fish—ate it voraciously at every opportunity. He had spent too long without it. There was no way he’d miss a seafood meal. Not on his watch.

Gallus growled softly to himself as he began the long walk home, leaving Gilroy and Glenda’s house behind.

Gallus was right. Dinner for the night was grilled salmon, courtesy of Gabby. It was cooked to perfection: sweet and tender and with a fresh, but velvety, citrus-y flavor that Gallus could never hope to describe.

Salmon wasn’t Gilda’s favorite food, so the older griffon only stayed at the dinner table long enough to eat half of her meal before she slid her dish over to Gallus. After he had scarfed that down, he was left to eagerly battle Gabby for scraps.

They were back at their office, which was really just another house. It was neat and tidy, and as proper as their official positions in the municipality called for. They were the Griffonstone Police and Negotiation Department. Only one of them was experienced in using weapons, but that rarely seemed to matter; they had only ever been called out to settle mundane domestic disputes, anyway.

In the midst of their noisy feasting, Gallus asked about Gabby’s day. Such was their ritual.

“I didn’t do anything!” Gabby chirped over a mouthful of salmon. “Literally nothing. I sat at home all day and I ate—what were those Equestrian snacks, again? The ones that Spike sent us?”

“Chips?”

“Chips!” she repeated happily.

Gallus smirked down at his meal. He gathered up a nice forkful before placing it into his mouth. “What flavor?”

“I thought we only had the pickle kind.”

He shook his head. “Sounds like you’ve just been going through the first box.”

“There’s more than one?”

“Wanna hear how my day went?” he asked, and went on without waiting for an answer, because Gabby always said yes. “Gruff spent all day whining to me about the new council, which is nothing new, and then Glenda and Gilroy had another argument, which I expertly solved in record time, cause I’m awesome.”

“What was it about?” Gabby asked, taking another bite of her food. “No! No. Let me guess: Glenda’s been sleepwalking into abandoned property again and she blamed it on her brother trying to pull off a really complicated prank.”

“Close,” Gallus said proudly. “But—”

There was a knock at the door.

Immediately Gallus and Gabby entered a staring contest, waiting to see who would be the first to answer. Their fireplace was lit and happily churning out smoke for the rest of the world to see, and the magical light that illuminated the interior of their home was still on. Whoever was outside knew that someone was home, and neither Gabby nor Gallus wanted their workplace to gain a bad reputation.

The question was: who wanted the rest of dinner more?

Three more knocks rapped on the door in quick succession. The first one burned through half of Gallus’s nerve like wildfire devouring a field of dry grass. The second one made the feathers going down his back stand on end. The third was what finally broke him, and, almost in a trance, he flew out of his chair towards the door and pulled it open, desperately ignoring the wet, sloppy sounds of Gabby devouring the rest of the fish.

Autumn wind tickled his face, no longer blocked out by the walls of his home. He scratched one of his cheeks as a sleek griffon colored silver and black, nodded her head slightly to acknowledge him.

“You’re here,” she said.

“We’re all here, yep. What do you want?”

“I need you.” She tapped an index talon on the floor several times as she talked.

“Why?” Gallus asked. As he spoke he smoothed his crest feathers down, flat against the top of his head. He wasn’t in the best of spirits after having his meal interrupted, but he took extra care not to let that show in the tone of his voice. “We’re just in the middle of dinner, and if you haven’t been told yet, we don’t really go out and solve domestic problems past seven, so if you want to, like, write a note or something then you can come in and jot it down on some paper, but we’re done with house calls for the day.”

“I am Gertrude Robintabby,” she said, stoic expression unchanging. “My house was broken into. There are certain things missing. I need the police. Not mediation.”

Several months ago, Griffonstone was lit ablaze with politics and gossip surrounding a merchant who was actively running for leadership within the town. Her platform was enticing and simple to understand, and she caused a fair divide between the griffons before Grampa Gruff decided to give her a seat on the Council of Griffonstone.

“I’ve heard about you,” said Gallus, his posture stiffening. Old lessons nagged at him from the back of his mind, so he offered her his talon. Not a traditional griffon greeting by any means. Those would involve more dismissive glances and soft murmurs of acknowledgement.

Gertrude took it with her own and shook it firmly, looking at him with steely eyes. “I’ve heard about you, too.”

“Is anygriff watching over the house?”

“No. You’re going to want to hurry.”

“Do you want to come inside?”

“I’ll wait for you out here.”

“I’ll try,” said Gallus, and then he closed the door gently.

He walked up to the table, where Gabby sat licking her talons clean. On first glance, the food looked like it was all gone, but as Gallus came closer he realized that there was a full dish of scraps set aside for him.

He felt a jolt of love seize him, and felt the urge to hug Gabby and thank her for being his friend and a part of his home. Then there came a flash of familiarity, and he stowed the rare moment of affection in the deepest crevasse of his mind that he could find.

He stood by her and sighed.

“What was that?” she asked.

“We have a crime scene.”

Gabby blinked and reached for a cloth to wipe her talons free of saliva. “Wait, really?”

“Really,” said Gallus. “Let’s go.”

“You’re on Gilda duty.”

Gallus rolled his eyes. “I know.”

“Then I’ll be back in five!” Gabby chirped. Gallus barely saw her as she flew past him and up the stairs—the great grey blur of Griffonstone.

Gallus followed her, walking up the stairs with the slightest bit of pep in his step. The upper story of their home was a simple one: a bathroom that was closest to the stairway, two rooms (Gabby’s on the right, and Gilda’s on the left) after that, and another room at the end of the hall that was the biggest, and contained a hoard of various things that fit nowhere else.

Gallus lived in a small townhouse behind Gilda and Gabby’s two-story home, and he longed to go there now. He’d jump into his bed and take a nap long enough to make a pegasus proud, and wake up the next morning to have breakfast with the girls.

Unfortunately, the seductive promise of actually doing something useful for once was too hard to ignore, so he walked past the flurry of activity that was Gabby’s opened room, and he knocked twice on Gilda’s closed door.

He heard a soft creaking of bed springs and a grumpy, sleepy murmur. Gallus raised a talon to knock again, but Gilda interrupted him with a loud caw.

“What the Tartarus do you want?” she called through the door.

“Crime scene,” Gallus said simply.

There was silence, and then a hasty scrambling from within before Gilda opened her door a couple of inches and poked her head through. “What are you talking about?”

“Gertrude Robintabby’s outside. Her house was broken into.”

“Wait—” Gilda opened the door further, her eyes wide. “Seriously?”

“Let’s go,” Gallus said. “I’ll wait for you two outside.”

“Yo, chill!” Gilda shouted as he turned to leave. “Get in here.”

“But—”

“Get. In. Here.”

Gallus rolled his eyes as he stepped into Gilda’s room, which was a total sty as far as he was concerned.

The general set up of Gilda and Gabby’s rooms were: a bed, a desk and a closet. The rest was left up to the individual owner.

Gilda chose to leave bits of shredded up newspaper and whole stacks of important diplomatic documents (she undertook ambassadorship for Grampa Gruff whenever he didn’t feel like it, which was becoming more and more often these days) sprawled across the floor in a manner that reminded Gallus of the workroom of Carousel Boutique, despite having no yards of fabric or any clothes left in vague piles on the floor. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and Gallus hated being in Gilda’s room, despite not being the most organized griffon himself.

He cleared a spot free of loose documents and sat down, staring at his friend as she paced around, her wings beginning to unfurl only to stop, and then start again. Gilda was anxious, and that was starting to freak him out.

“What’s up?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light. “Gonna chew me out for interrupting your beauty sleep?”

Gilda stopped to stare at him, baffled. He could see several thoughts rush through her mind before her eyes suddenly narrowed into a sharp glare, and she leaned in, her feathers beginning to ruffle.

“Look,” she hissed, “that girl is dangerous. I know you’re excited to play Princess’s Bodyguard again but you need to watch yourself around her.”

“She seemed fine to me,” said Gallus, pointedly ignoring the dig at his past. “She rip you off once or something?”

“It’s not her that you need to watch out for. It’s the griffons around her.” Gilda walked closer to him, but the way that she looked at him made it seem like she was looking at something far, far away. “You don’t know the stuff that goes on in the upper politics of this place.”

“Enlighten me, then, Lady Ambassador.”

Her eyes became much more present, and her fist swung forward to sock him on the shoulder.

“Ow!” Gallus grunted. “Look, I’ll be careful around her, or whatever.”

“She’s gonna invite you to a party, or to hang out, or something. Don’t go.”

“But I like parties.”

“Don’t go,” Gilda said, her voice dropping low. “Promise me, Gally.”

“Am I an adult or not?” Gallus snapped. He wanted to say more, but he stood up and walked to the door. “Come on,” he said. “We have a job to do.”

She followed him out. On cue, Gabby waltzed out of her room to fly above them, and they joined Gertrude outside in the purple suede light of dusk.

Gallus choked down the humiliation that wriggled around in his neck as the other three griffons shared a look and glanced back at him. They avoided looking at his back, like most of the other townsgriffons, but it was like they were only calling more attention to it by not paying attention to it.

If he had a choice, he’d tell them to go on ahead, but he wasn’t sure where Gertrude’s house was, so he was forced to stay silent as they came to a silent consensus. They turned to the road and began to walk.

They passed by threadbare trees losing their leaves, and behind those trees were houses.

For every home that was wood and straw, ragged and worn down in the style of what Griffonstone used to be, there were three homes that were newly built, with economically cut stone and ceramic, smoke billowing happily out of the fireplace.

As Gallus kept his eyes on the new architecture, he began to see more and more construction sites for buildings he couldn’t quite figure out. Buildings that were too big to be single homes, and too strange, too grand to be divided into multiple apartments. As far as he knew, Griffonstone had all the infrastructure it needed, and if there had been plans to build a new town hall, or church or library, then Gilda would have told him about it, and she hadn’t told him anything.

It wasn’t too long before they arrived at Gertrude’s house.

It stood tall, with three stories, painted white where there was wood and made of glittering granite where there was stone. The windows were simple, but elegant, and many of them spanned from the floor to the ceiling. It was no doubt the residence of someone wealthy, or at the very least, powerful.

Gertrude led them in through a grand hallway lined with paintings that led into a living room and a kitchen bordered by the same large, floor to ceiling windows that were present at the front of the house. The fireplace was magically lit. Gallus knew this because the flames were a little too perfectly curved, almost like they had been sculpted. This was quite unlike most other griffons in Griffonstone, including himself, who used Equestrian magic to ambiently light their homes, but started their fires the old fashioned way.

The furniture gave him a small shock, too. It was so impeccably arranged that it reminded him of the Carousel Boutique in Vanhoover, where the focus was on cleanliness and the possible grandeur of a simple design done in an interesting way.

Looking around Gertrude’s home nearly gave Gallus an uncomfortable sense of familiarity. The only thing that stopped it from treading into intolerable was the knowledge that he was definitely in a griffon’s home, and not a pony’s.

One of windows, nearer to the array of couches that took up most of the living room, had been completely broken, and there was a shelf knocked over, beautiful polished wood smashed to pieces.

Gallus’s eyes strayed from the scene as Gilda and Gabby went forward to examine it, and he noticed the shelves on the far end of the living room.

Lined side by side, with all sorts of colors, were many shelves of beautifully, tightly bound books. He walked forward, passionately hoping that no one was watching him. Each book was decorated and handcrafted, with bold lettering across their spines about every conceivable topic. Books on changeling architecture to hippogriff cuisine to pony government structure, and whole shelves dedicated to the history of both Griffonia and Griffonstone. The place may as well have been a library.

His mind was ablaze with possibility. Gallus had never considered himself a bookworm by any means, but he could definitely see himself appreciating a conversation with someone who was well learned by Equestrian standards, and not just by griffon ones.

Gertrude began to explain what happened, and when, and what she was doing at the time. Gallus turned to listen as Gabby and Gilda ventured into the backyard to look for any clues or tracks.

There really wasn’t much to tell. Gertrude was relaxing in her bath at the highest floor of the house when there was a sudden crash, and came down to find the shelf and her window broken, and the living room chilled by the sudden influx of air.

“You’re sure there was nothing valuable on the shelf?” Gallus asked Gertrude, who had taken a seat on a chair in the kitchen. “Not even something that a homeless orphan could sell?”

“It was a single sculpture made of wicker,” she said, “and it wasn’t made by anyone important. Barely worth six bits.”

“Hmm,” Gallus murmured. He looked over the scene again: broken glass, stolen goods, toppled shelf. They were all signs of something rushed and hurried, and since nothing else was taken, they must not have known that no one else was home at the time. It was possible that the culprit simply thought that there may have been guards stationed nearby, which would mean that it wasn’t personal.

Gallus had a decision in mind, but he gestured for Gertrude to stand by as he ventured into the backyard.

“Nothing?” Gilda asked as he stepped onto the damp grass. She and Gabby were standing side-by-side in the middle of the yard, which was only a couple of yards large.

“That’s what I said,” Gabby chirped back, a slightly annoyed understone to her voice. Apparently it was hard to work with family, but Gallus couldn’t exactly say.

“Damn,” Gilda cursed.

Gallus then crept close enough so that Gilda and Gabby heard, and they turned around with slightly disappointed expressions tinting both of their faces.

Gabby sighed. “We found—”

“Nothing. I heard,” Gallus said. “We might have to call it here. What do you guys think?”

“The first bit of police work we get in two months and we can’t even do anything about it,” Gabby pouted, staring down at her feet. “Are we really just going to leave it here? You guys don’t wanna invite one of the many talented unicorns we know to get over here and, like, track the thief or something?

“Not really.” Gallus spoke too fast, too loud, and too harsh. He reached up to scratch the back of his head as soon as the words left his beak, and he looked to Gabby with sympathetic eyes. “Look, I’m bummed out too, but we just can’t do anything right now.”

“It’s too much work anyway,” Gilda said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Gabby sighed. “I really wanted to catch someone. Or get caught before one of you saved me, at least.”

To that, Gilda scoffed. “We’re not in Equestria.”

“You’re right,” said Gabby, “if we were, everything would be funner.”

“So we’ve decided?” Gallus asked. “We give her the ‘nothing we can do, patch up your window, let us know if it happens again’ speech?”

“Is there a problem with that?” Gilda asked, tail swishing.

Gallus shook his head. “Just wanted to make sure.”

The three of them came back inside and informed Gertrude of the situation, sounding appropriately apologetic. There really was nothing that they could do, save for possibly keeping watch overnight, but when that was presented as an option, Gertrude shook her head ‘no’. She accepted the verdict gracefully, as if she had been expecting it, and sent them on their way.

Gabby and Gilda left the house first, talking about something that Gallus couldn’t hear very well. He went to catch up, but a small utterance of his name made him stop.

Gallus turned to find Gertrude looking at him. He had never noticed the solitude in her eyes until then.

“I noticed you looking at my books,” she said.

“Reading’s not too bad,” he replied, almost in a trance.

“You went to school in Equestria, yes?”

“Worked there for a bit, too.”

Gertrude smiled, and Gallus found himself smiling back.

“When was the last time you were there?” Gertrude asked.

He shrugged.

“Fair enough,” she said, laughing musically. “I was wondering if you’d like to come over for a cup of coffee sometime. I have a whole crate of Marebucks Harmony Roast in my pantry. When I came back home after spending a year in Manehattan, I missed the stuff so badly it hurt. I grabbed a hold of as much as I could when I had the opportunity to go back.”

“I do miss Marebucks,” Gallus murmured. “And books, weirdly enough. Could I borrow one?”

“I’ll give you a few for free. As gifts. That’s what friends do, right?”

“Right,” said Gallus as his body finally began to move. He turned to leave, but not before glancing back at the other griffon, whose feathers looked especially metallic under the moonlight.

“Good night, Constable,” said Gertrude Robintabby.

“See you,” he replied, and left the house.

He was silent most of the way home, only idly listening to Gilda talk to Gabby about the assorted problems in the town which, as of late, were becoming tamer and tamer. Gabby wasn’t exaggerating when she referred to Gertrude’s break-in as the first ounce of police work they had in months—it was, and it had gone nowhere.

Tomorrow they would be the mediators for all of Griffonstone’s friendship problems again, and it would be as bland and boring as ever.

When the three of them arrived at the house, Gilda and Gabby turned to utter a pair of Good Nights’, but Gallus was already well on his way to his little townhouse in the backyard.

His home was merely a single story, and no bigger than a classroom at the School of Friendship, but it was his, and he had been pining for it for the entire day.

It looked beautiful to him now, in the growing moonlight. It was simple, unpainted as it was constructed with gray stone, with a triangular black roof and chimney that sparkled when the sun was it its highest, and softened when the sun was down. The only spot of color was on the door; a bright blue in the same vein as his feathers, with a golden handle.

He walked up to the door, bristling with satisfaction and anticipation, and opened it wide. Magical light responded to his presence, peeling away the darkness so that the simple layout of his home could greet him warmly. There was the couch on his left, the kitchen directly across the room, and around the corner were the bathroom and his bedroom.

Gallus closed the door behind him, and murmured to himself as he strode to the kitchen. He opened the fridge—Equestrian, new make, sent over by Spike for Hearth’s Warming—and pulled out a bottle of mead.

He poured himself a glass and put it on the counter for later, then went to work. For how delicious Gabby’s cooking was earlier, the whole trip to Gertrude’s house and back had him feeling peckish. There was still some fish stew from the other week in his fridge, so he poured it all into a pot and set it on the stove, and waited.

When the stew was hot enough, he fixed himself a bowl, grabbed the glass of mead and sat down at the polished mahogany kitchen table, which was big enough to fit six but had only served one for its entire being.

The oily, salty flavor of the soup paired with the mead quite well, which cut into the grease with its honeyed tartness.

He only wished that he had something to play music, like a radio. The sound of his eating being the only sound in the house made him feel uncomfortable. He remembered, a few minutes in, why he always took his meals with the girls.

Then he felt afraid.

It was absurd, in a way. He was having a pre-bedtime snack alone in his house. What did he have to be scared of? But there it was: fear. It gripped him from the inside out, dragging its sharp talons against the inside of his ribcage, making it incredibly hard to breathe. And the fear was accompanied by something else: a strangeness, or an unease, and it felt like he was wrong. It felt like he was somewhere he shouldn’t be.

Gallus looked around at him. His eyes sprinted through his surroundings, searching hard for some sense of comfort, but he could find none. The chairs around him felt oppressive. The walls felt uncomfortable and stiff. The very floor felt so strange, and it felt like he was seeing for the first time, like he had just been born and all of this was brand new and so unbelievably terrifying that it made him cower in his seat.

He shut his eyes and gripped the edge of the table, squeezing and scratching at the wood until he could swear it had turned soft, and then he opened his eyes, and the feeling was completely gone.

He finished his food. It had lost all of its flavor.

He drank the mead, feeling nothing at the soft, intimate kiss of alcoholic heat that it left in his throat and chest.

He had nothing left to do after that, so he went to bed.

Gallus had trouble going to sleep that night, and when he finally did, his dreams were strange and savage. He dreamt of griffons dancing in a forest, the sound of bones breaking, and oranges being sliced with strange knives before they were eaten messily, with the juice dripping down the chins of the wolves that were eating them. He dreamt of rain, then of drowning, and the northern lights, and when he finally woke in the morning, he felt as if he had gotten no sleep at all.

Author's Note

A big thanks to Miller Minus for his editing on this chapter :heart:

BROKEN WINGS

GET TO THE MOUNTAIN TRAIL THEY’RE BEING REALLY ANNOYING GO FIX IT!

The writing was hurried. Irritated. Gallus wasn’t sure who wrote it, but it must have been somegriff near the entrance to town. The mail service, once headed by Gabby, had been left in good talons and was as fast and alert as ever.

He left his house groaning.

Back to work. Back to living. Sudden bouts of fear be damned.

Past the newly made houses on the outskirts of Griffonstone was the official entrance to the town. It was an elegant golden arch adorned with two red phoenix wings. Under it, a large wagon blocked the path.

Gallus crept around the wagon to find an earth pony mare hitched to the wagon. She had a pale yellow coat, a short red mane, and brown eyes to boot. On her flank lay a mark of autumn leaves, gliding carelessly on a breeze.

In front of the pony was a griffon, colored from feather to fur like a roasted chestnut. Gallus recognized her as Gwenn: one of the heads of Griffonstone’s construction teams.

Both of them were tethered to similarly sized wagons. Both could not be on the trail at once.

“Move!” screamed the mare, her voice young and intense. “I’m not gonna ask again!”

“No,” Gwenn said firmly.

“Why not?”

“You already know.”

“Oh my—move it! I have to check in to the inn by sunset!”

“Then you should hurry.”

“I would if there wasn’t a stupid griffon in my way!”

“That’s another ten minutes I’m gonna stand here.”

“I swear to Celestia I’ll—”

“You’ll what? Bite me with your flat teeth?”

The mare opened her mouth to respond, but Gallus took the opportunity to loudly interject. “What’s the problem here, ladies?”

The mare turned on him with a snarl. “And just who do you think you are?”

“My name is Gallus. I’m in charge of keeping the town quiet, and you’re being loud.”

The mare’s eyes widened. “Gallus, like, Captain Gallus?”

Gallus’s tail went stiff momentarily. “Yeah. Now, what’s the problem?”

Gwenn was all too happy to explain. “She won’t move her wagon.”

“I won’t—do you hear this? Are you hearing her?” The mare scoffed, her previous train of thought obscured by frustration. “She could very, very easily step aside for a second and let me pass, but instead she’s been sitting on her butt for half an hour and refusing to move because I was ‘rude’ to her!”

“I’m standing,” Gwenn said.

The mare’s face twisted into a monument of annoyance. “I know that!”

Gallus raised an eyebrow at Gwenn. “What’d she do?”

“Called me a bird,” huffed Gwenn.

“That’s what you are!” said the mare.

“Right.” Gallus clicked his tongue, turning to her. “Your name, miss?”

“Late Harvest,” she said.

“Have you ever been around griffons before, Harvest?”

“No,” she snorted. “Why?”

“Birds are dumb,” he said. “They’re weird, and they have scary, unfeeling eyes, and you don’t get to call us birds just because we look like birds, and share genetic similarities to birds, and eat worms sometimes. No griffon likes birds. That’s not an exaggeration. Zero griffons like birds. We all hate them. Like, a lot. The only thing that they’re good for is dinner. Did you try apologizing to Gwenn over here?”

“No,” muttered Harvest, looking away.

“Why is that?” asked Gallus.

“Because she’s in my way.”

“Look, I know it’s really annoying to have your way blocked like this, but you said something that upset her.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You didn’t?” Gwenn interrupted, monotone as ever but with a caustic tone to her voice that wasn’t there before.

Harvest sighed. “I didn’t know you would actually be offended.”

Gwenn laughed harshly. “Then I guess you were just yelling at me to be friendly?”

“Maybe?” said Harvest. “I-I kind of figured that a griffon would respect me for being—I don’t know—not your average cuddly pony.”

“That’s stupid.” Gallus blinked. “But I appreciate the thought.”

From his periphery, he could see Gwenn turn to him with an eyebrow raised. “You’re letting her off the hook?”

“She was trying to speak our language,” he said, not looking away from Harvest. “I’ll give her more credit than the other pony tourists who come here and then are shocked out of their minds when we turn out to be the worst.”

Gwenn grunted agreeably. Gallus smiled.

Harvest’s eyes bounced from Gallus, to Gwenn, and to Gallus again. “So will you move your cart?”

Gwenn looked to Gallus. He shook his head. “You still need to apologize. It wasn’t a very kind thing for you to keep arguing and yelling when it clearly didn’t work the first time.”

Harvest groaned in response.

“My brother made your window at the castle, you know,” Harvest said. “You oughta be thankful. I’m the one who pushed him to accept the princess’s commission.”

“I’ll be sure to buy him dinner if I run into him,” said Gallus. “Now apologize.”

“You’re actually serious? We aren’t in grade school!”

Gallus glared.

Harvest cringed under his stern expression, and, after a glance at the sky, looked to Gwenn. “I’m sorry for calling you a bird.”

“Say the whole thing,” Gwenn said, smiling.

“I’m sorry for calling you a dirt-caked, arrogant, ugly bird.”

Gwenn backed her wagon up, turning to give Harvest enough room to pass. “I forgive you.”

With a huff, Late Harvest lugged her wagon back into motion, passing Gwenn with a glare that didn’t entirely sell her remorse.

Gallus exchanged nods with Gwenn before he followed in Harvest’s hoofsteps. He made sure to walk slow, and not make too much noise. The mare was still in his sight, and he would be in hers if she turned around, and he didn’t want that. The last thing he wanted was to talk to a pony.

But avoiding her was a cowardly move, and Gallus didn’t want to be a coward. He sighed, willing himself to move forward. He caught up to Harvest in no time, and she smiled when he reached her side.

“First time in Griffonstone?” he asked before she could speak, to avoid suspicion. “I don’t know why I asked that. It clearly is.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m supposed to be staying at Greta’s Inn. Near the tree? I still can’t get over the giant tree that you guys have. It’s just—there’s just a tree in your town.”

“Greta’s inn is nice place,” Gallus said. “You’ll have a decent time there.”

“Only decent?”

“Maybe more than decent.”

It didn’t take long for them to reach the town, and when they did, Late Harvest stopped to gawk. Gallus waited.

“Oh my stars,” she gasped.

Under the sun’s joyful zenith, Griffonstone’s town square looked like something out of a postcard. Newly furnished buildings stood proud all around, smelling as delightfully rustic (and somehow sweet) as freshly cut wood always did. They were like buildings one would find in a fairy tale: almond brown walls latticed with white wood, with cleanly cut triangular roofs that were freshly tiled, and loomed above balconies whose railings were lined with colorful flower pots.

There were griffons everywhere, flying to and fro, hanging out on porches, selling odd wares to passersby; all smiling or, at the very least, not angry.

“Even the windows are shining,” said Harvest, finally walking forward, letting Gallus do the same as her eyes roamed the town square excitedly. “This looks like Appleloosa, almost. It’s so lively. This looks like it could be a pony town.”

“Yeah,” said Gallus. “It’s not too shabby.”

“Where’s—”

“I’ll lead you to Greta’s,” he said, and began walking towards the inn. “You seem really surprised.”

“The newspapers said it was nice, but I wasn’t expecting it to be this nice,” Harvest said, glancing around. “Wasn’t this place a dump ten years ago?”

The other townsgriffons paid them no mind as they entered the heart of the square. Ponies were a common enough sight, though only a few took up permanent residence.

Just outside the square lay Greta’s inn: a humble abode of three stories, with a small pub beside the check-in desk. It had never been completely full, but there lay an air of quiet nostalgia that Gallus relished in whenever he had the pleasure of visiting. He liked the peaceful nature of a place with but a few griffons. Once, he would have preferred the contagious mirth of a full tavern stuffed with griffons, euphoric on mead, but his tastes had changed over the last few years.

He liked the calm. It offered no surprises.

He walked Harvest to the inn and watched as she parked her wagon and came up to him with a smile.

“Thank you,” she said.

“How long are you staying?” Gallus asked.

Harvest shrugged. “Maybe I’ll stay forever. Can’t be hard to find someplace nice. Half the place seems like it’s under construction.”

Gallus blinked, and it was like he had popped his ears or something, because he could hear the hypnotic sound of hammering and sawing cascade around him. He looked back to see multiple unfinished buildings, peeking through the pristine line of finished ones, almost like they were hiding.

“I guess,” said Gallus.

“Like, how long has that building been under construction?” said Harvest, pointing to an unfinished house across the road.

“A week or so.”

“What?”

“A week or so,” Gallus repeated, raising a brow. “Why?”

Harvest looked at him like he had grown a third wing. “It’s almost finished!”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

Harvest raised an eyebrow. “That’s weird.”

Gallus shrugged yet again. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Seriously?”

Gallus rolled his eyes. “Look, are you gonna grill me all day or tell me what you’re planning on doing next?”

“I’ll probably check in and get the keys to my room,” said Harvest, still looking at the construction. “...You’re sure it’s only been a week?”

“Of course,” Gallus said. “And I meant, what are you going to do in Griffonstone now that you’re here? I don’t think I asked.”

“See the sights, probably,” said Harvest. She finally turned away from the buildings to look him in the eye. “Do you know where Grover’s castle is?”

“That’s an easy one,” Gallus said. He walked Harvest a few yards more and pointed to the top of the giant stone tree, which was half a mile away, and the ruined castle that lay in its middle.

“Oh!” Harvest chirped. “Oh, wow.”

The ruins of Grover’s castle, and the branches of the stone tree near to it, looked comparable to a fallen ice cream cone at a picnic, covered in ants. Only the ants in this case were griffons. Young, strong griffons swarming the castle, building on every part at once.

He had always hated that gargantuan tree. He hated how it towered over the rest of the town, and he hated how some of the more pompous, rich townsgriffons took refuge in extravagant homes in the tree’s branches, near the fork in the tree where the castle was. So he never gave himself much reason to look up at the tree. Until now.

It was like waking from a dream.

Gallus backed up a few steps, suddenly finding breathing to be a strange, unfamiliar sensation. This—

Where was he? Where did all of this construction come from? He hated the noise that hammers made. Surely he would have been annoyed at those, but he breezed right past their hypnotic slamming like they were nothing.

He looked back at the town square, now seeing even more construction behind the finished buildings, but even then, the buildings were so, so close to being finished.

But he didn’t remember half of it. Surely he would have seen it? He would have watched the construction take place slowly, and be completed in a year if the workers were fast. But—but it was like some of these buildings had been erected overnight.

Where was he?

“You okay?” Harvest asked.

Gallus blinked. The feeling was gone.

“I’m fine,” he said. “See you around.”

He managed to smile awkwardly at her before he turned around and, on pure, forgotten instinct, spread his wings.

His eyes widened, and he drew his wings in again.

He stopped himself from looking backwards, from seeing the pity that must have been on Harvest’s face, because hearing the gasp that rose from her lips was painful enough.

“Sorry,” he said. “You didn’t have to see that.”

“I—I didn’t know,” she said.

“Not many creatures do,” he replied. “See you around.”

Gallus walked until he heard the little bell of Greta’s front door. Then he ran.

It was four o’clock—or something like that—when he was finally able to return home. He skipped out on checking up on Gilda and Gabby. He’d do that later, after he had a bath. Maybe a pint of mead or three.

He sprinted for the bathroom once he entered his home, having eyes only for the immaculate white ceramic tub next to the shower. It was cleanly cut, square, and attached to the wall, and from the faucet came what seemed like the clearest, warmest water in the world as he began to fill the tub. As the water pooled, he sat on the edge and glanced to the mirror.

A dilapidated, baggy-eyed, sad griffon greeted him. His crest feathers were a mess, frayed at the edges and pointing in odd directions, like he had been struck by lightning. He looked like the exact opposite of Griffonstone, with its rapid expansion and its newfound beauty. He looked tired, and hewas.

His instincts were right. A bath was exactly what he needed.

It wasn’t long until the tub filled completely, and he stepped into it, sinking into the comforting heat of the water with a restrained sigh.

When he was almost fully submerged save for his head, Gallus closed his eyes. After moving back to Griffonstone, life quickly became about the little luxuries—the quiet moments that he had to himself when he wasn’t dealing with the small problems of the town.

As he washed himself, a cynical part of his mind wondered if he’d be out of a job soon. When he first arrived back, he was regularly called in to deal with situations of true hatred and vitriol; unpaid debts, family feuds, scams.

Now, well...things were getting better, and they didn’t look like they would stop. First, the city gained dozens of houses and renovated the old ones. Now, it was clean and new, the kind of place that creatures would actually want to live, and it seemed like the citizens were following the same trend. At the very least, nogriff was regularly fighting anymore—except Glenda and Gilroy, but those two were always bickering.

What would he even do if he had no one to mediate? No crimes to solve? Either of those things disappearing completely was an improbability, sure, but the thought seemed more valid to him than it should have, and it poked at his brain until he shivered.

If everything was so good, what was wrong with him? Why was he so…

He couldn’t think of a word. Tired, sad, and hazy seemed too weak for it. Too far away from it.

Maybe he was being doomed: the council was sacrificing him to some dark god for prosperity, and they needed a griffon who had a stained, filthy past, and that no one would miss if he went missing.

An hour passed as his thoughts drifted from one topic to another, and before he knew it, he had spent way too long in the hot water.

He climbed out of the bath, limbs tingly and awkward from the lack of activity, and fetched himself a towel. Gingerly, he started with his head, patting himself down until his crest feathers were no longer dripping or stuck to his forehead. Then he dried off his chest, belly and legs.

After that, it was time for his wings.

He watched himself in the mirror as he unfurled his wings. The halves closer to his body flared out like they were supposed to, and the outer halves bent grotesquely backwards, his primaries almost pointing at the small of his back.

Gallus brought his wing closer to his barrel and dried it off, touching it as gently as possible. He could barely look at the things when he had first lost his flight, but he was rather proud that he had gotten to a place where he could look at them in the mirror without feeling repulsed. Now, he didn’t feel anything, and that was a blessing.

He could very well have stayed inside his home, lying down on his couch in the afternoon sunlight as he completed a crossword or napped, but his encounter with Late Harvest had triggered a certain yearning in him for a certain pair of griffons. He wanted to see Gilda and Gabby. To talk to them, listen to their voices. The most optimistic part of him wondered about making plans to go out, maybe eat dinner at a restaurant together. But exchanging a few friendly words would be more than enough.

The small path to the office barely took a minute to walk. The sun was on its way to setting, but wasn’t quite there yet. It blazed orange in the sky. Gallus hummed to himself, focusing solely on keeping his tune in check as he cantered up the steps to the back door, where he could already hear Gilda’s voice.

He turned the handle and stepped inside, and—

“How stupid can you possibly be?” Gabby seethed, standing on one side of the living room. She was nearly yelling, but there was such a dark intensity to her words that she didn’t need to raise her volume to make her feelings evident. Her feathers were ruffled from head to wings, and the fur on her lower half was standing on end. “No, I’m seriously asking. Do you need me to repeat that again? Did your dumb pigeon brain hear me right the first time?”

“Oh, shut up,” said Gilda, who was on the other side, by the fire. “You know exactly what Gloria needed.”

Gallus restrained himself from sighing.

Gloria was a townie, same as them. She grew up in Griffonia, and moved to Griffonstone when she was Gallus’s age. Since his deputization, he had been over to visit Gloria multiple times a month. She was troubled. Gallus had thought to himself multiple times that she needed a therapist, but there were none of those in Griffonstone.

“She needed a friend!” yelled Gabby.

Gilda rolled her eyes. “She needs to stop whining and get her life together!”

Gabby laughed hatefully. “You can help her do that without calling her entire family garbage.”

“Guys,” Gallus interrupted.

He was completely ignored.

“Motivation,” Gilda explained, slowing down the word. “You might not know this, because you’ve only been alive for, like, two years, but her dad sucked. Her mom was terrible. Her sister––”

“Okay, again,” Gabby interrupted. “You can––”

“Don’t talk over me,” Gilda snapped. “If any reasonable griffon was in Gloria’s position they’d be working to make themselves better than their parents. Not crying all day and lashing out at whoever was trying to help them.”

“Guys?” Gallus tried again. “I’m standing right here.”

“No one here knows how to help her,” Gabby said.

“And you do?”

“Yes!” Gabby yelled. “You know what the worst thing about this entire job is? No one wants to fire you, Gilda, just because you were the first griffon here to accept friendship. Gruff handed this job to you, and now no one can take it away. But you’re bad at it. You don’t know anything about compromise, or trust, or being kind.”

Gallus stepped forward at that, awkwardly closing the back door with a hind leg. His wings twitched, wanting to unfurl as he approached the girls. “Gabby, lay off of her. Let’s go take a walk or something.”

“No!” said Gilda. “Let her say whatever she wants. She’s clearly the expert here. That’s why she helped Gloria out after she tried to burn Gray’s house down, right? That’s why she didn’t follow me back here with her fat tail between her fat, wobbly legs and that’s why she didn’t wait until we were back home to blow up at me like she isn’t a fucking tubby little pussy-faced coward.”

Gallus puffed up, feathers and fur flared electrically. He opened his beak to say something, but no words would come.

“What happened to you?” Gabby said.

“Nothing!” Gilda snapped, flying towards the front door and throwing it open. She turned to glare at the two of them, hate screaming loudly in her eyes. “I guess I just woke up today and realized that I’m trapped in this shitty town and I work with two kids that think they can match up to me as equals when one is a nasty little dragon-fucking fatass and the other is a sad orphan with broken dreams and broken wings.”

The door slammed. Gallus’s ears were ringing.

It couldn’t be happening. Not again. It couldn’t. He couldn’t do that again.

He wouldn’t be able to survive another wave of fights, constant and brutal, with no one ever meaning what they were saying, but saying it anyway. He wouldn’t be able to go through another collapse.

This wasn’t why he moved back to Griffonstone.

“What happened?” he asked Gabby. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. “With Gloria, I mean.”

“Not important,” she said quietly. “Normal Gloria stuff, right? She’s been having it hard. But Gilda…she’s been acting more and more...griffony for the last week. I feel like I’m talking to her from—from twenty years ago or something.”

“Seriously?” asked Gallus. “I’ve never seen Gilda so angry. Not even when I was slumming it with Gruff at his place, before I started school. You’re sure nothing happened?”

“Yes!”

“Then, what, I just haven’t noticed her turning into a massive jerk all of a sudden?”

“Yes. You haven’t,” muttered Gabby. “You’re always going off on your own.”

He watched her fly away, soft sobs starting to crawl out of her throat, until she disappeared up the stairs.

A voice in the back of his mind pleaded with him to go after her—to knock on her room or something—but he didn’t. Instead, he stood in the living room awhile and pretended like hearing his friend’s crying through the floorboards was a helpful thing to do.

His posture slouched. There seemed to be spiders crawling around in his guts.

He just wanted to talk. He needed to talk. To anybody.

“Gallus!” Gertrude said after she opened the door. “I’m so glad you came by. I was worried that you were just being polite last night. Come in! Would you like some of that Marebucks I mentioned?”

Caffeine was more than welcome. “Sure thing,” he said, stepping into the foyer. Gertrude left him with a smile as she flew down the hall and turned a corner, to where the living room and kitchen were.

From what he had seen so far, the hallway didn’t look all that different in the daylight. But he could see a few things better, like the paintings that were hung on the walls, all of seascapes. At night, he simply thought they were the standard photorealistic prints that one might find in a large Equestrian city, and didn’t think to inspect them closely. Now, though, he could see that they were a little more abstract than that.

He stepped closer to one, admiring the creative use of pinks and purples that melded into the sky above the sea. It reminded him of Mount Aris.

But, as he thought more about it, and inspected more of the paintings, he realized that they were, in fact, the waters of Mount Aris. He turned his gaze to the bottom left corner of the painting he was looking at and saw the initials S.S in the corner, and he felt the urge to vomit.

“Gallus?” Gertrude’s voice drifted from around the corner. “Is everything alright?”

Gallus turned from the painting, walked down the hall and entered the living room.

Gertrude was sitting on a couch, two cups of coffee on the table in front of her, the previously broken window behind her now completely repaired. She smiled as Gallus gawked at it, saying, “You’ll be surprised how fast a griffon can work when they get paid not only in money, but in food and gifts.”

Gallus went to a chair next to Gertrude, graciously picking up a cup of coffee before sitting down and nestling into the plush warmth. “Is that why you have all this stuff lying around? So you can give it away?”

“Partly,” said Gertrude. “How has your day been, so far?”

“Cruddy,” he said. “Yours?”

“Productive,” she replied.

Gertrude turned to glance at the line of book shelves that Gallus was admiring the night before. He looked to it as well, and was surprised to find that the order had been completely rearranged.

“Sometimes I like reading by category,” she explained in response to his questioning look. “But usually I prefer alphabetical order. It’s nice to have that variety.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever met a griffon who likes books as much as you do,” he said.

She laughed. “Many griffons happen to be uneducated, as well. No disrespect towards them, of course, but I haven’t had a decent discussion about changeling opera in months and I’m dying to talk about this beautiful performance of Parasite Lost I managed to catch in the Badlands last time I was in Equestria.”

Gallus looked around, making sure nogriff was around to hear before he leaned forward to giggle softly. “I love Parasite Lost. My—someone I knew from school took me to see it one summer and I couldn’t stop singing all of Pharynx’s songs to myself for the next year.”

“Oh, I’ve been tracking Parasite Lost since it first came to the Ocular Theatre. That performance I was talking about had the most haunting Chrysalis I’ve ever seen. Her voice was like frost forming on wet leaves in the morning. I wish I could relive those four hours again, just once.”

“I guess the third act is still as long as ever?” Gallus grinned.

“You’re one of those types, aren’t you?” teased Gertrude. “Well, I happen to like Thorax’s monologues.”

“They’re so—” Gallus waved his talons, scrunching his face up in disgust.

“I find that those who hate that act tend to have sad histories themselves,” Gertrude said.

Gallus held up his talons, palms out. “You got me,” he replied, laughing softly.

They shared a smile. It was the first time Gallus had talked about anything other than griffons or—Celestia forbid—ponies, in a long while. It was a sorely needed change from his day to day.

And yet, through his blush and his easy bliss, there lay a clarity at the center of his soul, and it wiped away every ounce of happiness that had been created in the last few minutes until he was left with a single, niggling question that he couldn’t hold in.

“You want something from me, don’t you?” Gallus asked.

“A nice talk, for one,” said Gertrude, but behind her joking tone lay a sharp edge.

“You gotta admit that it’s weird for you to invite me over. Weirder for me to actually come, now that I think about it...”

The merchant sighed, an easy smile still on her face. Gallus watched as she took a sip of her coffee before she answered.

“I’m not interested in obtaining anything from you,” Gertrude said. “But I would be lying if I said I asked you over for the sake of it, as pleasant company as you are. If you’re interested—and you don’t have to be in order to be my friend—I’m of the opinion that there’s something the both of us can gain from being friends.”

Gallus had heard that tone before, haggling for apples at the market. He was suddenly unsure of everything that had happened in the last few minutes. Gertrude’s house, once slightly familiar, again felt foreign.

He kept control of his face as he leaned forward, not wanting any of his thoughts to show in his expression. “Tell me more.”

Gertrude smiled, shaking her graceful head. “Does this mean you’re interested?”

“Can’t be interested in something without knowing what it is first.”

“That is fair.” She took a sip of her coffee and, remembering that he had one too, Gallus did as well. “How much do you know about the Council of Griffonstone, Gallus?”

He knew a decent amount. He knew that Gruff, weathered by age and tired of his role as the sole leader of Griffonstone, had brought a select few griffons together to help him fulfill his duties. Most of the council, like Gilda, had already been innovators or leaders in some way. Gertrude was the only member who rallied her way in through public support.

But he didn’t want to tell her that. He wasn’t sure what she wanted, but he wasn’t going to let himself be taken advantage of, however she was planning on doing so. Feigning ignorance seemed the wisest course.

“Not much,” Gallus admitted, placing his cup on the arm of his chair. “That’s more Gilda’s joint, though she hasn’t needed to fill her ambassador gig in a while for some reason.”

Gertrude nodded. “What do you know about our responsibilities?”

“You got into the council because of your stance on trading, right? So you probably deal with stuff about Griffonstone’s trading. You probably work with Equestria a lot. Like Gilda. But Gilda—”

He stopped himself. She had warned him, hadn’t she?

Since when did he listen to Gilda, though? He continued talking. “Gilda doesn’t talk about you much, so I guess you guys don’t really work together, huh?”

Gertrude blinked. There was something in her eyes that Gallus couldn’t place. “Do you know anything else about the council? You haven’t had contact with them?”

He hadn’t, but he didn’t want to admit that. He still wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. Was it to get to Gilda? That wouldn’t make sense. She didn’t even do all that much.

“Why do you ask?” he asked.

“There’s something else that you need to know,” said Gertrude, “but you have to tell me that you want to know. It’s dangerous information.”

Gallus blinked. He didn’t like the sound of that. “Well, I don’t know. What are the stakes?”

Gertrude’s posture wilted. Her eyes became almost dim as she caught and held Gallus’s confused gaze. She was almost a completely different griffon. “Gallus, there’s something strange going on here. In the town square, on the outskirts, in our own homes...do you not feel it? I need to know if you do. I need to...”

She trailed off.

Gallus’s skin crawled, and his feathers and fur began to bristle anxiously. The air suddenly felt different—completely the same, temperature-wise, but the texture of it had changed, like it was fuzzier, and there was a feeling in the air that felt distinctly like somegriff was watching him.

“You’re the only one home, right?” Gallus asked. Something told him that there was something wrong. Fear was beginning to take hold of him, but there should have been nothing wrong. He was sitting on a couch in a friend’s house.

Gertrude seemed to come to some kind of understanding behind her piercing stare, and she adjusted her seating. Her body relaxed slightly, and with it, Gallus found himself able to breathe just a little better.

“Griffonstone is on its way to becoming a rising nation within the region of Equus,” explained Gertrude. “We’ve made leaps and bounds in the past few years in terms of infrastructure, economy and diplomatic relations. Has anything changed about your job, Gallus?”

“I don’t know. What do you mean?” he asked.

He felt slightly silly for doing so, but there was something in the back of his mind that was telling him to keep his eyes on Gertrude—like she could disappear if he didn’t keep his eyes on her, or even if he blinked.

“Everygriff seems happier,” he said, hesitantly, “but that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“No,” replied Gertrude. “Look, I’m not trying to cheat you out of your bits or use you to get to Gilda. I just need to know that you’re not—”

Gallus shifted in his seat, and his cup of coffee fell from its perch on his thigh. He squawked in surprise as the fine ceramic rolled off of the chair and fell to the floor, shattering loudly.

The coffee crawled out from the cup’s point of impact, spreading over the smooth floor until Gallus could see his own reflection in the wide puddle. He sat there, staring until he realized what he had done.

“Frass,” Gallus cursed. “I’ll clean it—”

“It’s fine!” Gertrude said loudly, standing. Again she seemed like she had swapped bodies with another. Gallus had never seen somecreature so purely on edge in a long time. Gertrude’s neck feathers were completely erect, as if something invisible was tugging on each of them.

Gallus opened his mouth to talk, but Gertrude put a talon up to silence him. He waited until she put it down, after she had steadied her breathing, and she was suddenly back to her old self. It was like the previous moment never happened.

“I just realized we’ve been talking for two hours,” said Gertrude, a smile on her face. “You should go.”

“Two hours?” Gallus balked, turning towards the clock mounted on the wall above them. “There’s no way that—”

He stopped.

That couldn’t be right.

The clock had to be broken. There was no way they had talked for that long.

A talon on his shoulder made him flinch, and he stumbled out of the chair with his eyes wide.

“You’re busy, aren’t you?” asked Gertrude. There was something in her voice that Gallus wanted to call regret, but he didn’t know what she could possibly be regretful of. “You should go. Go home. Now. I shouldn’t have—of course they would—”

“Gertrude?” he asked. “What the hell were we doing for two hours?”

Every window lining Gertrude’s living room and kitchen broke.

Wind. There was nothing but the feeling of wind through his feathers and it was so harsh and powerful that Gallus was thrown onto the ground. He yelled in the sudden gale, shutting his eyes tight as he felt shards of glass glance his sides.

Gallus heard words, but he couldn’t make them out. He called out for Gertrude, for Gilda or Gabby, but he heard no response. How could he? Air was rushing through his ears like he had jumped off the highest point on the world, head first.

The wind’s intensity increased, and Gallus found that his grip on the floor beginning to weaken. He yelled, reaching out for any furniture he could hold onto, but his eyes were still shut, and he couldn’t find any.

His body gave way to the wind. It tossed him into the air, and he crashed against a wall, back hitting first and knocking the breath out of his lungs. His head was thrown back hard, smashing against the wall so hard that his eyes were forced open.

He saw Gertrude on her back, on the floor, looking up at the ceiling. She looked terrified. Like her soul had been robbed of any joy that it possessed. She was trying to talk to something.

Gallus tried to push himself up and stand, but the wind—whatever it was—was still pounding against his body. He had nearly drowned in a river once, when he was a hatchling. He thought back to the way that he was helpless against that current.

Gallus tried to look up, to see who Gertrude was talking to, but in that moment, one of the books from Gertrude’s bookshelves flew towards him, and its corner hammered into the side of his head.

Then there was black.

Author's Note

Special thanks to Miller Minus and Jack of a Few Trades for their help with editing this chapter :heart:

RUNAWAY

Gallus awoke in the middle of the night, surrounded by shattered glass and flecks of his own blood. The glass had cut into his chest and legs, slashing him moderately, but those cuts were already scabbing over. He felt sore, but he wasn’t exactly in pain as much as he was completely dazed.

“Gertrude?” he called. No answer came. The living room was in shambles. She was definitely gone.

Gallus forced himself up. A frosty breeze came in through the side of the house, getting under his feathers. He winced, and made for the hall leading to the front door. Torn shreds of Mount Aris lay at his feet. A bit of Basalt Beach here, a bit of the sea as seen from the Pine Needle Barrens over there, the prismatic colors of Seaquestria on Freedom Day scattered amongst the joyful spectacle of the Harmonizing Heights.

His crest feathers went limp at the sight.

Gertrude was trying to warn him about something. Maybe she left behind some sort of hint as to what it was.

He turned and went up the stairs, which twisted in a square spiral until he reached the second floor of the house.

There were four rooms. He went to check the one closest to him, but noticed that the room at the end of the hall was slightly ajar. He crept forward and opened it, bit by bit, until he could see the inside.

There was a large bed, a wide dresser and a desk covered in loose sheets of paper. Most likely the master bedroom. Gertrude’s room, and she had been busy. Gallus walked to the desk, now recognizing the loose papers as scrolls and envelopes, some of which were sealed with purple wax in the shape of a six pointed star.

Gallus’s heart rate spiked. He swallowed hard as he got closer to the letters—as if they had suddenly turned into cornered animals—and gingerly picked one up at random.

Princess Twilight,

I need your help.

My name is Gertrude Robintabby. You may have heard of me from my dealings with your friend, Miss Rarity. I am a member of the Council of Griffonstone, and I am in charge of Griffonstone’s trade with other nations on the continent, as well as with the Monarchy of Griffonia. I assume you may have looked over some of my deals with certain Equestrian cities, but maybe not. This is beside the point of this letter. The context of my station is merely intended to validate my concerns.

I suspect one of my fellow council members of performing a sort of magic which I’ve only encountered in mentions by ancient texts. I don’t have a name to provide you with, as the rituals involved seem to have been lost to time. I only know that the population of Griffonstone’s current and collective state of mind seems uncannily similar to what’s been described by verbal accounts of mountain tribe elders written down by their families.

There is

The letter ended there. Gallus looked around, finding multiple letters just like it strewn across the desk that Gertrude always seemed to have quit writing once she got through a third of the scroll.

Gallus looked for something other than an unfinished letter, and found a loose sheet of paper underneath a couple of envelopes.

I can’t write about it. Their influence is building. Whoever is behind this won’t let

“Let” what? Let her write about—about whatever she wanted to write about? Gallus clicked his tongue, stuffing a few of Gertrude’s unfinished drafts into a messenger bag he found near the foot of the bed, and he left the room.

He did a quick sweep of the other rooms in the house, but came up with nothing else. There were a few guest bedrooms, and a room that was used as a second pantry of sorts, but for the most part, each room in Gertrude’s home was empty.

Gallus felt a pang in his chest, but ignored its sore, sympathetic throbbing. He walked down the stairs, arriving back at the ground floor. He stopped just in front of the door, taking a last look back at the hall and the shredded paintings. Hopefully he would return here, someday, with Gertrude safe and sound, and show her that she didn’t need a princess to save her.

He left the hollow, broken house, taking his first strides into the cold.

At first, Gallus thought the night was rather peaceful, if a little cold. As he got closer to the town’s center, however, he realized that Griffonstone was not unlike a ghost town. He could hear his own footsteps as he arrived in the town square, travelling in the direction of his home. He hadn’t seen anygriff walking around, and the night was dead quiet.

He hadn’t felt so alone in a very long time.

To distract himself, he tried to hum his favorite melody from Parasite Lost—the bridge of a seven-minute song about Pharynx choosing Thorax over the beliefs he had grown up with—but all that left his throat was a wheeze that sounded more like a whimper. He tried a few more times after that, but found that he just couldn’t carry a tune. His body was devoid of music, and he was left alone with the silence.

Gallus stopped as he left the vicinity of the square, now entering the blocks of residential neighbourhoods that had been erected in recent years. His home wasn’t far, but he was tempted to stop by some of the other houses. Something about the night was strange to him, though he hadn’t seen Griffonstone past eight o’clock in the last few months. There was no way it could be so devastatingly quiet, was there? Did all of Griffonstone go to sleep at the same time? Did not one griffon in the entire town stay up past...whatever time it was?

There was a rustling behind him.

Gallus turned, breath hitching and hackles rising, but found nothing. From where he was standing he could see Greta’s inn, and, just before that, the loads of unfinished construction that he had shown Harvest when she first came into town. But there wasn’t a single living soul in sight.

His skin crawled. Gallus turned back and began walking home again, his pace quickening, but never starting into a run. He wouldn’t let himself run. That would mean he was scared, and whatever was following him—if something was following him—would know that too, and then he’d be easy prey.

Gallus listened to the sound of his breathing and the gravel he kicked up. He could feel fear hiding in the back of his mind, uninvited but still crashing the party. He tried to focus on the path in front of him, but in the dark it seemed to blur. Was he lost? Did he even know where he was?

Gallus arrived at the front steps, and he let out the breath he was holding. He wanted to go to bed, to grab the artifact that lay underneath a loose floorboard in his room, but he didn’t. He didn’t even know if he could use it. Besides, he had to find Gabby and Gilda. They were more important than some stupid crown. If he was with them, he could accomplish anything.

He walked to their house, went up the steps, and opened the door using the spare key underneath the rug.

Familiarity kissed him on both cheeks and nuzzled his neck. Gilda and Gabby’s house smelled like roasted potatoes and light sprinklings of potpourri. It smelled like home. The warmth of the house made him sigh.

However, there was no time to rest. Gallus walked up the stairs and went straight for Gabby’s room. He nearly opened the door of his own accord, but thought twice of it, and gave it a series of knocks instead, making sure they were loud enough to wake Gilda up as well.

From within, he could hear Gabby groaning. Gallus drummed the tips of his talons on the floor as he waited for her to answer, and when she did, eyes looking tired, and with an unhappy frown on her face, he leapt forward and put his front two legs around her.

Gabby squawked loudly. She struggled for a few seconds, but upon realizing that it was Gallus hugging her, and not some stranger that had broken into her home, she sunk into his body, hugging him back.

She smelled like raspberries. Gallus squeezed her hard, feeling for a moment like Gabby might disappear if he loosened his grip one bit, but she was there. Gabby was still there, because of course she was. In what world could they be separated?

Gallus’s eyes were wet. He stealthily wiped them, flicking the tears off of his talons before he answered, forcing his voice into a stable state. “Sorry for leaving you alone.”

“No…” said Gabby, confused. “No. You did fine. Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” Gallus said.

“What’s in these?” Gabby asked, tugging on the messenger bag he had stolen.

“I’ll show you later. Gertrude’s been—I don’t know—kidnapped or something. She was trying to warn me about something. We need to find her. We gotta wake Gilda up too.”

Gallus found the strength to pull away so he could see Gabby’s face, but Gabby was frowning.

“She never came back,” she said. “I went to sleep an hour ago…I figured she was staying at Greta’s.”

“What?” Gallus walked across the hall and opened the door to the room across the hall. “Gilda?” He began to enter, but stopped upon seeing the inside of the room.

The bed, the desk, and the many papers that Gilda always had lying around were suspended two and a half metres in the air. As Gallus and Gabby struggled to find words, the floating objects, as if they were embarrassed at being caught, dropped to the ground. The resounding clatter made Gallus and Gabby scramble backwards until their flanks hit the wall.

Gallus waited with bated breath for something in Gilda’s room to jump out at him. But that something never came.

“That’s not good,” whispered Gabby.

Gallus nodded. “You said Gilda might be at Greta’s? We should go there. Now.”

“Way ahead of you,” said Gabby, flapping her wings.

She flew behind him as he raced out of the house, and kept a few yards in front of him as they got onto the road proper. They raced down the road, flanked on both sides by parallel rows of unlit houses until they came to the town square.

“No one’s awake,” Gabby said. “Should we start knocking on doors?”

“No,” said Gallus. “I don’t even know what we’re looking for yet. We don’t want to tip anything off before we have the chance to catch it.”

Both of them were panting by the time Greta’s inn was within their sight. Around them, Griffonstone stood still, somehow seeming uneasy. It was waiting for something. Again, Gallus looked for any signs of life, and found none.

Once, when he was still a tiny little chick, Gallus found himself trapped inside a closet.

He was trying to steal bits from Grampa Gruff’s secret stash, and through an almost comically arranged series of accidents, locked himself inside the old griffon’s closet in the process of hiding from him. Gallus would never forget the feeling of the wooden walls squeezing his shoulders. Gruff had been going to Manehattan, and when he left, he was gone for an entire day. Gallus would never forget the darkness and the helplessness of his screaming when he realized that he had locked himself in. He was left with nothing but his thoughts, and the pressing of the closet’s walls—the pressing that seemed to get tighter with each hour that passed. He remembered what happened when Gruff finally came home and let him out. He remembered how he couldn’t breathe. How it seemed impossible. Like something big was squeezing him tighter and tighter.

Standing in that quiet, open town square, Gallus felt an inkling of the same fear that strangled his lungs all those years ago.

He wanted to leave. He had to.

But he couldn’t.

Gallus kept his stride, focusing on the sound of Gabby’s flapping wings as she hovered ahead of him. This would be over soon. He just had to find Gilda and make a plan from there.

Gabby stopped. Gallus walked ahead of her for a few seconds before he stopped as well, turning around.

Gabby was sitting on the ground, now. Looking at something up ahead.

“What?” Gallus turned, and he saw it too.

Off in a cluster of unfinished homes was a light. A dark, cherry red wave of light permeated out of the jungle of wooden beams and boards, and in its light were several shadows, moving around like they were dancing. Griffons, standing around a weird sort of lamp. They were the first signs of life that Gallus had seen since Gertrude disappeared, besides Gabby.

“Can you see anygriff?” he asked Gabby, walking closer to her.

“No,” she said. “Why—why aren’t they making any noise?”

Gallus’s tail swished. “I don’t know.”

“I’m going to check it out,” said Gabby. “Go get Gilda.”

“What? No,” Gallus scoffed. “We’re not splitting up.”

“Aren’t we in a hurry?” Gabby asked. “Come on, don’t worry about me. Who’s beaten you in eighteen consecutive races and counting?”

Gabby smiled, and Gallus made the mistake of smiling back.

Gabby sped away, taking off faster than Gallus could stop her. He didn’t want to yell; for all he knew, something was waiting for them to make a significant amount of noise, and that’s why everything was so quiet.

So he watched Gabby fly away, and when she got too far for his heart to bear, he turned away and ran to Greta’s.

The front door was open, but nogriff was in the tavern or at the check-in desk. No lanterns or candles were lit, and from what he could see of the hall of rooms up the stairs, no magical lights were on either.

Gallus walked up the wooden stairs, past pictures of Greta’s blown-up selfies with various ambassadors hung up in gaudy yellow frames. He entered the hallway and crouched to the floor, looking for any signs of life peeking out from underneath the doors.

Nothing. No Gilda.

He stood and, on a whim, called out “Harvest?” at the lowest volume he could manage while still making sure he was heard.

He waited a moment. Then, as he turned to go down the stairs, he heard a door open.

Late Harvest, tired-eyed, trotted out of her room and yawned. “Captain Gallus? What’s the problem? It’s the middle of the—”

“Harvest,” he said, walking to her. “Listen to me. Something’s up. I need you to get all your essentials and leave Griffonstone. You don’t need to be involved in this. It’s not safe here. Have you seen Greta or Gilda anywhere since I last saw you?”

“No,” said Harvest, blinking hard to get the sleep out of her system. “Uh...Greta said she had somewhere to go and she’d be away all night, I think. I haven’t seen anypony else in here, either, so I don’t know about—Gilda? The ambassador? What’s going on?”

“Shit,” Gallus muttered, then firmly placed a talon on Harvest’s shoulder. “Harvest. Do what I said. Get everything you need. Get out of town. Don’t even take your wagon. I’ll have somecreature compensate for that.”

“What? Are you serious?” asked Harvest. “Wait. If—”

She stopped speaking as the desperate, helpless sound of a griffon screaming came from outside.

Gabby.

Gallus sucked air into his lungs.

“Run!” he shrieked at Harvest.

He took off, sprinting down the stairs towards the door, his head and shoulder colliding with the wood as he struggled with the door knob, slipping a few times as Gabby’s screeches became louder and louder and, finally, he opened the door and ran in the direction of her screaming.

“Gallus!” Gabby cried. “Gallus!”

Leaving her was a mistake. How could he be so stupid? This was what happened when he trusted someone else to look after themselves. He should never have taken her in the first place. Now she was in trouble. And it was his fault.

“Gallus!”

The road beneath Gallus turned from stone to gravel and dirt as he entered the cluster of construction. The red light was gone, but in its place was an aggressive feeling of dread. Above him, the night sky seemed darker than it had ever been, as if the stars had disappeared. Around him were skeletons of buildings. The foundations of Griffonstone’s future. They stood high, and tall, and as he continued running through the maze-like structures, he realized that he no longer knew which way he had come from, and that Gabby had stopped screaming.

Gallus turned. He could no longer see the road. There were only long, unnatural forms made of wood looming over him, watching his every move, and he could swear on his life that somewhere, or maybe everywhere, something was watching him.

“Gabby?” he called into the void, his voice hoarse and tight. “Gabby!”

His wings quivered, wanting to unfurl, but he kept them glued to his body. Shame burned through him. If only he could take to the sky...

He’d never leave Gabby alone again. He’d stop keeping her at a distance whenever she got too close. Give her more hugs, pony style. He would teach her how to fight and how to sneak and he would be her best friend, and he would tell her that she was his best friend. He just had to find her. He just had to find her and keep her safe.

“Gabby!” he called again. He had slowed his run into a jog, but he still had no idea where he was heading. “Gabby! Answer me!”

There was a rustle behind him, and he turned around.

Gabby crashed into his arms, panting. She wrapped her legs around him, and he held her as she caught her breath.

“Gallus,” she rasped. “Gallus. We need—oh god, oh god—we need Twilight. We have to—to tell her.”

“Tell her?” repeated Gallus. “Tell her what? Are you okay?”

“It’s—it’s—” Gabby stopped. She scrambled away from his embrace, falling onto her flank.

For the first time since Gallus had seen her last, he could see her face clearly. Her tear ducts looked blood red, and the whites of her sky blue eyes were tarnished with red, bloodshot veins. Gabby opened her beak, trying to say something.

“Gabby?” Gallus said, trying his best to sound calm. “Gabby—”

“Don’t you see it?” she asked.

Gallus froze. There was a displacement in the air behind him. Something was there.

He tried to say Gabby’s name, but a sensation came like hooks digging into his wings. All the breath left his lungs as he yelled. He reached out, but something pulled him backward and up through the air. His surroundings turned into nothing. He shot upwards through an endless void, with no sound and no thoughts. Only pain.

The hooks pierced further into his wings. He thrashed. Talons, or maybe they were claws, groped at his body, tearing into his fur and feathers and worming their sharp points into his flesh. Hot tears spilled from his eyes. Something else grabbed his tongue, tugging on it tight. He tried to bite down, but his beak was being held open as well, and as more and more things found purchase on his body he found that he couldn’t move any longer, he could barely even turn his head, and everything was scratching and tearing and pulling on him. He was going to die.

He was going to die.

Gallus let his body go limp. There was nothing he could do.

Then there was light. A light made of millions of smaller rays of light, all radiating out from him. The majority of the pain, and the appendages causing it, vanished as the light grew brighter. Suddenly he could move again.

Then he was falling.

The stars were back, shining in the sky, and Gallus existed again. He was on his back in the town square. His head throbbed, but the pain was gone, and for a long moment, his body felt alien, like it didn’t remember how it was to not hurt.

Gallus sat up, looking to the trail to Greta’s inn and the construction.

“Gabby!”

He ran there at once, turning sharply into the zone of incomplete houses and buildings, and he found nothing. He ran past beams and freshly sawed piles of wood, looking into every pit in the ground and every possible place that Gabby could be.

It only took him fifteen minutes to search the entirety of the zone. When he got to the other side, he could see where he had come from, plain as day. Wherever he was—wherever Gabby was, was gone.

That didn’t matter, though. He had to try again, didn’t he? He had to turn over every house in Griffonstone, level that hideous stone tree if he had to. He had to find Gabby!

But somehow, he knew that he wouldn’t. He couldn’t, because they needed Twilight. This was more than Gallus could handle on his own. A thought occurred to him. He felt around for the messenger bag filled with letters to the princess, gasping in relief when he found that it was still fastened to his body.

How could he have been so stupid? He should have left Griffonstone with Gabby when he had the chance. They needed an alicorn, or the artifacts, or—or just anything more than boring old Gallus. They needed someone useful, and he hadn’t been useful since he left Canterlot.

A small part of him regretted not bringing the crown, but he wasn’t sure if it would have been much use on its own anyways. It never had been before.

How could he not have noticed something was wrong for so long? Was he really that weak?

Gabby was fine. Or she wasn’t. But she was safe. She had to be, or he’d go insane. He didn’t know. He hoped that she wasn’t scared, but he had seen the look in her eyes, and he knew that she was, and she knew that he had to leave.

Leave. His mind screamed at him to leave. He had to get out of Griffonstone. Something terrible was happening.

He had to run. Again. That’s all he had ever done in his life.

Gallus stood.

Whatever was causing this wanted to stay hidden. The other griffons in town would be fine.

He hoped.

He ran, heading towards their home. His legs burned and he panted harshly, forcing himself to stay running even as his joints ached and buckled. If only he could fly, just one more time…

It was too long before he reached his house. He headed straight for the front door, thanking the stars that he forgot to lock it earlier.

His sparse living room and kitchen greeted him. His couch looked more comfortable than his old bed at the School of Friendship.

Thoughts of his old dorm and his adolescence filled his head. He wiped his eyes and headed for his room, where there lay a loose floorboard near his bed.

He forced it open, grabbing the dusty old crown made of enchanted gold, with a purple gem in the middle.

He took it out of the floor and held it in both of his talons.

The Crown of Grover. It felt warm in his palms.

Gallus blew the dust off of the crown and fastened it to his head, feeling a slight influx of magic flow into his veins. He shivered as heat gently kissed his brow, the crown testing to see if he was, in fact, its rightful owner. If he wasn’t, it would get unbearably hot to wear, and he would never be able to touch it again.

The crown stayed warm, and didn’t get any warmer. Gallus sighed, and began to move about his room, looking for any bits he could find. He’d have no time for anything but travelling and purchasing food on his way to Canterlot.

He shoved what he needed into the messenger bag, taking one last, long look at his bedroom. He had never once thought he’d miss it, but he knew he would. He was already craving a good night’s rest in his own bed, in Griffonstone, not a few yards away from his only remaining friends, who were safe and sound in their own home. But now they were gone.

Gallus turned to leave.

He had made a few strides towards the front door when a griffon came from behind, wrapping their forelegs around his neck and wrenching him backwards, bringing his head under the bottom of their chin.

Gallus squawked, dropping his weight as he struggled to hold the griffon’s arm back, preventing them from choking him completely. The griffon adjusted, dropping their weight down as well, and when they did, Gallus sprung upwards and flung his head backwards. The back of the crown cracked against the griffon’s beak sickeningly loud, but the crown magically stayed tight around his head.

The strange griffon’s grip loosened, and Gallus backed up, still standing on two legs. He gripped the griffon’s foreleg with a talon and hooked his own foreleg around their torso, loading their weight onto his hips and then throwing them over his shoulder.

The griffon landed painfully on her back, breath audibly leaving their beak. Her beak. Gallus raised a talon, curling it into a fist, hoping to wail on the griffon’s head until she was unconscious, but he saw the beautiful, purple spots around her eyes, and the purple tips of her crest feathers.

“Gilda...?”

Gilda took the opportunity to recoil, straighten her wing, and swing it at his face.

Gallus’s beak caught most of the damage, but the momentum caused his head to whip to the side. Instinct saved him from another punch as he hopped backwards. His world was spinning. He lurched over slightly and coughed, a long, thick string of blood oozing out of his beak.

“Gilda!” he said.

Gilda stood, and he saw her eyes, rolled back all the way into her head and moving constantly, like she was in a deep sleep, and someone had peeled her eyelids back.

“Gilda, stop!” he said, louder.

She didn’t hear him. Gilda pounced, flapping her wings to speed herself up mid-air, but Gallus knew how to fight against another flying enemy. All he had to do was take off and get higher than her—

Gallus remembered he couldn’t fly.

Gilda crashed into him, grabbing him as she hit the ground. They rolled into the kitchen, knocking over the table in the process. They struggled for dominance; a tangle of feathers and grunting, ending finally with Gilda above Gallus, her full body weight on his torso as she held his head to the floor.

He began to say Gilda’s name again, but her fist bashed him in the temple, and all that came out of his beak was a pained groan. She hit him again, aiming for the same spot on his head each time. Pain shot through his entire body. Gilda’s punches landed heavy and precise.

The next time Gilda raised her fist, Gallus sat up as much as he could, planting a palm on the ground and sliding hard to the side, offsetting her balance. He wrapped one of his forelegs around her neck and wrenched down, getting her head close to his face.

With a frenzied cry, Gallus leaned forward and bit down on her neck, making sure to push the mass of his beak into her gamey flesh.

Gilda screamed and pulled away. Gallus let her go and backed up, getting back on his feet as she nursed her wound.

“Snap out of it!” Gallus yelled.

Gilda came at him again, but she was getting tired. Gallus could see her muscles tensing beforehand, and when she leapt into the air towards him, he was ready.

He pushed forward with his hindlegs, keeping the centre of his body down so he shot underneath her. Gallus had enough time to grab a chair from the kitchen and surge towards her, swinging it hard.

Just as she turned to face him, the chair broke over the left side of her body, shattering into a dozen different pieces.

Gilda’s posture broke and she fell to the floor, but she was far from done. She grabbed one of the pieces of the chair, now jagged and triangular, and came again.

Her chest met both of Gallus’s hindlegs as he bucked with all his might.

There was a disgustingly loud crack his Gilda knocked back, sprawling limply on the floor of his home.

Gallus approached her, muscles tensed and talons ready, but Gilda stayed down. He laid himself by her side, watching her chest closely.

It rose and fell, weakly, but she was still alive. Gallus sighed in relief.

He looked around at his home. The kitchen table had cracked when it had fallen over. The bits of the chair were scattered across the ground. The blood that he had spat on the floor was still there, looking like congealed cherry juice.

Gallus stood and walked to the couch, running his talons lightly over the fabric, feeling their sharp tips catch on the threads. He closed his eyes, trying to relax, but how could he? He had beaten the shit out of his friend, and now he had to leave her, still lying on the ground, like he was some sort of criminal.

Part of him wanted to lie down and let himself be preyed upon. He was tired, and he didn’t want to do this again. He didn’t want to see Twilight, or Spike. He didn’t want to look them in the eyes and tell them that he needed their help. He didn’t want to hear their voices, telling him that it was fine, and that everything would be okay, because he knew that he’d hear the disappointment underneath their words.

Gallus, once again, biting off more than he could chew. That stupid, arrogant griffon. Was getting his wings broken not enough punishment for him? Did he have to let yet another villain ruin his life? Why hadn’t he talked to his friends recently? Poor Gallus. Poor Sandbar, Yona, Silverstream, Ocellus, and Smolder. Poor them for having to deal with him. Poor him for being promoted to Captain through cronyism, and having nothing to show for it.

Gallus swallowed. He would die if he stayed, so he wanted to stay. But Gabby needed help, and Gilda was under some sort of control. Gertrude was missing or dead, and he had to find out the truth.

He had no choice.

Gallus turned and left his home. He was weak and cowardly, and he had never known happiness for long, but there would be time to wallow in his misery later. He had a princess to call in a favor with. He was going to do the only thing he had ever proven himself to be good at.

Gallus ran. The moon lit his way out of Griffonstone.

Interlude I

Celestia’s bed was wide and plush, and her pillows were softer than phoenix down. Sunlight was streaming through the window, ribbons of gold piercing through the glass to spill onto the bed’s white satin blankets. It was ten in the morning.

By now, Celestia would have been off on a small adventure that she could tell Luna about over lunch, but Celestia was still in bed.

The trills of a sparrow rang out from somewhere.

Celestia’s leg twitched, and her wings unfurled slightly. Her breathing, steady and deep for the last twelve hours, began to quicken; not too much, just a little.

Celestia opened her eyes. It was way too late for her to still be in bed.

She sat up in her bed, sighing softly. Then she coughed.

It was a simple thing, coughing, but it was a strange sensation to someone who hadn’t been sick in a millenia. She had accidentally choked herself by swallowing tea or food wrong in the past, but that kind of coughing was different from the kind she was experiencing now.

Celestia coughed, and was too shocked to cover her mouth with a hoof.

A thick, golden liquid came out of her mouth and splattered onto the bed, shimmering in the beautiful puddles of sunlight. Ichor. She hadn’t seen ichor since the very last time she fought Nightmare Moon.

Her eyes widened. Celestia began to call for Luna, but the intake of breath that she took before doing so only irritated her chest further.

Suddenly, her lungs felt like they were being sanded down by scratchy wool. Celestia lurched forward, muscles in her back tensing hard, and she coughed over and over again, more ichor leaving her system.

Her fit lasted for two minutes straight, and her bed had been stained gold. The air smelled like sickly sweet aluminum foil.

“Luna? Luna! Can you come here?" she called, to no response. "Luna! Where are you?"

She raised her head, volume increasing as she frantically rubbed at her chest. Another coughing fit was rising. “Luna! Luna!”

RAIN

Captain Silverstream of Her Highness Queen Novo’s Royal Navy stood on the figurehead of her ship. The morning sun was out, and the water was as pristine as her beak after a nice polishing.

Her ship, the Coralvreckan, was a fine, fine ship: a beautiful Barque that once belonged to Grand Admiral Seaspray. When she had first received it, she had slathered it in a fresh coat of burgundy paint with metallic gold trim, and covered the sails in golden glitter. On sunny days, when the ship rode the right wave in the right way, it would catch the sunlight and shine prettier than a sequined dress.

A pirate captain once told her that the Coralvreckan had been coined “the sparkles of death” amongst various criminal circles. It was the peak achievement of her military career.

The Coralvreckan’s figurehead was carved into the shape of her father holding a batch of cupcakes. Silverstream stood on his head, clutching the silver necklace fastened around her neck. Possibly the most important part of her outfit. Other than her smile, of course.

The Amulet of Aurora, part of a set of six important magical cultural artifacts gifted to her and her old friends by Princess Twilight Sparkle upon their graduation from the School of Friendship. The amulet had belonged to a hippogriff legend who once led a fleet of ships out of a storm that lasted for three weeks.

Beneath Silverstream was the smuggling ship that she had apprehended just moments ago. Its movement had been completely halted by Terramar by now; the water glowing light green with tidal magic as he and his crew planted runes on the ship’s belly.

The crew of criminals, a menagerie of abyssinians, mean-looking ponies and a few diamond dogs, looked up at her, glaring as they braced themselves for a fight.

“Attention, criminals!” called Silverstream. “You’ve ignored our requests for a parley twice, so now we’re arresting you. Prepare for a fight, but don’t worry! We won’t hurt you if we can help it.”

She took off her amulet and held it out in front of her like a talisman, and in her mind she asked it to shine.

The Amulet of Aurora shone as bright as it ever had, which was very, very bright. The full force of the northern lights was enough to blind the crew on the deck of the smuggler’s ship.

Gasps arose from the group of criminals, and Silverstream’s crew took that as a cue to move in. Fifteen hippogriffs on either side of her swarmed the smaller ship, their bright pastel feathers and apple red uniforms making them look a little like flowers attacking a giant piece of chocolate. They were unaffected by the Amulet of Aurora—when Silverstream had first been awarded her own crew she immediately made mirrored aviators a mandatory element of the uniform.

Silverstream smiled as she watched the fight play out, squinting through the amulet’s blinding light to make sure she saw everything. She had an amazing view from the figurehead. The fatherhead, more like.

Her crew was winning. Swords were swinging, kicks and bucks were thrown, bad guys were going down like they were being paid to.

And then it was done. She waited a few more moments, to make sure it was completely finished and over with. Silverstream was always a fan of surprises, but she had found out pretty quickly that any surprises that happened while she was out working were bad surprises.

Nothing. The smugglers were tied up, none of her crew were injured, and Terramar’s squad was out of the water.

Everygriff except Silverstream was on the deck now, and they all looked to her. She asked the amulet to stop shining, which it did immediately, and then nodded and flew down to the other ship’s deck, landing hard but not really feeling it.

On cue, her crew lined the smugglers up and stood behind them at attention––a clean lineup of pastel hippogriffs behind earth-toned ponies and a few diamond dogs. Silverstream put her amulet back on and gave each of her crew a grateful nod before she addressed the smugglers in the loudest, happiest voice she could manage.

“Hey, guys! You’ve been caught sailing on hippogriff waters and engaging in illegal activity! Smuggling, specifically, just in case any of you were confused about that. I haven’t really had the chance to look, but if you’re anything like the last three ships we’ve caught, then you’re probably smuggling illegally stolen things, like, um, weird Zebrican knick-knacks that are harmful in the wrong talons...and weapons and stuff. Oh, and you bear the Storm King’s sigil!” Silverstream gestured to the smugglers’ flag. “That’s a big no-no out here. We’re gonna have to take you in and hand you over to the Equestrian Royal Guard, where you’ll be tried for your crimes by your own race. Everything all clear?”

Terramar flew over and landed next to her. “Streamie?”

“One second, Terr-Bear,” she said quickly before turning back to the smugglers. “Okay, so I don’t really know if I’m supposed to read anything to you because every other ship we’ve caught this month has been from, like, different places and races, but I’m pretty sure it won’t do any harm if I read you Equestria’s Mareanda Rights.”

“Silverstream,” Terramar said.

She waved him off as she turned to her first mate, Brine. The bright blue hippogriff looked at her with wide eyes.

“Brine,” she said. “Can you fetch that book on Equestrian law from my quarters?”

Brine continued to stare.

Silverstream turned to look at the rest of the crew, and at the smugglers too. They were all staring.

Terramar stood in front of her. “Silverstream, the amulet is moving all weird.”

She tilted her head, then looked down. The amulet was moving weird. And it was blinking, too! It floated slightly off of her chest, which explained why she didn’t feel it. It inched to the left a little bit, then to the right. Then to the left again, and then it blinked three times, and moved in a strange circular motion.

Silverstream had never understood how the Amulet of Aurora worked, what its original purpose was, or why she could understand what it was saying. All she knew was that the rest of the hippogriffs couldn’t.

She turned to Terramar with a strained smile. “Let’s get these guys loaded onto the Coralvreckan and go north!”

Terramar raised a brow. “But we’re supposed to be heading home. What’s the amulet saying?”

“It’s saying that Gallus is a few days away!” Silverstream said, now smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt, and her eyes were watering. “Not only that, but he needs me! Or, you know, he’s going to. You can never quite tell with this thing. You can never tell with Gallus, either! Heheh. Heh.”

It was a nice night. As nice a night as one could have on the sea, at least. Gallus stepped onto the deck of the Bloody Herring right on the heels of a choppy wave, and the resulting sway caused him to freeze for a moment. The messenger bag, draped around his neck and hanging over his left side, helped him stay balanced.

The deck was plain and not very large, much like the ship. The Bloody Herring was a simple caravel that was just big enough to room and board the crew—which was entirely made up of griffons—and two passengers: Gallus and Late Harvest. Looking around, only a few of the ship’s crew appeared awake, and they were either hard at work or wanting to be left alone.

Gallus strolled to the end of the ship and sat down, looking out at the vast, purple waters that stretched out to the horizon. Several questions nagged at his tired, weary brain: Questions that refused to let him sleep.

Was Gabby okay? Was Gilda? What about Gertrude, for that matter? What happened to them? To Griffonstone?

To him?

He had been trying not to think about whatever had happened to him when he was dragged away from Gabby at the construction site. It was magical, whatever it was. Powerful stuff, too,ut there was something unnatural about it—the kind of thing that Discord might know about. Gallus didn’t know how to feel at the prospect of interacting with the draconequus again, but he definitely wasn’t happy about it.

Past the magic being magic, and having a lot of power behind it, Gallus wasn’t sure what else to make of it. Something had stopped the assault on him, freeing him from wherever he was, from whatever was about to happen to him. He didn’t know much about that, either. A part of him wondered if it was his Element of Harmony, but that was unlikely. He hadn’t tapped into Harmony’s power in years.

The only potential comfort was the Crown of Grover, tucked away in his saddlebags back in his cabin below deck. It had always helped him evade magical tracking in the past. No unicorn could find him as long as it was nearby.

No unicorn, but…

He was knocked out of his thoughts when a griffon with cream and burgundy feathers, and a sleek black lower half, came up beside him. The captain of the ship.

“It’s a pretty night,” she said. “You know, sweetie, you were in a rush earlier.”

“I tossed in a little extra for that,” said Gallus, reaching into his bag to pull out a little black pouch, heavy with bits. “Five hundred for a trouble free trip to Baltimare.”

“Pleasure doing business with you,” said the captain, winking at him before she left his side.

The waves were smooth tonight, and the captain seemed to be in a good mood. Gallus continued staring off into the sea, which looked like a black ocean of silk under the crisp starlight.

After a few minutes, he had a new visitor. Hoofsteps made their way towards him, creeping out from the entrance to the lower deck and sidling up to him as smoothly and quietly as possible.

Late Harvest sat at his side. Gallus didn’t greet her. His eyes were clearly open, so it was obvious that he had noticed her. It wasn’t until he heard the soft clacking of wooden steins against the floor that he turned his head.

Late Harvest wordlessly poured him a pint of mead, and handed it to him.

“Where’d you get that?” He took a sip, finding that it was still cold, and he turned to smile at her. “Thanks.”

“Raided the kitchen,” she said. “Why are you awake?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Is it the cabin?”

“No,” he said. “I just couldn’t sleep. The sea freaks me out.”

“Me too,” said Harvest. “You know, half of my family died at sea.”

Gallus studied her face, attempting to discern whether or not she was telling the truth.

“No one immediate to me,” said Harvest. “Just, you know, most of my extended family on my mom’s side. They were sailors. They’d gone out during a storm because it was a harsh season, and they heard rumors of a certain kind of fish that would come closer to the surface during a storm. I think it was...ten of them that went out? Only two came back, and they died of hypothermia pretty quick after that.”

“That sucks,” said Gallus.

“Yeah, I know.”

“At least it wasn’t your actual family.”

“Yeah,” said Harvest. “My actual family died in an accident that was way freakier than a storm.”

“Oh.” Gallus took a swig of his mead. The honeyed nut flavor cooled and warmed his throat and chest at the same time. “You...wanna talk about it?”

Harvest considered for a moment. Then she said, “Maybe another time.”

“Where are you from, anyway?” Gallus asked. “I don’t know if I asked.”

“Fillydelphia. Kind of. There’s a bunch of farmland between there and Manehattan, and my family’s from the middle of that.”

“Been to Baltimare before?”

“Just once,” said Harvest. “When I hitched a ride on this same fishing boat to get across the water to Griffonstone.”

Gallus clicked his tongue. “Sorry about that, by the way.”

He had given her the rundown of what happened. Three griffons missing, strange goings on, something had come after his friends…

Harvest took it all in stride, like he expected her to. One benefit to living in Equestria was knowing one’s way around an emergency situation, and she didn’t panic or choose not to believe him. She simply shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Okay. Let’s find a way off this dump.’

Gallus appreciated that. He wouldn’t have known what to do if she had panicked.

“It’s okay. There wasn’t anything important in my wagon anyway,” said Harvest, and there was a tremble to her voice that told Gallus she was lying.

He took another drink. The mead had warmed up somewhat, but that wasn’t a bad thing. It was just...different.

Gallus sighed aloud.

“Something wrong?” asked Harvest.

“Nah,” he said. “I’m just sleepy. Thanks for the drink.”

Gallus tilted his head back and drank the rest of the mead in three long, greedy swallows. He could feel Harvest looking at him, probably with a question on her lips, but he ignored her, left the earth pony to the cold night, and ventured back down below deck.

His cabin, so narrow that his saddlebags scarcely fit inside and so short that he was in constant danger of hitting his head, swayed and bobbed constantly, making his stomach twirl in disoriented agony.

He leapt onto a bed that reeked of mildew and attempted to lie on his back. He gripped the edge of his mattress and squirmed until he could find enough balance to flip himself over. He felt like he was floating near the bottom of the ocean, a slave to the whims of the tides.

The weather had been quite sunny up until fifteen seconds ago.

Then it began to rain, and then it was like there was suddenly a giant dolphin in space, flying upside down, squirting water down onto the ocean through its blowhole.

Silverstream weathered the rain better than most hippogriffs. Rain wasn’t bad! It was wet, sure, but it was reassuring more than anything. Outside of Equestrian borders, where nocreature scheduled the weather, rain was an act of nature that none could influence. Nocreature told the rain what to do, when to stop, when to lighten up. All one had to do in the face of inconvenient rain was to wait it out, and Silverstream loved waiting. There was a thrill to standing underneath the crying sky and keeping a positive attitude the entire time.

If Silverstream could wait this tinylittle shower out, she could wait anything out. And besides, she rather liked it when raindrops got between her feathers and tickled her wings and coat; a sentiment not shared by most of her crew. A good half of them with nothing to do were taking shelter below deck. The other half tended to ropes and supplies and vigilantly watched the ocean around them, all of them laconic and frowning.

Silverstream smiled on their behalf.

The hatch leading to the lower decks opened, and from the sound of his meek, subtle steps on the ground, Silverstream could tell that Terramar had come to check on her.

“Streamie?” squeaked her brother’s voice as he approached her from behind. “Hey.”

“Hi,” said Silverstream.

“...You okay?”

Silverstream blew a raspberry. Terramar came into her peripheral vision. She nearly turned to look at him, but decided not to. “Why would you think that I’m not okay? Thanks to the amulet, we get to spend another few days together!”

“We’d be hanging out anyway,” said Terramar. “Skystar’s birthday, remember?”

It was a week away. Silverstream had completely forgotten. Who could blame her?

Their patrol had been an overwhelming success. In just a few days, she had apprehended a career record of four smuggling and/or pirate ships with zero casualties. Silverstream had been hoping for one more, because the number five was a good, lucky number, but then the amulet had sprung its own plans on her. And where in that timeline would Skystar’s birthday have come to her mind?

“Right!” laughed Silverstream. “But now we get to spend extra time together, right?”

Terramar grumbled. “You’ve been acting weird ever since the the amulet went off.”

“You’re just seeing things,” Silverstream said, turning to Terramar for the first time.

He was looking at her with his brows creased. His crest feathers, which normally resembled happy ribbons of verdant seaweed, fell limp across the side of his face, though that may have been due to the rain. But even then, Silverstream could see that his eyes were growing wet, and there was a stuttering to his breathing that set her big sister alarms off.

Always the worrying crybaby. Silverstream inched closer to her brother and wrapped a wing around him. “Okay, look, I’m sorry. Tell me what you think is wrong.”

“You just—” Terramar began. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened when you first came home.”

Silverstreams squeezed him briefly. Then, she stepped away to gaze at the rain falling against the ocean’s surface.

“Silverstream...” Terramar fussed.

“It won’t be like last time,” Silverstream said, a coldness entering her voice as her smile dropped. Her face felt weightless all of a sudden. “I can handle a few days of Gallus. I don’t think he’s going to want to stick around for very long, anyway. He probably doesn’t even know that we’re coming for him.”

“Why do you have to listen to that stupid hunk of metal?” asked Terramar.

“Because I don’t want to miss anything important,” said Silverstream, looking to the other side of the ship, toward the bow.

Terramar turned to look as well, knowing exactly what she was looking at, and who she was thinking of. Lacy streams of rainwater flowed over the figurehead of their father, across his head and his body, and down his eyes.

After a moment, Terramar went to go back inside. “Is there anything you need, or are we looking good for now?”

“It’s fine,” said Silverstream. “We’ll be fine.”

Terramar’s voice wavered as it tried to crystallize into words, but he gave up on speaking and left her to the wet weather.

Silverstream sighed, smiling again. There was nothing like a good talk between siblings.
Minutes later, the rain began to pick up. Where before it felt normal, like the rain was simply falling down from the sky, now the rain seemed to be pelting anything below it. It had become aggressive, and annoying.

It was becoming much harder to smile. But she maintained it nonetheless. She wouldn’t be deterred by a simple act of nature.

With her mind somewhere warm and happy, and her will staying strong and steadfast, Silverstream began to shiver. Little by little, she felt the tight fangs of the cold rain press against the skin under her feathers. She stayed outside, watching the frowns on her crew turn bit by bit into chattering, gritted teeth. She ignored the feeling, fighting to stay positive.

If she could wait out this little bit of rain…

The next morning, Gallus walked into the mess hall, where the briny smell of anchovies on toast lingered heavy in the air. The layout of the room was simple, consisting of a few tables long enough to fill most of the space and a small kitchen area tucked away in the corner. He looked around for Harvest, ignoring the griffon crew who were gathered at the tables near the entrance.

He didn’t feel like talking to any griffons right now. He didn’t feel like forcing himself onto others in an eternal battle of wills. He just wanted to exist, and to not be seen, and to be heard when he wanted to be.

The crew seemed particularly rowdy this morning—though Gallus barely knew them for a night—their boisterous banter ringing out as they devoured their fish stew and soda bread. Gallus walked past them, his tail swishing, making his way to a corner populated by a grumpy-looking Late Harvest, who nibbled at a piece of bread but did not partake in the stew.

“Not much for seafood?” he asked as he sat across from her.

Late Harvest took another bite of her bread before saying, “Tried it once or twice. I want to like it, so I’ll be adaptable, but I can’t stomach it. Guess I’m just a herbivore.”

Gallus chuckled, taking a few bites of his stew. It was warm and hearty, but not the best he’d ever had. Gabby’s was better by far.
His heart sank. He closed his eyes, clearing any thoughts of his friend away by listening to whatever the rest of the crew was saying on the other side of the room.

“Weather’s been shit all year,” said one voice.

“But they’re saying that this storm’ll be really, really bad!” protested another voice, years younger.

“Who’s ‘they’? Your grandma? Pegasi wouldn’t let a storm get to the point where it’d be dangerous for us, idiot.”

Late Harvest cleared her throat, and Gallus focused his attention on her.

“Still waking up?” she asked.

“Kind of,” said Gallus.

“I was asking if you were going to eat your bread.”

Somegriff sat near them, and both Gallus and Late Harvest turned to face the new arrival. A griffon about Gallus’s age, fur beige and feathers a deep burgundy.

She didn’t look very pleased to see them. Gallus’s feathers ruffled slightly, but he maintained his composure.

“Pony,” said the griffon. “Who’s your friend?”

“You can just ask me my name,” said Gallus.

“Don’t want to,” said the other griffon. “Hey. Pony. Answer me.”

Late Harvest raised an eyebrow. “What does it matter?”

“Glow!” said one of the other crew members, all of whom had stood up to watch their conversation.

Glow waved them off, this time turning to Gallus. “You hear about what happened to Gary and Grumble last night?”

Gallus frowned. “Are those names supposed to sound familiar to me?”

Glow chuckled darkly. “Well, Gary’s been on this ship for eighteen years. Eighteen. Barely even left it for more than a day. And last night, while he’s adjusting the ropes, he slips and hits his head hard on the ground. And I mean really hard. He’s in bed right now, resting, but it’s looking bad. We might have to cash out and pay for some fancy unicorn doctor to look after him.

“Grumble, on the other wing, has been here for four years. Half the time I’ve been a crew member. But let me tell you something about Grumble: he’s never been sick. Not once. I saw that guy drink a full cup of piss and lick the deck once and he barely even gagged. In fact, I think he looked a little healthier the next day.

“But guess what happened this morning? Grumble was coughing his fuckin’ brains out. Throwing up and shit. Getting nosebleeds. And it’s barely even fall.”

Harvest shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Gallus kept his eyes on Glow, who continued ranting.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that sailors and fishers are the suspicious type, but c’mon. You can’t tell me that’s not absolutely fuckin’ suspicious. You two are nothin’ but trouble.”

“See, just after we found Grumble some cough syrup, we get something on the transmission crystal,” Glow said. “It was from Griffonstone. They say they’re looking for somegriff dangerous. Didn’t say why...but they want this griffon, whoever he is, to be brought in fast and quietly, and they’ve got a lot of money to offer. And here’s the thing: hey say he’s got blue feathers.”

“Strange,” sighed Gallus. “You think that it’s me they’re looking for?”

“I don’t know. Is it?” asked the griffon.

Gallus took another bite of his stew. “I paid your captain fair and square, and she agreed to take us,” he said, gesturing to himself and Harvest, “to Baltimare, no questions asked. I’m sorry about your friends. Sucks to be them, but it doesn’t sound like they’re dying, and it’s not really my problem anyways. Now can you leave us alone?”

Glow sneered at him. “You think you got any power on this ship, asshole? You think just because you’ve charmed the captain with a couple of bits, you can tell me what to do? I don’t have to do squat, pretty boy. You’re on our ship. We do whatever we want to you. Now get up.”

Gallus’s tail was swishing, and he could feel the feathers on his chest slowly rising up. He raised an eyebrow at Glow. “What are you gonna do? Make me walk the plank?”

“I’m just trying to get us all some much needed bits,” said Glow, sliding closer to him on the bench. “That bounty was for six thousand. Twice as much if you’re brought in alive. That sounds like Griffonian noble money to me. You running from someone?”

Gallus was tempted to tell her. To tell the whole crew. Call it misplaced empathy, though his old professors would protest that there was scarcely such a thing, but he wanted to warn them not to return to Griffonstone. He wanted to tell them that something bad was happening with the nobles, and that he was trying to get help so he could stop it. Maybe she’d understand, or maybe she wouldn’t, but it might be worth a try.

But it wasn’t fair. Gabby and Gertrude and Gilda were left behind, and this stupid, abrasive, greedy bitch was safe, and it wasn’t fair.

“‘Glow’? Is that right?” Gallus scoffed. His frownmelted into a harsh bout of laughter. “I’ll tell you, but first answer me this: what kind of a stupid name is Glow? Were you a hooker before becoming a smelly fishmonger?”

Glow’s beak contorted into a snarl, and Gallus, though maintaining an easy smile, immediately regretted speaking out. He was supposed to be low profile, wasn’t he? What good would starting fights do?

But Glow was already halfway through winding up a punch by the time that thought finished, and he had no choice but to accept the consequences.

He threw his bowl of stew at her, and the ceramic cracked loudly as it shattered against the centre of her face.

“Celestia!” Harvest yelped, scrambling away from the table.

Glow recoiled, yelling from the ceramic shards sticking out of her cheeks and forehead, the cuts on her temple, and the stew in her eyes.

Not an experienced fighter, thought Gallus. But I guess I shouldn’t be looking down on her. I’m not the best either.

Prince Shining Armor did say that he had great instincts, though, and he put them to use immediately. He stood, gripped Glow by her crest feathers with both of his talons, and slammed her face into the table. A croak of agony left her beak, and he let go, leaving the griffon to fall to the floor and begin a slow crawl away from him.

Gallus looked to the crew to announce that he wanted to be left alone, but two other griffons were already moving towards him. He tensed, trying to formulate a plan…

“Gallus!” came Harvest’s voice.

The griffons came at him much faster than he thought possible.

Gallus then remembered that he hadn’t been in a proper fight for years until his scrap with Gilda.

He was rusty. Slow.

Two pairs of talons gripped Gallus’s arms hard, and he was lifted away from the table and thrown hard against the wall. The impact failed to knock the breath out of him, however. He began to get up as soon as the talons let him go, but a strong fist to his jaw brought his body down again. He groaned, and went to fight whoever was on his left, but two rear legs bucked hard against his chest. That succeeded in winding him. A stuttered whistling escaped his beak as he slumped over, trying to grab at his chest.

Somegriff grabbed his arm, and the griffon who had bucked him, a young male colored silver and brown, now faced him. Punches slammed against Gallus’s beak—once, twice, three times—and then Gallus was pushed onto the floor.

His brain was jelly. He could vaguely hear Harvest yelling from nearby. He planted his palms on the floor and tried to push himself up—

Talons sunk into his back. Four pairs of them, and they dug into his flesh and raked hard down his spine. He screamed as the nerves down his back all came to life at once, writhing, spreading agony through his body like a drop of paint diluting in water.

“—the fuck off him!” Harvest yelled from somewhere. Everything sounded fuzzy.

The talons dropped him, and he fell to the ground moaning. He heard steps coming towards him, but the door to the mess hall swung open loudly, and from his place on the floor he saw the Captain of the ship strut in, her youthful features immediately twisting up into a snarl. “What the fuck is going on?”

Glow spoke up. “We’re cashing in on that bounty.”

“No, you’re not,” said the Captain. “Not without my say.”

She walked to Gallus and crouched down by his side. “You still breathing?” she asked.

Gallus could barely look at her. The world was spinning and his skull felt like it had been rolled down a bowling alley and scored a strike. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t speak. He groaned aloud, shutting his eyes tight and pressing his forehead into the floor, attempting to get some feeling of stability back.

His face grew warmer as blood flowed back into his skull, and in time his breathing began to get less shaky.

“Thanks,” he managed.

“Don’t thank me yet. You know, I’m perfectly happy honouring our deal, but at some point you become more trouble than you’re worth. And we could really use that bounty on your head. Buy ourselves some new sails, maybe a paint job...”

Behind her, the crew murmured excitedly.

“I’ll pay you extra,” coughed Gallus, hocking a wad of blood onto the floor. “A thousand bits. How does that sound?”

The Captain shook her head. “Not good enough. You don’t get to stir up this much trouble on my ship and then offer me less than what I can get for turning you in.”

Gallus tried to shake his head, but after the first turn of his cheek gave up. “Once we—ugh—get to Baltimare I’ll arrange for d-double to be given to you. Not double what I paid you...shit, my head...double my bounty. Twelve thousand bits.”

“Uh-huh. And who’s to say you won’t run away from us?” asked the Captain. “As far as I know, you’re running from debt.”

“I’m not,” said Gallus. “I have—” He paused, running his tongue across the roof of his mouth. Every muscle in his body was urging him to vomit, but he choked it down. “Okay. I have five thousand bits on me right now. For a deposit.”

The Captain thought it over, then nodded. “We got ourselves a deal. Leave him alone, guys! There’s work to be done.”

Gallus grunted, sprawling out on the floor as the crew cleared out.

Harvest appeared beside him as soon as the last griffon left. She examined him with a worried look. “You alright?”

“I’ve been worse.”

“We should probably steer clear of the rest of the crew for the remainder of the trip,” Harvest suggested.

Gallus nodded. “My cabin sucks. Let’s hang out in yours.”

Nogriff, and by nogriff, Silverstream meant nogriff, made pine needle and shrimp soup like Terramar did. Her little brother was, by all accounts, one of the best chefs on Mount Aris. Why he’d chosen to join the navy was a complete mystery to her.

She took a sip of the warm bowl of soup in her talons and rolled her shoulders, savoring the way the bitter tang of the pine played with the sweet shrimp. She was in her cabin, in bed, with a heavy blanket around her shoulders—Yakyakistani wool, perfect for thawing out anycreature coming back from hours of being in below freezing temperatures.

Not that Silverstream was freezing. She was just shivering. A lot.

Terramar, who had been watching her drink the soup, scooted closer and wrapped a wing around her, squeezing tight. “Why do you always have to stand in the rain?”

“I-I like the rain,” Silverstream stuttered, shuddering a bit before taking another sip of her soup. It really was delicious. “Have you sent a message back home yet?”

“Yes,” said Terramar. “I doubt Seaspray’s going to be very happy, but considering the amount of smugglers we’ve been catching, I don’t think he’ll be that angry.”

“Good.” Silverstream coughed and leaned into her brother.

Terramar tensed at her touch, but leaned back against her. “Please don’t do that again. The last thing we need is for you to get sick at sea.”

“I’m sure you or Brine could take over fine.”

“But we need our captain,” Terramar said. “You’re the crew’s morale, Streamie. Don’t weaken their morale.”

Silverstream closed her eyes. “I’ve been having a bad month.”

“I noticed,” Terramar whispered. “It’s hard for me, too, but we have to think of Skystar’s birthday as—as Skystar’s birthday. Not as Dad’s...anniversary.”

“I keep thinking about him,” said Silverstream, rubbing the bowl in her talons, feeling the heat emanating from it. “I keep having dreams about finding him.”

Terramar drew her closer, taking the bowl from her so she could hug him and close her eyes, and as the tears dripped from Silverstream’s face she focused on not making a sound. If she let herself sob now, she wouldn’t be able to stop for the rest of the day. And Terramar was right: The crew needed her. They were on a mission.

“I don’t want to see Gallus,” she said. Her voice wobbled.

“I know,” said Terramar. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle him. You have more important things to focus on, anyway. Like Skystar’s party! We made the guest list already, now you just have to send out the invites. You like writing letters, don’t you?”

Silverstream nearly protested, but gave up. “I do.”

Terramar gently pushed her off of him and met her gaze, smiling as wide as he could for her. “Then you should get on that while Brine still has work to do.”

Silverstream smiled back. “Okay. Who should we write to first?”

“Princess Twilight, definitely. Her and Spike.”

She stepped off of the bed and went to her desk, which was littered with all sorts of unfinished letters. Mostly to Ocellus, the only one of her old school friends who wrote back consistently. Silverstream pushed all the letters aside, seeing the top of her mahogany desk for the first time in weeks, and pulled a fresh piece of parchment and ink out of the drawer.

“Terramar, I need a feather.”

After a pained wince, her brother handed one to her.

Silverstream dipped the white feather into the black ink, and pressed it into the parchment.

“Dear Headmare Twilight…”

“I have a book on me,” said Harvest from the bed, after several minutes of silence. Somewhere between breakfast and their initial arrival at Harvest’s cabin, it had begun to rain outside. Steadily, but not aggressively.

“What?” Gallus, who had been curled up on the floor, listening to the rain and trying not to move, turned around and sat up. “Why didn’t you say so? A book could’ve saved me from thinking about how weird Hippogriff funerals are.”

“...Why were you thinking of hippogriff funerals?”

“No reason,” said Gallus. “Well, many reasons. One being that my head is killing me and I’m thinking about how lucky I am to not be dead right now.”

Harvest sighed. “I avoided bringing the book up because it’s a School of Friendship textbook. I have a cousin who’s studying there, and I was curious about what he’s learning, so he lent a few of his books to me.”

“Oh gods,” Gallus groaned. “Nevermind. I’ll go back to my pain.”

“It’s called Magic for Everycreature Under the Sun.”

Gallus’s tail twitched. He kept his expression even. “That one’s not so bad, actually. Want to bring it out and read?”

“Really?”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s not like we have anything else to do.”

Harvest smiled gratefully and reached into her saddlebags, pulling out an immaculate white book with purple and pink trim. She set it in front of her, and after a second look of confirmation to Gallus, began to read.

“Chapter One: Fundamentals. Magic as a concept is a very abstract term. Magic, in the most common sense, refers to the storage and expenditure of energy by objects or creatures which has the potential to suddenly, drastically change the natural course of the world. This isn’t to say that magic is not natural; in fact, magic is found within every living creature. However, magic as a concept applied to the study and applications of Friendship are much different. This is not the magic that unicorns tap into when they cast spells.” Late Harvest’s voice became slower and more confused by the minute, until she turned away from the book to squint at Gallus.

“What?” he asked from his place on the floor. “Too hard for you?”

“I’ve read the journal that the Council of Friendship put out all those years ago detailing their travels,” said Harvest. “But hearing Princess Twilight talk about magic like this is a little...I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“She was a good teacher,” said Gallus.

“Was she?”

He nodded. “Last I checked she still pops by the school when she can to do guest lectures.”

Harvest hummed. “When did you see her last?”

Gallus snorted. “What’s the next paragraph on?”

“Okay then,” Harvest chuckled questioningly. “The list of things to bug you about in the future might have just gotten longer.

“Next paragraph! It may help to know that magic can be construed as a synonym for ‘togetherness’. The Magic of Friendship is friendship. The rest of the Elements of Harmony—Generosity, Laughter, Honesty, Loyalty, Kindness—recognizing those things and applying them all at once, in perfect harmony, is when Magic is made. The Magic of Friendship cannot be accessed without friendship.” Harvest scoffed. “That should be an obvious one.”

“Keep going,” said Gallus.

“Missing your school days?”

“Shut up.”

Harvest flipped the page. “The Magic of Friendship cannot be cast, but it can be felt and channeled. More on this subject will be explained in Chapter 12. For now, let’s try a little experiment! Find a friend and hold your hoof (or claw, talons, etc.) out in front of you. Close your eyes, and focus on what you know about them. Have your friend attempt to lightly slap your hoof, and try to pull away before they can.”

Harvest put the book down, at least ten questions evident in her rich brown eyes, but Gallus already had his talons out and his eyes shut.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“We have at least two more hours till we reach Baltimare, and this was one of my favorite games to play whenever we had to pass the time.”

Harvest laughed dryly. “Alright.”

Gallus smiled. He had met Harvest a day ago on a routine shift at his job. He knew she knew who he was, and that she still respected him. That was good. He respected her, and he liked her company well enough. She wasn’t a normal pony and she didn’t remind him too much of Sandbar. That earned her bonus points with him. Some of her family had died at sea, and some had died some other way. She reminded Gallus of himself.

Something electric travelled through the air. There was a feeling like sandpaper lightly brushing against the top of his knuckles.

Gallus pulled his talons back, feeling the displaced air from Harvest’s swipe blowing against him.

“What the—how?” she gasped. “No way. Your eyes were open.”

Gallus’s smile turned into a grin as he stretched his arms out again. “Again.”

Harvest was an earth pony. A farmer from between Baltimare and Manehattan. She—

The feeling that rubbed over his talon this time was like a ball of crushed velvet. Gallus pulled back just as Harvest swung.

“You’re kidding,” Harvest said. “There has to be a—griffon eyelids are easy to see through or something. You can’t be serious.”

Gallus opened his eyes, drinking in the way that Harvest looked at him with her bottom jaw hanging open, like he was a street magician and he had just pulled her card from his crest feathers.

“Out of a class of twenty-six, only me and one other pony could pull the game off,” said Gallus. “But anycreature can do it. It’s a little taste of what Twilight does when she channels the Elements of Harmony.”

Harvest squinted. “This is bull.”

“It’s magic. It’s everywhere,” Gallus said, gesturing to the room around them. “And it makes for a good party trick for the uninitiated.”

“You’d think that they would have taught us this in school,” Harvest lamented bitterly, climbing down onto the floor. An hour had passed, and it was Gallus’s turn to be on the bed.

With a pained grunt, he lifted himself up and climbed onto the mattress, flopping over on his side to face where he had just been sitting. He watched Harvest circle around a few times before lying on the floor.

“They didn’t teach you about this stuff?” he asked.

“I mean, I know that everycreature has magic, but not that we can all access the same kind. Earth ponies are strong, resistant to sickness and feel a deep connection to the earth. Pegasi move clouds and make weather. Unicorns do everything else.” Harvest waved a hoof around. “But that’s all I ever knew. Well, everything that wasn’t related to farming grapes.”

“Grapes?” Gallus asked.

“Big ones, twice the size of the average. My family would export them to Neighpon for a lot of money.”

“Huh,” said Gallus. “Want me to take over reading?”

Harvest passed him the book, and for the first time in ten years, Gallus had a School of Friendship textbook in his clutches. The binding was strong—built to last a million years—and the cover felt smooth over the tips of his talons. The title was in a beautiful, custom font that Professor Rarity had designed herself. Twilight had insisted on writing the Written and edited by: Twilight Sparkle bit herself. Gallus found himself transfixed by the familiar enthusiasm evident in each stroke.

Twilight’s comments on past report cards flickered through Gallus’s mind: Great student. A wonderful addition to the class. Entertaining input.

Very smart, intelligent comments, even if you don’t always admit it.

It was a genuine honor to be able to have taught you, Gallus. Congratulations on finishing strong. I’m very proud of your achievements. Thank you for being a part of the first graduating class of my school.

Gallus closed his eyes and sighed. “What am I gonna tell her?”

“The princess? Aren’t you friends with her?”

The sound of Harvest’s voice startled Gallus. He had forgotten she was there.

“I mean,” Harvest continued, “everypony who knows her is friends with her. So it would make sense that you would be. You were her guard after all, and she didn’t fire you or anything, right? I don’t remember hearing anything like that.”

Gallus thought about what to say. Should he tell her the truth? Or lie? A little bit of both? Harvest wasn’t quite a friend yet, but she was someone whose company he didn’t mind. She didn’t pry too much, and she wasn’t annoying.

He decided that Harvest was someone he could see himself trusting, and trust was always built on some sort of risk. He decided to tell the truth, even though the details of his resignation from the guard were cleverly hidden, and it pained him to talk about it. He decided that Harvest deserved a bit of truth from him, especially after he forced her to leave Griffonstone out of nowhere.

The boat swayed particularly hard. Gallus held tight to the bed, waiting for the world to stabilize while Harvest cursed from the floor.

“We had a falling out,” he admitted, staring down at the off-white bed sheets “I don’t think Twilight or Spike are gonna be any kind of happy to see me. We didn’t exactly say the nicest things to each other when I left. Griffonstone was supposed to be a place to forget. I was supposed to start over again. But it feels like every time I get away from Equestria it just sucks me back in and—” he shook his head. “Maybe I should’ve gone to Zebrica or something.”

The rain outside had really picked up. It sounded angry. Oppressive. For a long moment, the rain was all that Gallus could hear, and it grew louder and louder in his ears.

“My family kicked me out when I was eighteen,” said Harvest, and suddenly her voice was the only thing that Gallus could hear. He looked up at her, noticing that her ears were down and her eyes were damp. There was a softness to her voice that he had never heard before. “Back when I was in high school I got together with a bad guy, and I stopped caring about farm work. We had a bit of a wilder rebellious phase than most ponies. Ended with me sabotaging my family’s crops and ruining our income for the next four years. So they kicked me out, and they were right to. I’ve been travelling all across the continent looking for a new home since.

“You know,” she said, smiling at him. “Zebrica was on my list in case Griffonstone didn’t work out, and it didn’t work out, so, I’m probably headed there next. Maybe we could go together.”

Gallus swallowed. His chest felt like it was tied up. “Yeah.”

There was a crash.

The world dipped out from underneath them as the ship seemed to descend down. Gallus yelped in surprise as the momentum tossed him into the air. Magic for Everycreature Under the Sun smacked him on the beak before he crashed onto the floor. The entire ship seemed to wobble as it found even purchase once again, and Gallus focused on staying flat until it stopped.

He looked to his right, finding Harvest groaning and holding her head.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, moaning softly as she rubbed at the back of her head. “Celestia, I’m dizzy…”

“You must have hit your head,” he said.

“No shit?” she snarked before she found a tender spot, drawing her hoof away from her head with a wince. “Ow. That really hurts…”

“Just stay here,” said Gallus. “I’ll go outside, make sure everything’s fine.”

He helped her onto the bed before he ventured into the hall, where he took off towards the stairs, the sound of the rain now completely overtaking the sound of his own breath. He noticed that the floor was wet. The air seemed damper, more humid. Salt hung heavy on the air.

He got to the stairs and climbed up, and when he threw the door open he saw the chaos that was the main deck.

The crew was in disarray, running back and forth, grabbing ropes and yelling, their words and orders lost to the roar of the menacing gale. His feet trembled with the constant tossing and turning of the deck, and he became acutely aware of the fact that his wings didn’t work. He would be a goner if he fell overboard. Not that anygriff could fly in all this.

The captain was at the bow, an arm wrapped around the base of a mast, holding her firmly to the ground. Gallus could see her beak moving, no doubt barking commands at her crew.

He went to her as fast as he could, his heart racing. Something in the air felt wrong. Everything about this...this sudden storm was like it had been thrown at them. This couldn’t have happened naturally, could it?

With every other step, the ship felt like it was gliding down a frozen ramp, forcing Gallus to crouch down and lower his center of mass, praying briefly to anyone that would listen that he stayed put. Thankfully, he did, and after a few minutes the captain was within earshot.

“What’s going on?” Gallus yelled over the crashing of the rain on the deck.

“Storm!” answered the Captain. Her eyes were wide and full of fear. Like Gabby’s. “We don’t know where it came from!”

“What does that mean?” asked Gallus.

“It was just light rain! Just a little shower!” said the Captain. She made to continue, but the ship dipped slightly, and they each braced themselves for it to even out. When they were stable, she went on. “Something is really fucking wrong with the weather! The water, too! We’re completely off course. The only way I can guarantee the safety of the ship is if we go towards Mount Aris! I don’t even know if—!”

A sound cut through the rain, the wind, the lightning and their voices, slicing through with a disinterested ease. It reminded Gallus of a cicada’s cry, but less organic. An imitation of an insect that was slightly off.

Gallus’s skin crawled.

“What the hell?” demanded the captain.

The floor slipped out from underneath Gallus as the ship plunged, going into free fall. Gallus yelled as he flew towards the edge of the deck, but a crew member crashed into him and sent him into the main mast. His temple smacked hard into the wood, but his arms knew what to do. They wrapped around the mast and held on for dear life.

Horrified screaming and yelping filled Gallus’s ears as several members of the ship’s crew were tossed off the edge by momentum. He watched as they spun in the air, beating their wings hard in a desperate, primal attempt to regain their bearings but ultimately failing underneath the force of the wind. They shot past his field of vision, helpless as paper butterflies.

The ship hit flat water.

Gravity tore Gallus’s arms off the mast, and he hit the ground, landing on his back. His head bloomed with a low, aching pain. Stars clouded his vision.

Water from the impact rained down on him, pouring over his entire face, flooding his sense of smell. Gallus turned over and coughed and snorted. His body hurt. There was a sharpness in his neck. Whiplash, probably.

He whined and tried to stand.

Harvest was still below deck. He had to check on her, or get her out of there so they could steal a lifeboat or something. There was no way this ship was going to survive. They weren’t caught in a storm, they were under attack.

Gallus’s feet found proper footing, and he began walking towards the entrance to the inside of the ship. He slipped constantly. His legs felt new. He felt as if he hadn’t walked for years.

“Shit,” he cursed, spitting out some residual seawater. “Damn it. Damn it! Harvest!”

She didn’t hear him. Couldn’t. He could barely hear the remaining crew, though he registered that they were all in some form of distress. They held onto the ropes of the ship like they were the only things keeping them alive. Maybe they were. Gallus didn’t know any better. All he knew was that he had to get inside if he was going to survive.

He had to get to Harvest.

Gallus got halfway to the stairs when the ship wobbled once more, and he was too weak and too slow to crouch down. He was tossed off his stance, bouncing across the deck and flying over the railing faster than he could think. He closed his eyes—

A talon grabbed one of his. He gasped, gripping it tight as he opened his eyes again.

Glow was holding him over the railing. She looked down at him, surprised as he was.

He saw her hesitate for a moment, but then she began to pull him up, and Gallus laughed hysterically in relief. His hind legs scrambled for purchase as he struggled aboard.

Gallus grunted as he and Glow managed to get him over the railing. He dropped to the floor, exhausted.

Another wave rocked the ship. Gallus felt himself rise into the air, but he was fast enough to grab onto the railing, gripping with the little strength he had left.

Glow was less fortunate. The ship’s next lurch caught her off guard, and Gallus watched helplessly as she was carried off the deck. Her wings tried to open up in the wind, but they were too weak underneath its force. Gallus saw her beak open, and knew that she was screaming, though he couldn’t hear. He reached for her—

A gargantuan wave rose out of the sea, and Glow disappeared into it.

Gallus’s heart pounded. He turned towards the lower deck. He had to get to Harvest. He had to—

He had to do something. He didn’t know what. But he had to figure it out.

The stairs were close. Gallus took another step towards them. They were so close.

That sound, that ethereal cicada’s cry from earlier, rang out, as clear as it was the first time. Gallus couldn’t hear anything else. His brain felt like it was being squeezed.

Something rose out of the sea. Gallus turned—

A tentacle, like that of an octopus or a squid, but as wide as one of the towers of Canterlot Castle, and purple like a bruise, slammed down in front of him.

The deck split in half. Metal and wood screeched through the air as Gallus cried out, tossed from his place on the deck.

Harvest. It hit right where Harvest was. Where she was waiting for him. Where she had stayed because he told her to.

The sea hit Gallus like a brick wall.

The splintered remains of the ship pierced through the water, falling past him. He could barely move. He was too tired. It was all too much.

The water was freezing cold, but he didn’t care.. He made no effort to swim up. Instead, he left himself drift. Confusion and heartbreak ripped at the skin beneath his feathers. He didn’t know what to do.

Gallus closed his eyes. Fighting wasn’t worth it.

He floated deeper down, his muscles slowly relaxing as the pressure in his chest and head rose—his body’s way of demanding that he breathe.

Then he began to move backwards.

Something was tugging at his wings.

Gallus opened his eyes.

There was a griffon, a magnificent tawny feathered and furred male with golden eyes, floating in front of him. He seemed unbothered by the pressure or the water. He looked like he wasn’t even wet.

The mysterious griffon looked at Gallus casually, a hint of discernment in his eyes, as if Gallus was a painting in a museum. Around the griffon’s shoulders was a beautifully tailored burgundy coat, and around his neck was a silver chain with a beautiful red crystal pendant that Gallus could swear he had seen before.

Gallus opened his mouth to speak. Water immediately flooded his throat and lungs.

He reached out towards the griffon, but he was suddenly gone. Gallus struggled, kicking his legs and waving out towards the shards of The Bloody Herring that swam around him. Black circled in on his vision.

The last thing that Gallus thought about was the pain. His chest hurt. The inside of his body felt like it was being washed out.

He took a final breath, swallowing another beakful of icy water, and everything was simply gone.

Smolder,

Please don’t throw this away. Don’t burn it or tear it apart, either.

Princess Skystar’s birthday is coming up, and Queen Novo has asked for the Dragon Lord to be there. You, too.

I want you there as well. I miss you.

Silverstream frowned at the parchment. “This is garbage.”

The door to her cabin opened. She turned to see Terramar’s wet head thrust in. “Silverstream! There’s wreckage floating in the water nearby. Should we check it out?”

“Wreckage?” asked Silverstream, standing up. “Where?”

She donned some outerwear to keep her warm—a ruby red overcoat, gifted to her by Professor Rarity on the day she was promoted to captain—and stepped outside with Terramar. The rain had picked up in the last few minutes. Now it was looking like a storm.

But there was something in the air…

“It’s swimmable,” said Terramar, leading her to the bow.

Around them, the crew of the Coralvreckan flew back and forth, busy with a million different things.

“Hold steady!” yelled Brine from halfway up a mast. “We’ve weathered worse!”

When they got to the bow, Terramar pointed her west, where she saw pieces of a broken ship floating in the black water.

“Any survivors?” asked Silverstream.

“Don’t know yet. Can I take a team to see?”

“Yeah,” said Silverstream. “Hurry.”

She waited in the rain and, feeling it tickle her head, smiled at the sensation. The waves coming at the ship didn’t seem dangerous, just a little choppy.

The minutes passed quickly. She watched Terramar and his diving team swim around, illuminated by the fluorescent purple light coming off of their magically enchanted uniforms. Hopefully, if there were any survivors, they could help. Or at least return the dead back to their rightful homes.

Silverstream danced in place, swaying gently from side to side. She wondered how long it would take for them to get to Griffonstone. She wondered if Gallus would let her stay with him. Last she heard, he and Gabby and Gilda were all living together.

Staying there could be fun. It’d be like a sleepover. Or something.

That was assuming Gallus would even speak to her.

She smiled harder, struggling against her own cheeks.

The lights in the water flashed yellow, signalling that they found someone, and medical assistance was needed.

Silverstream turned to look up at Brine, who was waiting for permission, and she nodded.

Terramar and his team emerged, and as they were lifted from the water, Silverstream spotted the survivors of the wreck. There were a few griffons that looked like they had been caught in a whirlpool; there was an earth pony, carried by one of Terramar’s crew, a hippogriff named Seasalt; and in Terramar’s arms was the wet, blue body of a griffon with broken wings.

Silverstream stopped smiling.

Author's Note

:heart: Very thankful to Miller Minus and Jack of a Few Trades for their editing

STRANGER

The towel around Gallus’s shoulders was still damp. Beads of water would drip down his sides, getting onto the letters on the desk he was sitting on. His wings fell limply down his sides.

Silverstream didn’t say anything. Not about the wings, or the letters she had spent hours writing.

Seeing him made her realize that she had grown a lot in recent years. She was nearly as tall as Celestia, judging from the last time the retired royal visited Mount Aris.

Gallus, however, had barely changed.

“Any survivors?” he asked.

Silverstream sighed. “You. An earth pony. Several griffons. Five or six, I think. It’s going to be a couple of hours before my doctor allows visitors. Why were you on that boat?”

“There’s some stupid magic stuff happening in Griffonstone,” said Gallus, “and we happen to know some of the most magically versed creatures on the planet. I need an alicorn, which means that as soon as you get me to Mount Aris, I can get the next train to Canterlot as fast as possible and we’ll never have to think about each other again.”

Silverstream ignored the last part and met his gaze. “Another villain?”

“You better hope not,” Gallus said. “The reaper still has Terramar and your mom to check off her list.”

“That’s not funny,” Silverstream whispered, but didn’t get angry. She couldn’t get angry. She didn’t want to.

Gallus scoffed. “Gabby’s dead. Probably. Gilda, too. And a council member. Whoever’s hurt them is probably hunting me down, too. I don’t see the sea monster attack as a coincidence.”

“Gabby?” Silverstream repeated. “A-And...oh no. Gallus, I’m—”

Gallus closed his eyes. “I really don’t want to be here.”

Silverstream sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“When did you even join the navy?” Gallus asked. “Who does that? I figured you’d become a politician or something after your professor shit fell through. You know, put the many wasted years of friendship school to good use? But no, you have this fancy ship and you’re suddenly Pirate Daring Do.”

“You’d know if you read my letters,” Silverstream said, attempting to sound angry but only sounding more pathetic as her heart fell.

“Do you want to know what I do with every single letter you’ve sent me for the past three years?” Gallus asked, opening his eyes once more to glare at her.

She wondered what she looked like to him. She could feel tears wanting to break free from her eyes. Could he see that? Did he know that he was getting to her?

“No,” said Silverstream. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear.

“I spit on every single envelope, rip it to pieces and I throw them in my fireplace.”

Silverstream whimpered. “Why—”

The door to the cabin opened, and Terramar stepped in, wet and wary. In his talons was the Crown of Grover.

Silverstream gasped as the amulet around her neck floated upwards, vibrating softly as it attempted to pull her towards the crown like a dog seeing its owner. She grunted, took hold of the chain and yanked the amulet back to her chest, where it fell limp.

Gallus and Terramar watched her until she got the amulet down, and then Terramar placed the crown on the desk.

Thin patches of seawater lay on the surface of the metal, air drying as the seconds passed. Other than its wetness, it looked perfect. Pristine, like it hadn’t just survived an attack from a giant magical sea monster.

Gallus blinked, turning to the young hippogriff that stood in front of the cabin door. “This has to be a joke. What else did you find?”

“Pieces of the ship,” said Terramar.

“Right, but I was asking about important things, shrimp.”

“Don’t call him that,” said Silverstream.

“Or what?,” Gallus asked. He picked up the crown and brought it closer to his face.

“You mentioned somecreature hunting you down earlier,” said Silverstream. “How is that possible when you have the Crown with you?”

“Maybe they just got a monster to attack every ship on the open sea,” Gallus snarked.

That was impossible. Probably. Silverstream sighed. “Is there anything else, Terramar?”

“I-I already said no.”

Gallus rolled his eyes and walked to the door, throwing an arm around Terramar and forcefully leading him outside of the cabin. Terramar had grown exponentially in recent years, giving him a significant height advantage over Gallus, but the young hippogriff was as meek as ever.

“Let’s get some food, shrimp!” Gallus said. “I’m getting a little tired of your boss over there.”

Silverstream leapt off of the bed, her wings beginning to flare. “I’m coming with you, actually.”

I don’t want you to hurt Terramar, she thought. He can’t take it.

Gallus turned back to glare at her. “Are you serious?”

Terramar squirmed. “Don’t I have a choice in this?”

“No,” Silverstream and Gallus replied.

Gallus sighed. “Whatever.”

They stepped outside, and for a minute they were assaulted by rain, falling as heavy and as plentiful as ever on the Coralvreckan’s main deck. Silverstream tried to find the joy in it, but couldn’t.

They kept their heads down and their eyes forward, moving past the working crew to the other side of the ship, opening a door leading below deck.

“I’m having a sugar craving,” Gallus said.

Terramar looked to her for permission to mention the appropriate amenity. She shrugged.

Her brother told Gallus about the ice cream parlour on the orlop deck, fashioned to look like an all-white version of Sugarcube Corner that she once dreamed about.

“An ice cream parlour?” Gallus asked, pointedly looking at Terramar and ignoring her. “Seriously?”

“Streamie did design the ship,” said Terramar.

The parlour was enchanted from floor to ceiling with runes that made the air tolerable whilst keeping the ice cream cold, and on hot days it was the busiest spot on the ship other than the top deck. There were a few crew members present when they entered, but they took their desserts to go, and after momentarily saluting her they left, and the three of them were alone.

Gallus and Terramar each grabbed themselves a few scoops of dark chocolate cherry in slightly toasted wafer cones, stealing a table at the centre of the room. Silverstream sat at a table adjacent to them, and said nothing.

Gallus ate as voraciously as one who had just cheated death, attacking the cold, creamy dessert without shame or care for the excess that was quickly building around his beak and cheek feathers. He finished in under fifteen seconds and vigorously wiped his beak with the back of a talon.

Terramar, meanwhile, only looked on at the savage display with restrained repulsion. He had chosen to take careful, savoring licks at his frozen treat, barely halfway done.

“So,” Gallus said. “You seeing anyone?”

Silverstream tensed.

“That doesn’t matter,” Terramar said, his feathers ruffling.

Gallus rolled his eyes. “So you’re not seeing anyone, then.”

“What do you care?” Terramar asked.

Gallus whistled. “I guess it’s not much of a surprise, though.”

“You don’t have to be rude,” Terramar murmured. “We’re all friends here.”

“We’re not friends,” Gallus snapped. “I’m not friends with anybody on this ship. I don’t want to be here. I never wanted to be here. Don’t pretend like this can be anything but painful for the three of us.”

Terramar shrunk in his seat. “I...”

Silverstream nearly interrupted, but—

“You’re melting on the left side,” Gallus cut in.

“Oh.” Terramar turned the cone in his talons until the thin stream of melting ice cream was facing towards him, and licked it away. He took another few bites before he put the cone down again. He sighed. “There’s still no reason for us to have a bad time while you’re here. We don’t have to act like—like everything’s normal, but we can at least all agree to play nice. It’s nearly Dad’s—”

“Do I look like I care in the slightest about your dad’s death anniversary?” Gallus seethed.

Silverstream exhaled, but stayed quiet, even as Terramar winced like he had just been slapped.

“I know that it’s a weird time for both you and Silverstream,” he said, “but if we can just agree to stay calm until we get to land, I think that this will feel a lot faster.”

Gallus scoffed. “No.”

“Why not?” Terramar begged.

“Because I don’t want to, shrimp.” Gallus reached over and firmly grabbed Terramar’s ice cream out of his talons before throwing it into his beak, loudly crunching it up as the younger hippogriff watched.

Terramar turned and shot Silverstream a pleading gaze, but she shook her head.

Then Gallus leaned back and belched. “I’m going to make myself at home on your nice, comfy ship, and if we manage to survive until we get to Mount Aris, then great.”

Terramar turned back to him, frowning.

Gallus made a bored, repulsed groan. “It’s not like you’re gonna do anything about it, anyway.”

Terramar went to say something, but stopped himself. Then he sighed. “You can do whatever you want, Gallus. I’m just so tired. We were supposed to be back home already. All I want to do is get out of this storm, and I don’t want to deal with your and Streamie’s emotional baggage anymore. Did you know this is the longest amount of time she hasn’t talked in weeks, barring sleep?”

“What are you gonna find at home, shrimp?” Gallus asked. “An empty bed and no daddy to comfort you about your sad, pathetic life following your sister around?”

“Why are you being so mean?” Terramar asked, his body trembling. Again, he turned to Silverstream. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Silverstream swallowed. “I—”

“It’s because I hate you,” Gallus said, raising an eyebrow. “I hate you and your sister and I hate that I have to suffer looking at you two again. No, no, you know what? That’s not even a good enough word. I fucking despise the both of you, and I hope that whatever destroyed my last boat crushes this one to pieces so we can all be done with each other once and for all.”

Terramar’s beak clenched. He looked furious. And helpless. He attempted to say something, but whatever fire in his heart that had come alive died immediately. He blinked, and settled for attempting to hold his gaze with Gallus, but even then he quailed, and then he stood up and left without another word.

Silverstream watched him, her heart breaking by the inches. She wanted to say something. She felt like she wanted to stand up and yell and scream as loud as she could, but she didn’t have the words.

Gallus scoffed, and drummed a talon on the table. He looked to her. “Anywhere I can get a drink?”

“Find it yourself. I—I have things to do.” Silverstream muttered.

Gallus shrugged.

She stood up and took her leave. Her steps were wobbly. Uncoordinated. She felt his eyes boring into the back of her head until she rounded the corner, and even then, she couldn’t help but feel like she wasn’t alone.

The medical bay smelled like bandages and rubbing alcohol, and it made Silverstream hungry like nothing else, weirdly enough. She strolled down the rows of bunk beds filled with unconscious griffons to the end of the room, where a single earth pony lay on a bottom bunk, her forelegs crossed as she was being tended to by a powder blue hippogriff with glasses—the Coralvreckan’s medical officer: Deadwater.

Late Harvest had fur like butter, a short, tomato-red mane, and eyes like two chocolate truffles.

Silverstream’s belly growled audibly as she approached. She forced all thoughts of food out of her mind as she adopted a straighter posture—one befitting of an aristocrat and captain of the navy.

The earth pony, on the other claw, watched her cautiously.

“How’s she looking, Deady?” Silverstream asked.

Deadwater turned to her with a soft smile underneath sleepy eyes. “Her nervous system’s still recovering from the shock of nearly drowning and being thrown about by the tides. She’s got a bump on her head that should go down in a few days, and she’ll be able to move about the ship freely in a few hours, but for now I’m prescribing her a healthy few hours of bed rest. Maybe a nap.”

“Thank you,” said Silverstream. “Could you leave us alone, now?”

“Of course, Captain.”

Deadwater left the room, leaving Silverstream to sit in front of the earth pony.

“Hello,” said Silverstream. “I’m Captain Silverstream. You must be Late Harvest.”

“You’re one of the—Celestia, what did the papers call you guys? The Student Six? Princess Twilight’s star students?” Harvest asked. “You’re one of Gallus’s friends.”

Silverstream resisted the urge to cringe. “Sure! Let’s go with that. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” said Harvest. “My head’s throbbing a bunch and I can’t move too fast or else I nearly throw up, but I’m fine. That doctor told me Gallus was alive?”

“He is,” said Silverstream. “Unfortunately.”

“What?” Harvest asked.

“Nothing,” Silverstream said. “Listen, it seems that the ship that you and Gallus were on was attacked by a deep sea monster of some sort. We’ve had a few kraken issues in these waters before, but nothing as disastrous as this. The rain’s cutting us off from our communications, so we can’t even ask about any other attacks that may have happened. You don’t know anything about what might have caused this, do you?”

Late Harvest shook her head. “Last thing I remember, Gallus left my room to check on what was happening on the deck and...then I was here. Are you okay, Captain? You look a little sick.”

Silverstream forced a laugh. “I’m fine, Miss Harvest. From what I understand, Gallus was fleeing Griffonstone. Were you there, also?”

“Yeah, but I can’t tell you about what happened that made Gallus grab me and leave,” said Harvest. “Honestly, that’s probably a bad thing, but I tend to prioritize my survival over asking questions. It seemed bad, so as far as I know, the less I know, the better.”

Say one more Gallus-like thing. I dare you. Silverstream smiled. “Well, I guess that’s the end of my questions for now. When Deadwater releases you, you’re free to make use of all of my ship’s amenities.”

“Thank you,” Harvest said, smiling back. “Is Gallus around, by the way? I’d like to talk to him. Ask him how he’s doing.”

“You think of him as a friend?” Silverstream asked.

“I’d like to think so.” Harvest shrugged. Her smile turned bashful. “We’re probably not as close as the two of you, though.”

Silverstream nodded. “Well, I’ll go and see if I can find him. Rest well, Miss Harvest.”

Harvest said something else, but Silverstream was barely listening.

She left the medical bay with hurried, anxious steps, and when she was outside of the room and by herself, surrounded by the beautiful light pink walls, trimmed with a metallic gold, Silverstream nearly collapsed.

Sorrow tore at her with sharp, iron hot claws. She wanted to fall to the floor, to press her forehead to it and let her tears come, but then she remembered the crew. They couldn’t see her like that.

There was a maintenance closet nearby. She stumbled to it and locked herself in with the darkness and the mops.

Her chest felt like it was going to collapse in on itself. She shut her eyes tight, struggling not to cry. The closet smelled like lime scented disinfectant and damp mushrooms.

When was the last time she and Gallus had spoken?

It had to have been at that dinner. What was it, three years ago, now?

The plan was simple. Get everycreature together and have dinner. One dinner, at a nice place in Canterlot that she would rent for the night.

The plan worked, surprisingly. Until the chef and server left and the wine was opened, and they were left alone, because that gave them the license to start speaking their minds.

And remembering the good times became remembering the bad, and passive-aggressiveness turned into insults, and insults turned into a brawl between Gallus and Smolder.

It was after Ocellus ran out of the place in tears. Gallus’s breathing had become pained, spiteful wheezing as he lay on that broken table. And Silverstream, at his side quicker than she could think, checked over his wounds as Sandbar awkwardly announced his intentions to go after Smolder.

Which left her and Yona to take care of Gallus.

Yona began to approach when Silverstream held a talon to the yak without looking.

“Go find Smolder with Sandbar. He’s gonna take too long.”

Yona tried to argue. “But Griffon—”

“Will be fine,” Silverstream told her, speaking slowly. “But Smolder might not be. He tore off a few of her neck scales so we have to find her fast.”

Yona tried to speak. Again, Silverstream interrupted. “Yona. Please leave.”

They locked eyes, and Silverstream summoned all the firmness she could muster to stay locked with Yona’s defiant stare. She didn’t need this right now. Finding Smolder was the most reasonable option and they needed to be reasonable right now. They didn’t need to be fighting. There had been enough of that for the night.

Yona wilted. She pulled her eyes away and slowly, so slowly, she lumbered out of the restaurant.

The front door closed, and then she was alone with Gallus, free to talk as she looked over his wounds.

His hind legs were singed. The burnt hair and flesh smelled absolutely disgusting, like roasted tuna that was freshly pissed on, but Silverstream didn’t let it show. Everything was sunshine and rainbows as far as she let onwas concerned. In terms of Gallus’s injuries she was most worried about the deep slashes on his chest, but as far as she could tell, those would be fine.

Gallus spat onto the floor. “What are you doing?”

“Checking to see if you’re in any danger,” she said, poking and prodding at his limp body.

“What’s the verdict?”

“You’re fine,” said Silverstream. “You didn’t have to make fun of Smolder and Ocellus like that.”

“I wasn’t making fun, I was pointing out the fact that they’re a mess and that everyone else can see it.”

“You...You don’t know that. And besides, even if it were true, you should be careful how you say things. You could really hurt somecreature. Well—I guess you did, already, but—”

“Don’t lecture me, professor.”

Silverstream clenched her teeth for a moment. Then she quietly spoke. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Gallus. “But I’m tired, Silly. I’m tired of hating everyone and everything I see. I yelled at some stallion asking Twilight for directions the other day. Like, full on yelled at him. My voice got hoarse. She’s worried about me. Asking me if I need a vacation or something. It’s really starting to get on my nerves.”

“That’s Headmare Twilight for you,” said Silverstream, looking out the window. In the distance she could see the shadows of a stallion and a yak running down the streets, no doubt calling out for Smolder.

“I’m leaving Canterlot,” said Gallus. “For good.”

Silverstream swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“I’m resigning.” Gallus reached up and rotated her chin back to look at him. “I’m kinda tired of fighting with everyone.”

“Then why do you do it?” Silverstream asked. “I don’t understand why you guys can’t be nice to each other. I just want a nice evening with my friends once in a while.”

“We’re not friends anymore,” said Gallus.

Silverstream shook her head. “There’s got to be a first aid kit somewhere.”

She left his side and scanned the empty restaurant for anything to help cover up Gallus’s wounds. She found a kit in the kitchen and returned to the dining room to find Gallus sitting up, licking himself.

“Stop that,” she said, and began to dress his wounds—bandaging his chest, pouring ointment on his legs, dabbing blood off of his beak and the top of his head.

“Ow,” Gallus whined as she worked, but made no move to stop her.

For a moment it was like they were comfortable with each other again.

“You know I love you,” said Silverstream. “We all do. You love us back. Please don’t leave us, Gallus. I don’t know what to say to make everything right, but if you can tell me, then please do. I don’t want to lose this.”

Gallus laughed. “Silverstream, you’re such a fucking idiot sometimes. You’ve already lost whatever ‘this’ is. We all stopped being friends the moment that Sandbar ran off to the Crystal Garbage Dump to work for that pretty pink royal excuse for a jizz rag.”

“That’s not tr—”

“Shut up. I’m not finished. You know why everything’s falling apart? It’s because our friendship was so weak, so petty, and so superficial that that pebble-brained mudpony was the only thing holding us together. And now he’s a total dick along with the rest of you. I don’t want to talk to any of you again.”

Silverstream pulled her talons away from Gallus as he turned to look out the window. Her heart was breaking.

She stayed quiet for a moment, passionately hoping that Gallus wouldn’t move. And he didn’t.

“...You don’t mean me, too, right?” she asked quietly. “You hate them. Not me, right?”

Gallus turned to look at her, and she suddenly felt like a chicken with three beaks.

“It’s always about you, isn’t it?” he jeered. “There’s not a single selfless bone in your body, is there? Little Miss Perfect Royal Niece. I’d honestly be tempted to call you the worst part about all of this if it weren’t for the dragon, the fruit fly and the clover addict."

He took a moment to collect himself. Then he leaned forward. "Do you want to know the truth, Silverstream?”

Silverstream shied away, but her body was weighed down by her fear. She could only move inches. Gallus followed.

“You’re just like me,” he growled. “There’s nothing in Equestria for you anymore and that’s good, because it’s better off without you. No one—not one creature—wants you here. You should just fly back to your cute little underwater mansion back in Mount Snobbery and stay there and live out the rest of your days getting fat on fresh salmon.”

Silverstream couldn’t breathe, like she was the one who had been in a fight. “M-My students—”

“I’ve seen your classes, stupid,” Gallus cut in. “The three of you make terrible professors. Let me dole out some truth to you again: you’re fucking up the future of friendship by pretending you know anything about it.”

Gallus stood up, and he turned towards the door and began to limp. He didn’t get far before Silverstream flew in front of him, an indignant desperation rising up inside of her. Her wings flared and she flapped them hard, stopping Gallus as he stilled his movement in her breeze.

“I was wrong!” Silverstream begged.

Gallus blinked. “About?”

“I was wrong...to blame you for my dad’s death, okay? I’m sorry! I’m sorry. Please, Gally, please just forgive me already. I shouldn’t have done that. I-I was a terrible friend. I’ve been a terrible friend. I’m sorry.”

Gallus was speechless for a moment. He looked shocked. Hurt. He looked like he was going to say something important, and then he smiled. The first time she’d seen him smile in ages.

“It’s too late,” he whispered. “Way too late for that. You think taking back one of the many mistakes you’ve made is enough? No, Silly. It won’t. And let me tell you one more thing.”

“No!” Silverstream barked. “If you’re just going to be mean, then don’t bother talking to me at all!”

She backpedaled, but her steps were clumsy, and she nearly tripped over herself in the process. She looked down as she got her bearings, only to look back up to see Gallus approaching her, and then she couldn’t move again. She could only watch as he stalked towards her, his anger thickening the air around them.

“You’re gonna like this one, I promise!” exclaimed Gallus, stopping and prodding her chest with a sharp talon. “One day, we’re gonna see each other again, and the only thing that we’re going to see in each other will be a stranger. And I, personally, from the bottom of my heart, want you to know that it’s going to be entirely your fault.”

Silverstream opened her eyes.

She needed a drink.

Silverstream punched the door open.

It swung hard and hit the wall, causing two light green hippogriffs walking down the hall to screech in fright. They whirled on her, ready to throw down, but upon recognizing her coat they scrambled against the wall and saluted.

“Captain!”

Silverstream smiled at them. “Sorry. Carry on.”

They did, and Silverstream was free to travel to the mess hall. Luckily enough, it was nearby.

She had designed it after the School of Friendship’s old cafeteria, complete with long tables made of magical weightless blue crystal and stores of peppers, cupcakes and hayburgers. There was other food and ingredients, of course, but those were her favorites, and she always made sure that her crew had plenty.

She opened the door to the cafeteria, keeping her head down until she reached the open kitchen where her chef, a light red hippogriff named Crosswind, sat on a rotating chair, spinning around boredly.

“Crossy,” Silverstream said loudly. “A bottle of rum, please. And fried eagle. Extra spicy.”

Crosswind nodded. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

“I’m surprised you drink now. You always hated the taste,” said Gallus from behind her.

Silverstream turned to find the griffon sitting at a table, a bottle of Lemon Drops’ Spiced Rum and two glasses in front of him. Both were filled, but before Silverstream could ask who the second drink belonged to, Gallus took both of them in his talons and knocked them both back, one after the other, barely showing a reaction either time.

He seemed so small now. So short and tiny. But as she looked at him there came an electric pulse running down her back that reminded her he was so much more than his size.

Silverstream walked to his table and sat across him. “Can I join?”

Gallus raised an eyebrow at her, but flicked one of the glasses to her side.

He poured each of them a drink.

“Your rum is garbage,” he said.

“I disagree,” Silverstream replied, taking another sip out of her drink.

“You not only drink now,” Gallus said, “but you’re good at it.”

“Is that a problem?” Silverstream asked.

Gallus snorted.

“I’m...I was glad to see that you were okay,” said Silverstream. Her body felt lighter than usual. “When Terramar came across the wreckage…For a second there I thought the amulet was leading me to your corpse.”

“If only,” he said. “But you’re wrong.”

“What?”

“You’re not seeing me okay,” Gallus said, finishing his drink.

“What?” Silverstream repeated. “What do you mean?”

Gallus didn’t reply. He poured himself some more rum.

“Are you trying to tell me that you’re not okay?” Silverstream asked.

There came a light breeze beside them, and they turned to find Crosswind with a platter of deep fried eagle wings slathered in hot sauce. He set the food down in front of Silverstream wordlessly, saluting before he flew back to the kitchen.

Silverstream picked up a leg, but her grip was too clumsy and she dropped it immediately. She shot Gallus an embarrassed smile and picked it up again. The leg was nearly half as big as her face, and she began tearing at the tender meat, enjoying the flavor of the spice and the mouth-watering texture of the crunchy skin as she ripped into it.

She was so hungry. It was like she had been starving herself for days on end. One eagle leg was quickly gnawed down to the bone, and she began eating a wing.

“Do you remember that last dinner?” she asked Gallus, pointedly looking down at the wing as she devoured it.

“Yep,” Gallus said.

“It was such a mess.”

“That’s an understatement,” Gallus said, chuckling.

Silverstream’s heart raced. “I think about that entire evening all of the time.”

“Are you drunk right now?” Gallus asked, gulping down another drink.

“I don’t know,” said Silverstream, lolling her head from left to right.

Gallus poured himself some more rum, and after a moment’s hesitation, poured her some too. She wiped her beak on her talons, and then wiped her talons on her chest before picking her glass up and taking a long drink, at the same time as he did.

They pulled away from their glasses, sighing, and slammed them on the table.

“I don’t wanna be here,” said Gallus.

“I’m sorry about Gabby and Gilda,” said Silverstream.

“Whatever,” Gallus muttered.

“It’s not ‘whatever’,” Silverstream asserted, leaning forward. She was swaying slightly. “You matter, Gallus. How you feel matters. It really does. It matters a lot.”

And then, unsure if she was doing it out of stupidity or recklessness or both, she reached forward and she took his talon in hers. He immediately tried to pull away, because of course he would, but her grip tightened and made him stay still.

Gallus looked at Silverstream. His eyes were as empty as they had been earlier, except for one thing—some kind of spark, she wasn’t sure how to describe it—that she couldn’t put a name to.

They didn’t speak for a moment. They simply sat there, holding each other’s talons as the delicious scent of eagle wings wafted by their nostrils.

Silverstream had an idea. She beamed. “You remember when I’d slip you my leftovers at lunch?”

“Yes,” Gallus mumbled.

She pushed the plate to his side of the table, two delectable pieces of meat still hot and ready to eat.

Gallus looked down at it, and the unnamable aspect to his gaze that Silverstream had seen not seconds before vanished when he blinked next.

His talon tore away from hers. Gallus took the plate and tossed it away.

Silverstream’s eyes watched the plate’s arc as it sailed through the air before it crashed into the ground. The shatter echoed through her mind.

They looked at each other again, but whatever miracle that had taken place in the previous seconds was lost, and before Silverstream could talk again, Gallus was leaving the cafeteria.

When Silverstream could no longer hear his steps trailing away from her, she closed her eyes. She didn’t cry, for Crosswind was in the kitchen, and would hear her, but she wanted to.

GHOSTS

It was a good thing the med bay was close to the kitchen. Gallus wouldn’t have known what to do if he were forced to explore the other decks of the Coralvreckan while drunk. The sailors from the Bloody Herring seemed to have recovered and left. When he entered the med bay, there was only one occupied bed, and it was taken up by Late Harvest.

She smiled as he approached and took a seat by her side. “Took you long enough.” She looked him up and down one more time, her smile withering slightly. “Are you drunk?”

“How could you tell?” asked Gallus.

“You were walking like the floor’s covered in soap.”

“Oh,” Gallus said, and giggled to himself. “Whoops.”

“Where’s Captain Silverstream?” asked Harvest. She craned her neck, attempting to looking behind him for anyone else. “I thought she went to get you.”

“Back at the mess,” said Gallus. He examined his right claw for any dirt under his talons. There was none. “Probably crying now. She cries a lot. Didn’t used to cry before, you know? That’s how she impressed me back at school. She teared up a lot, yeah, but she’d never actually cry unless it was for something important.” Gallus deflated, blowing air out of his mouth as he leaned back, draping his spine over the head of his chair. “Figured she used all her tears on the Storm King, but she got ‘em all back when—well, when—you know…?”

“What?”

Gallus laughed. He wasn’t sure why. She hadn’t told a joke, but the way she said ‘what’ was just so funny to him. And then it wasn’t. And then he was frowning. “Can’t wait till we get off this ship.”

“Why?” Harvest asked. “Wait. Gallus? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Gallus. He whipped his head forward, trying to sit normally again, but the momentum was too much and he ended up throwing his torso and face into the bed, near Harvest’s hind hooves. The fabric was nice and soft. Comfy. Soooo comfy. He closed his eyes.

“So that was a lie,” Harvest deadpanned.

“I’m sleepy, Harvest. Sleepy and tired. I hate being here. Why’d it have to be them, you know? Coulda’ dealt with any other hippogriffs but Silverstream and Terramar are...ugh.”

He couldn’t see Harvest, but by the tone of her voice he could imagine her furrowing her brows. “I thought you would be happy to see your old friends.”

“We’re not friends,” said Gallus. “Won’t ever be friends.”

“Did something happen?”

That was even funnier than her ‘what’. Gallus laughed again. “It’s a really really really really long story. I’ll tell it to you someday. Probably not.”

“I...the Captain said you were friends.”

“She wants us to be,” said Gallus. “But you know what? She can’t just decide that. Friendship’s a two way street and I’m foreclosed. Anyway, that pretty looking stained glass window that your brother built? Did you say that? Your brother built our window? Well it’s a lie. It’s nothing now. We’re never gonna be doing that again. Catrina was the last villain we’ll ever fight. I’m gonna take a nap. That cool?”

“Sure,” said Harvest. He couldn’t imagine what expression she was making now, but he could feel that she had more questions—ones that she knew he wouldn’t answer. She cleared her throat. “I’ll just, uh, sit here for another hour until you wake up, I guess. And pretend that I’m not bored out of my mind.”

“Sweet.” Gallus sighed. “Look, I’m glad that you’re alright. You’re not anyone I knew from back in Equestria. Doesn’t hurt to look at you, you know? You’re cool. Thanks, Harvest. You’re pretty cool. Did I say that already?”

“You did,” said Harvest.

“Well, you’re double cool,” Gallus said. “Good night.”

“Night,” she whispered. Before Gallus fell asleep, he could hear Harvest muttering softly. “Celestia. Deadwater could have given me a board game or a book or something.”

Silverstream stared at the rectangular screen of noisy pink light that flickered from her personal communications orb. Normally, she could reach some officer, or Seaspray, or even her mom on a few occasions, but nogriff was picking up her calls. Not since the rain started and she rescued Gallus.

Behind her, Brine sighed. “Sorry, Cap. Nogriff knows what’s up with the orbs. We should be close enough to see Aris on the horizon, but with the new situation I can’t tell if that’s true or not.” Silverstream turned her head back to glance at Brine, who gestured to the cabin window, prompting her to look outside. Or try to, anyway.

In the last hour, a thick white fog had arrived on the water and crept onto the ship. Nogriff could see more than a few metres in front of themselves. The fog wasn’t totally tangible, like Equestrian clouds, but it was undeniably dense, and it hadn’t responded to any attempts to wave it off. It was because of this that Silverstream had called a meeting with her brother and Lieutenant Brine, and because of this that they were considering dramatic measures. They needed to get back to Mount Aris, or at least send a message there. They were sailing completely blind.

Terramar fretted, pacing back and forth. “This is sounding more and more like a magical attack.”

“We should probably assume that it is,” said Brine. “Captain? Have you thought about what we discussed?”

Silverstream turned to face her second-in-command. “Yeah. I’ve decided that we’re not going to send Terramar or any of the other sailors out into the ocean yet.”

Brine nodded. “Fair enough. I simply—”

“I know,” said Silverstream. “It’s the most logical decision. If there’s a mage out there deliberately causing this storm, they might be a former affiliate of the Storm King, and if there’s a possibility that somecreature with the Storm King’s brand of magic is targeting Hippogriff waters, we have to notify Seaspray as fast as we can, with or without the communication orbs. But I don’t want anygriff out in the water just yet.”

Brine nodded again. “What do you suggest?”

“I’m going to use the Amulet.” Silverstream looked down to the blue gem hanging against her chest.

Brine and Terramar’s eyes widened, but they kept their opinions to themselves.

The Amulet of Aurora had a limited amount of power, and certain abilities depleted more energy than others. Things such as tracking, creating light, or the few times that the amulet had bore warnings of future events, were trivial. Silverstream suspected that they didn’t use any power. Other things, such as dispelling magic, were extremely taxing.

“I’ll ask it to take the rain and the fog away, across this side of the sea. From Mount Aris to Trottingham,” Silverstream said. She wouldn’t have access to the amulet’s powers for weeks.

“Across the—are you sure?” Terramar asked.

“If we’re sailing blind, then other ships might be as well. It’s the safest way out that I can see right now. For as many creatures as possible,” said Silverstream. She looked to Brine. “What do you think?”

Brine side-eyed Terramar. “Yes.”

Terramar raised an eyebrow at both of them. “What?”

“Do you think you could swim fast enough to reach Seaquestria?” Silverstream asked.

He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “No. I can’t. Your plan is best.”

Silverstream exhaled. “Let’s go outside.”

She went to the corner of the cabin and donned a favorite coat of hers—a tartan peacoat decked out in warmth and waterproofing enchantments, with a few of her medals pinned on its breast. The wingholes were a little tight, and tended to tickle as she slipped her wings through, but once it was on it made her feel like a Captain more than any other coat, and she needed to remind herself that she was responsible for the creatures on her ship. She needed to feel like she could fix everything that was wrong.

They left the cabin, stepping onto the main deck where the rain fell as hard as the worst storms they’d weathered, pelting them mercilessly with thick drops. Brine showed no reaction to her feathers getting wet. Terramar frowned. The rain together with the fog made for a truly dreadful atmosphere.

Somewhere, out in the fog, Silverstream could hear the tired grunts of her crew working the ropes and maintaining the intricacies of the ship. She put on a slight smile for them, and Brine, and her brother. With any luck, they would be fine and home and in front of a warm fire in no time. They just had to find their way there.

Silverstream walked with conviction even though the fog made it seem like she could step off of the boat at any point. She found her way to the bow, and gingerly stepped off of it, onto the figurehead. Behind her, Terramar fretted with concern. Silverstream ignored him. She took the amulet off and held it out in front of her, focusing on the well of magic that she had been connected to for the past few years. Shine, she thought. Show us the way home.

The amulet powered on. Silverstream had never been completely sure how she knew when it was working. She figured that maybe it was telepathic, but other times she wondered if it was some sort of sentient being that she had a connection to. Regardless, power flowed into the amulet as it gathered energy; energy from the sea and Silverstream and the thick vapor around them, from the oxygen and the sky and from the well that contained Silverstream’s emotions.

The amulet began to glow. A soft blue light at first, becoming more and more intense by the second until Silverstream could hardly look at it, but she stared anyway, as if breaking eye contact with the thing would surely spell out uncertain death, and then the amulet went and sputtered out like a candle under sudden rain.

It hadn’t worked.

Silverstream bought the amulet close to her face, appraising it. There were no cracks in its gem. Nothing that would have told her it was broken somehow. She stretched her leg out again, her claw’s grip on the amulet’s chain tightened. Come on, she thought. Come on, Amy. Show us the way home. Clear the rain. Clear the fog. Shine! Lead the way!

The amulet glowed brighter than it had the first time. Then its light died. Again.

“That’s. That’s not good, is it?” Terramar said. He and Brine were waiting back at the bow.

“There’s—something is wrong,” Silverstream said. “I’ve never—the amulet’s never—”

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” asked Brine.

Silverstream held the amulet out in front of her, speaking audibly this time. “Come on! Amulet! Shine! Work, please!”

The light didn’t even appear this time. Rain threw itself against the metal, sliding off of it as quickly as it made contact. Suddenly the amulet was like an injured bird in her claws. She brought it close to her chest, looking over its surface again, but there was no explanation for why it wasn’t working. This was the same amulet that had managed to interfere, if only for a minute, with Princess Twilight’s rising of the sun once, and that was some of the most powerful Equestrian magic in existence. The fact that she couldn’t seem to clear away the fog was...was disturbing, to say the least.

Silverstream backed off of the figurehead, stepping back onto the bow, rejoining Terramar and Brine. They were soaked. Her brother was anxious, which wasn’t a new look for him but was completely justified given the circumstances. Brine, on the other hand, looked contemplative. Silverstream put the amulet back on her neck and caught her second in command’s attention with her eyes. “What’s up, Brine?”

Brine looked back at her. Her bright, baby blue feathers looked more purple in the dim light of the fog. “The amulet’s not working.”

“No,” said Silverstream. “It’s not.”

“But we don’t just have the amulet right now,” said Brine. “We have the Crown of Grover.”

Suddenly Silverstream regretted briefing Brine on the other artifacts in the amulet’s set. She shook her head. “I don’t think that’ll work.”

“Why not?” asked Brine.

“Because I don’t.”

“Streamie, please,” Terramar begged. “Using the amulet together with the crown is a great idea!”

“The other option is to throw Gallus overboard,” Brine said. “Whatever the reason for this rain and fog, the target seems to be him. Maybe we’ll be spared if we leave him to be caught by whatever’s hunting him.”

“Absolutely not,” Silverstream said, stamping a claw on the deck. “Our next move...” She faltered. The raindrops drumming on her head made it difficult to think. She shook her head, dislodging the water soaking into her crest feathers. “Okay. I—the crown idea is the right move. But let me go talk to Gallus. You guys wait here. Find some umbrellas, maybe.”

Brine saluted her, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Terramar did too. Silverstream beamed, and left them on the bow.

She crossed her boat, past her crew moving to and fro, all frowny-faced and trying to do their best in the rain. She would get them out of this. She just had to get Gallus to use the crown with her again. Something that they hadn’t done in...in a while.

Her steps began to slow the closer she got to the lower decks, but she simply remembered her crew, and her responsibility, and kept walking. When she opened the heavy door leading down, she closed it behind her, took her first step down the stairs, and she fell.

Silverstream’s temples met the edge of a stair. Her body twisted and turned and smashed into the stairs until it crashed hard against the floor. She lay there for a few seconds, paralyzed by the aching pain in her neck, sides, head and shoulders. Had she suddenly lost her sea legs?

Silverstream lifted her head, trying to steady herself, but the ever-present rocking of the boat and the patter of the rain were gone.

Everything was...different. The air was warm, and smelled vaguely of cupcakes. Silverstream stood up, trying to orient herself in the middle of a linoleum floor. A—a dance floor?

A pair of ponies came spinning towards her. She scrambled back as they whirled past. She looked around, seeing that other ponies were similarly paired up, dancing joyously and laughing. Somewhere at the front of the dance floor, the passionate notes of a swing record came flying through as the—the party raged on. Silverstream looked to the walls of the room, vaguely recognizing the streamers and lights that decorated them, and found a large, hoof-painted banner that told her where she was in exuberant lettering. It was the School of Friendship’s third annual Amity Ball.

Silverstream looked down and examined herself. Her tartan coat still draped heavy on her shoulders, and the Amulet of Aurora was still on her neck. Evidently, this wasn’t a time spell. Probably. Maybe...

“Silly!” came a desperate, nasally voice.

Silverstream turned to see Gallus, in a full tuxedo, flying towards her, practically landing at her claws. He looked nervous, but he looked innocent, too. He anxiously scanned the crowd. “You see Terramar anywhere? I really gotta talk to him.”

“You’re flying,” said Silverstream, stepping back. Her heart rate began to pick up. Where in Tartarus was this? “Gallus, your wings.”

“What do you mean you haven’t seen him?” the younger Gallus asked. Worry tore at his features. His eyes couldn't settle on a single place. “He’s your brother! Ugh, okay, sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. Look, just tell him I’m looking for him if you see him, alright? And come by the table. Sandbar’s wondering where you’ve been.”

Silverstream watched as he took to the air and flew away from the main hall. She never understood why all the dances were hosted in front of the entrance. Maybe it was to make it easier to travel to from the dorms. She had always forgotten to ask.

The streamers and confetti and glitter on the floor were all classic Pinkie Pie brand—there were subtle differences in them compared to the generic party store stuff that she still remembered, even after graduating. The stony walls were the special shade of purple that one couldn’t find anywhere else. The students…

November Rain. Sweet Biscuit. Violet Twirl. Citrine Spark. Silverstream hadn’t forgotten any of her graduating class’s names. She knew everypony—everycreature here. She backed away from the dance floor. Her head felt woozy. She had to find a way out of this place, wherever this was. She had to escape.

Silverstream found a door, one of Professor Pinkie’s classrooms, and she took a last look back, seeing her friends’ table.

Sandbar, Yona and Smolder were there. They seemed to be in a really engaging conversation, if the way that Smolder’s dramatic gesturing and Sandbar’s laughing was to be believed. They looked—they looked so good like that. Silverstream found that she didn’t want to look away.

But she did. She turned back to the door and she turned its knob and rushed through before she could change her mind.

A mirror greeted her. Silverstream whirled around to find that she was at the end of her old dorm room. Sunlight came in through the window. That only happened in the morning.

There was a bottle of empty wine on the floor, and on her bed was a black cap and gown with a purple sash the color of Headmare Starlight’s fur. Silverstream shook her head. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. But why was it getting so many things right?

The door opened, and into the room stepped Ocellus, her cap and gown on. Looking as beautiful as ever. Her eyes and elytra sparkled, literally, and her chitin looked as glossy as dew. She tilted her head at Silverstream. “You okay? Hurry up! We’re gonna miss Gallus’s speech!”

Silverstream swallowed. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I know,” Ocellus said. Her voice grew soft as she looked around the dorm, fondly admiring the desk and the bed and the bottle of wine on the floor. “I’m gonna miss this place, too. But it’s like we all agreed last night: it’s about moving forward.”

“You’re so young. You don’t even have your antlers yet…” Silverstream’s heart felt like it had been stretched thin. She shook her head, looking past Ocellus, to the door, and she walked to it, passing the changeling—

But not before Ocellus wrapped a hoof around Silverstream's hind leg. She smiled, as cheery and serene as everycreature was on graduation day. “You should jump into the water.”

“What?” asked Silverstream.

“The water will wash it off. You’ll feel so clean.”

The grip on Silverstream's leg tightened immensely, impossible strong for how young Ocellus appeared. She grunted in discomfort and hopped forward, yanking her leg away before she ran out of the door, slammed it behind her and stepped into the hall.

No, it wasn’t their hall. It was another room.

Silverstream saw herself. Her younger self. Four, maybe six years ago. She was pacing back and forth, half her current height. A quick scan of the surroundings told Silverstream that she was in the Treehouse. But when was she? What was happening?

Her eyes were red. Really red, like she had been crying for days. Every few times she paced the length of the room, she would stop halfway through and lurch forward and sob. Her feathers were matted and greasy. The room smelled like mildew.

Silverstream looked to the open door, and she approached it unsurely, but she stopped when she heard the sound of wings. Two strong, feathered wings, elegant in their flaps despite the underlying impatience in their rhythm.

Gallus was on his way.

Silverstream realized what night this was. She leapt away from the door. “No,” she said. She turned around. “No!” she yelled. “Stop! Stop it! Get out of my head!”

Her younger self stopped her pacing and turned to look her in the eye, and she beamed like she was weathering a storm.

Silverstream screamed. She tripped over herself backpedaling, landing on her side. She turned just as her doppelganger pounced.

There was a noise in the hall. Harvest opened her eyes. At the foot of her bed, Gallus still slumbered. She looked to the door, waiting for another instance of whatever noise that awakened her, but none came. The air seemed viscous, somehow. Harvest wanted to go back to sleep, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Gallus let out a loud snore. How long had he been sleeping for? She stared at his face, feeling nothing but jealousy for the utter peace that the griffon seemed to be in. What was he dreaming about? Nothing important, probably. Gallus had never struck her as someone who dreamt about real life events.

Meanwhile, Harvest could only relive the good ol’ days of her past. Working on her parents farm, wanting to leave but not realizing yet how much she would miss the sunshine over the acres of crops...

The thought of closing her eyes and going back to sleep came back to her. Her head hurt. It reminded her of that time her brother smacked her in the face with a shovel. It was a low, aching throbbing that felt like her brain was ready to burst.

Before she could go back to sleep, there was another noise outside. This time, it sounded clearer. Harvest recognized it as a scream.

She scooted forward, getting close enough to prod Gallus in the head. “Hey. Captain. Celestia, you and Silverstream are both captains, aren’t you? That’s gonna get confusing quick. Wake up, dude. There’s something outside and it’s freaking me out.”

Gallus swatted her hoof away. “Stop, Gabs.”

“I’m not whoever that is,” said Harvest. She poked him in the temple again, harder this time.

“What?” Gallus snapped, standing at attention. He was still groggy, but for the most part it looked like he had slept the alcohol off.

Harvest flinched, but then Gallus’s eyes grew apologetic and she remembered the situation at hoof. She cut off his impending apology with a hard look. “There’s something outside.”

“What do you mean?” Gallus asked, turning to look at the door. “If there’s somegriff outside then they can just come inside. I didn’t lock the door or anything.”

“I heard a scream,” said Harvest. “Go check. I’m spooked.”

Gallus shot her a glare before leaning back to yawn. “Fine, but if it’s nothing I’m taking another cat nap.”

“Aren’t cat naps just naps, for you?” Harvest said.

Gallus glared at her again before he got up and walked to the end of the med bay. The air seemed even thicker now; almost syrupy. Harvest watched in fear as he opened the door. Her ears wouldn’t stop flicking up, then down, then up again.

Gallus stood in the doorway, staring at something across the hall.

“Is everything alright?” Harvest called.

He didn’t answer.

“Gallus!” Harvest cried out. “Talk to me!”

It dawned on her that Gallus’s tail had become completely still, and the fur on his lower half had flared up, the hairs on his legs and hips now standing on end.

“Gallus!”

Gallus came back inside and closed the door. There was the same numb frenzy in his eyes that Harvest had seen back in Griffonstone, when he had come to get her out of Greta’s inn. He walked a few steps away from the door before a noise on the other side made him whirl around, his centre of gravity lowered into a combat pose. But nothing came through the door. He waited for a few more moments before relaxing again, slightly.

Harvest was shaking. “What happened?”

“We gotta get out of here,” said Gallus. His brow was furrowed into a hard line, and his voice was resolute.

“Why?”

“Because,” he replied. “Come on. Let me help you off.”

“What did you see out there?” Harvest asked. Gallus put an arm around her shoulders and helped her stabilize herself as she slid off the bed and got to her hooves. Her sense of balance took a second to calibrate, and she nearly fell, but she managed to stand fine on her own before Gallus led her away from the bed.

“You’ll see,” Gallus said. “Try not to panic. I think there’s been some sort of attack on the ship.”

“An attack?” Harvest asked. So this was similar to Griffonstone. Except they were in the middle of the ocean. There was nowhere to run.

Gallus took her to the end of the room. Harvest felt dizzy. She blinked extra long to stave off the nausea as they walked there. When they reached the door, he stopped and stared at the knob. Harvest waited for him to open it. She didn’t know what was out there. He did. He was probably gathering himself for—for a fight or something.

Gallus opened the door, glancing back to her as he stepped into the freezing cold.

Wait.

Beyond the door was a valley of snow under a deep gray sky. The air was no longer thick with humidity, instead crisp with cold. Harvest could only look on in awe as she stepped past the doorframe and into the snow.

“This is the Crystal Empire,” said Harvest. “How—?” She turned back to the door, but it was gone. “Oh, fuck. What’s happening?”

“I’m not completely sure,” said Gallus. “Look.”

Harvest turned to see a glowing dome in the snow, as tall as a small hut and teal in color; a magical force field of some kind. But there was something off about its presence. Not anything bad. Just different. Exotic.

“Should we go in?” she asked.

Gallus was already walking. Harvest followed, grumbling to herself. She had only visited the Crystal Empire once, and it was miserable. The cold didn’t vibe with her at all, not to mention that she hated the way all of the buildings looked, all pointy and irregular.

They waded through the snow, both shivering madly, until they got to the force field, and just before entering Gallus froze again.

“What is it this time?” groaned Harvest. Her head was beginning to act up again. She nearly regretted waking Gallus up in the first place.

Her companion cast a side-eye to her. There was a slight frown on his beak. “I know this place. We’re in a memory of mine.”

“A memory?” Harvest looked around her. “When were you in the Crystal Empire?”

“I was here for Lavan,” he said.

“Lav—” Harvest shook her head. “Lavan was defeated by Princess Twilight and the armies of Yakyakistan.”

“That’s the cover story.”

“Then what happened?”

Gallus stepped into the field, which hummed as he passed through. Harvest rolled her eyes, and followed him in. When she passed through the thin veil of glowing teal, warmth hit her in the face, and the snow on her coat melted off and dried at once.

“Where were we, Oss?” Gallus’s voice came from somewhere off to the side, but it sounded younger. Much younger.

Harvest turned to see a fire pit. There was no snow around it. Instead, the ground was simply dry soil. A group of six creatures were gathered around the pit. A yak and a light green earth pony sat on one end, a dragon and a changeling on the other, and in the middle were two creatures that were familiar to her: a pink hippogriff and a blue griffon whose wings looked healthy, straight and unbroken.

She turned to the Gallus that she had entered the force field with, and found that he was looking on the sight with a grim expression. He wandered closer to the scene, and as Harvest took his lead she heard the tail-end of a conversation.

“I was reminding everyone about Lavan’s specifics,” said the changeling—what had Gallus just called her? Oss...Ocellus? She looked familiar, but Harvest couldn’t put a hoof on it. Maybe she was a princess or something.

“Because apparently no one reads anymore,” Ocellus continued.

“Me and Yona were helping Prince Shining calm everypony down!” the earth pony protested.

“I wasn’t talking about you,” said Ocellus. “Well, not just about you.”

The orange dragon beside Ocellus blew a raspberry. “You know that I have a hard time remembering things.”

“Princess Cadance and Professor Sunburst have determined that the recent disappearances in the Crystal Empire are linked with an evil presence summoned from another dimension,” Ocellus said.

She waved a hoof at the fire pit, the flames turning blue and flaring up, half of it floating out of the pit and morphing into a screen as long as a pony and as thin as paper. On the screen came the image of what looked like a minotaur up to his shoulders in fire.

Harvest backed away a couple of steps, eyeing the fire cautiously. Changelings could use magic? That must have been where the force field came from. It wasn’t a complete surprise, but it was definitely new to her. She felt a touch of regret for never visiting a hive, but she could only suppress her fear of bugs for so long.

Ocellus spoke again. “We’re here to stop this evil presence—Lavan, in case that wasn’t clear—while Princess Twilight and the OG—OG? Am I saying that right? The OG professors stay in Canterlot to figure the other stuff out. Princess Cadance isn’t sure otherwise how a Crystal Pony managed to gather enough magic to summon something as powerful as Lavan.”

“Wait,” Silverstream interrupted. She looked tiny compared to the Silverstream that Harvest had met. “Somepony summoned him? Why?”

“Lavan was banished from this realm because he would lend his power to vengeful creatures,” explained Ocellus. “We’re guessing that a misguided citizen of the Crystal Empire spent some time in the libraries, maybe snuck into the royal forbidden archives and found a spell that would help him get back at somepony he was angry with.”

“This is why libraries are a bad idea,” said the dragon.

Ocellus scoffed and waved her hoof in the fire-screen’s direction again. Lavan’s picture disappeared, replaced by the image of a black castle in the middle of a snowy valley. “This is the part that I’m sure everyone remembers: the last squad that Commander Berrytwist led through the tundra encountered this castle. They ran into some serious trouble, and chose to make enough time for Berrytwist to come back with the intel that they gathered. She maintains that Lavan is currently taking up residence here.”

The image of the castle then disappeared, and three portraits replaced it. A dark green changeling with red antlers and purple eyes, a sienna-colored yak wearing a black crown, and a periwinkle hippogriff with striking golden eyes all appeared on screen.

Gallus—the younger Gallus—glanced to the hippogriff sitting beside him. Harvest saw her eyes harden.

“This is a rescue mission,” said Ocellus. “We only have a few hours before Sunburst notices that we’re gone and figures that we’ve gone off to rescue our loved ones. He doesn’t think that we can do it. Neither do Commander Berrytwist, or Princess Cadance, or Shining Armor. What do you guys think of that?”

“Screw them!” Gallus called, his voice getting lost in the chorus of his friends’ cheering.

Ocellus nodded, her wings buzzing, rubbing together to make a chirp of approval. “Now it’s time to decide our plan of attack.”

“Storm the castle!” the dragon called, resulting in a cheerful roar from the yak.

Harvest shook her head, breaking her hypnotic focus on the conversation, and stepped in front of the Gallus that she knew. “What in tartarus is all this?”

Gallus tore his eyes away from the fire pit as the creatures continued their planning. “I told you, something’s accessing my memories.”

“Okay. But why?”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking past the force field. “Somecreature might have connected our minds via dreamscape, but I can’t sense Princess Luna and I don’t dream about my memories. Ever. This could also be some kind of mind magic, but magic doesn’t really...beat around the bush like this.”

Harvest glanced back to the creatures. “You look so young.”

“I’m about to get a whole lot older,” Gallus snorted.

“What do you mean?”

“This is right before I get three world leaders killed.”

Harvest snapped her head back towards the griffon. “Excuse me? I don’t remember hearing about that.”

“Because it was covered up,” said Gallus. Harvest tried to catch some sort of emotion in his eyes. They were well guarded and neutral, but just beyond that was a soft glimmer of pain. She felt her heart sink, and she looked away, joining him in staring at the force field.

“Do we go back out?” she asked.

“We don’t have a choice.” Gallus began walking, and this time, Harvest was happy to follow.

“Fuck you!” roared the younger Gallus behind them. “What do you have? A stupid seashell?”

“And fire breath,” came the raspy voice of the dragon, dripping with cruelty. “You know, something useful.”

The argument continued, with the other creatures chiming in, desperately trying to get the two to calm down, but it only got louder from there. Harvest didn’t listen, didn’t look back. This memory wasn’t hers. She wouldn’t ask too many questions.

When they stepped back through the force field next, it wasn’t into more snow. The cold evaporated in a second, and they were now standing on solid ground, at the side of some sort of living room. Harvest looked around, seeing walls made from purple stone, pillows and blankets and beanbag chairs strewn about the floor, and two couches surrounding a comfy-looking rug. Whatever this place was, it looked like a strange blend of a hookah parlour and a room in the Crystal Empire palace.

A look out of one of the windows told Harvest that the current time was night, and that they were likely in Equestria. Luna’s moon looked familiar in some way. A flash of homesickness struck Harvest then, but she had no time to dwell on it.

One of the grand double doors was thrown open. Harvest watched as the dragon from the previous memory flew in, shooting straight for one of the couches.

Harvest side-eyed Gallus. “Do you think she can see us?”

“Don’t think so,” said Gallus.

Harvest nodded, and walked to the couch. Gallus stayed behind.

“What’s her name?” she asked as she arrived at the front of the couch. The dragon had bundled herself up in a thick blanket—Yakyakistan wool, probably—and was clearly trying to get to sleep.

“Smolder,” said Gallus. Venom coursed through his voice.

“Old friend?” Harvest asked, knowing the answer.

“Never,” Gallus growled.

Harvest walked to the rug, looking around the room. She wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for. Something dangerous, maybe. She felt a need to keep her mind occupied lest the pain from her head be the only thing that she could think about. “Have any ideas about what’s going on?”

“I have one.”

“What?”

“We should wait for this to play out first.”

Harvest squinted at the now sleeping dragon. “What is this place?”

“The Treehouse.”

“This doesn’t look like a tree—”

One of the doors swung open again. The younger version of Gallus flew in, eyes red and underscored with heavy bags that were most definitely from sleep deprivation. He had an air of oblivious exhaustion about him that disappeared as soon as he saw Smolder on the couch. He turned and glided over, landing beside her but pointedly not making any eye contact.

Awkwardness hung heavy in the air. Harvest backed away. She found a stray beanbag chair and sat on it, keeping her eyes on the pair on the couch. Somewhere in her peripherals, she could see her Gallus walking around, keeping his eyes on the walls of the place like he was looking for mouse holes.

The quiet discomfort broke when Smolder cleared her throat. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Young Gallus shook his head.

“Me neither,” said Smolder. Harvest watched as the dragon not so subtly scooted closer to him. “Was it…”

“They keep crying,” Gallus answered. “They keep crying. I don’t know what to do. No one cries in Griffonstone. What are you supposed to do? To say? All we’ve learned in class...I’ve either forgotten it or it was never useful in the first place. What am I supposed to say to Ocellus? Yona? How do I—?” he cut himself off. There was a slight whine to his breaths. He was trying not to cry himself.

Smolder’s lip quivered. She turned to Gallus and attempted to say something, but seemed to lose grip of her words. Instead, she scooted closer to him, and laid an upwards facing claw beside his.

Gallus’s eyes stared at her claw for a long moment. Then he put his talon on hers, and they intertwined digits as Smolder let out a relieved breath.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, so soft that Harvest found herself leaning forward to hear it.

“I know,” said Gallus. “I know. It’s okay. I’m sorry too.”

Smolder whispered again. Harvest didn’t catch it fully this time, but she thought she might have heard something like “It’s our fault.”

Gallus nodded. “We should sleep. We have school tomorrow.”

“Headmare Starlight said that we could take the week off,” said Smolder.

“I’m going back to class,” Gallus explained. “What else am I going to do?”

“Stay here?” Smolder suggested. “Or, I...I was thinking of going home. To the Dragonlands, I mean. You could come with. Just for a week or two. My brother would like you.”

Gallus laughed so breathily that Harvest thought he had hiccuped. “I don’t think I want to leave Ponyville for a while. Bad things seem to happen when I do.”

“Aw, Gallus...” Smolder whimpered.

Gallus’s wing stretched out, sliding around Smolder’s shoulders, and their entwined claws came apart so Smolder could wrap her arms around Gallus’s chest, digging her face into his cream colored feathers.

Though Harvest had been watching closely as the memory played out, she was struck with the gross feeling of guilt for violating such a private moment with her presence.

“Memory’s over.” Gallus was right beside her.

Harvest screamed, springing to her feet and backing away a few steps. When the moment was over, and she realized that nothing evil had snuck up on her, she jabbed a hoof angrily at Gallus. “Don’t scare me like that!”

Gallus either didn’t hear her or was ignoring her. He stepped closer to the pair of creatures on the couch, who were now falling asleep in each other’s embrace. “Which one of you will it be?” he asked testily. “I’m really itching to get my claws on whoever’s responsible for digging into my head like this.”

Neither Gallus’s younger self nor his dragon companion responded. Gallus groaned. “Is it really gonna be like that?”

“Like what?” Harvest asked, looking at the young Gallus and Smolder. “Look, I’ll ask it a thousand times if I have to: what is going on?”

Her Gallus turned to her, his voice on the rise, but that was when the fireball struck him and exploded.

Harvest yelled in surprise, leaping away. Her eyes widened several degrees. Smolder was standing up, and the Gallus that she was holding previously stayed frozen in time, tenderly hugging a dragon that was no longer there.

Smolder’s eyes, previously a brilliant shiny blue, were now green and sickly from the iris to the sclera. She opened her mouth and roared, but not anything like how Harvest thought a dragon would sound like. Smolder’s voice had changed drastically. She sounded like a metal bar being bent in half.

Gallus was lying on the ground, groaning. Harvest went to run to him, but he put a claw up, and turned to Smolder with an excited sort of hatred in his eyes. His wings were flared now, and Harvest was reminded of the harsh, misshapen bend in their outer halves. Gallus lowered his stance. “Stay back, Harvest. I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

Smolder roared that awful, metallic roar again. Harvest followed her orders. From what she could see, the Gallus on the couch wasn’t about to start moving, so she took cover behind it and watched.

Her Gallus seemed alive in a way that Harvest had never seen. He deftly dodged a rapid series of fireballs and managed to cross the distance between him and Smolder in no time. A perfectly timed leap gave him the opportunity to swipe at Smolder’s throat, but his sharp talons, definitely enough to slash a mammal’s neck, scratched harmlessly at her scales.

Smolder didn’t acknowledge the failed attack, and kicked him in the ribs. Air audibly expelled from Gallus’s lungs as Smolder took to the air, wrapping her arms around his midsection and spinning him around, quickly building momentum and slamming him into the ground. Gallus grunted. Harvest thought she heard something crack.

“Gallus!” she cried. A pained grunt came her way in response.

Smolder dove down on the griffon, aiming to stomp on his head, but Gallus rolled away at the last second, getting to his belly and immediately shooting for her knees. He tackled them, hugging them close, toppling her to the ground.

Smolder hit the floor hard, and Gallus jumped on the advantage. He kept his body close to hers as he hauled himself upwards, pressing his entire weight on her before he was in a position to straddle her torso and sit up, where he took a hold of one of Smolder’s horns and pulled her head towards him.

Gallus proceeded to drive a talon into Smolder’s eye, and upon hearing the same metallic screech that she emitted before, inserted another into the wound and thrust as deep as he could. The awful screaming ended with the obscene squelch of flesh being torn into, and Harvest couldn’t help ducking back behind the couch and dry heaving.

She then felt a wet talon on her back. Harvest swatted it away. She turned and saw Gallus wearing a look of concern. “Disgusting!” she shouted.

“Oh,” Gallus sheepishly glanced to his claw, dripping hot pink blood. He proceeded to smear it on his chest. “Sorry.”

“What the fuck was that? You just murdered her! Your friend!”

“It,” Gallus corrected. “I killed it.”

“What, just because she’s a dragon you don’t feel any feelings of sympathy for her?”

Gallus glared at her and gestured to where Smolder’s body was. “Take a look, Harvest.”

“No!”

“Do it,” Gallus growled. “Seriously. You’ll feel better.”

Harvest grit her teeth and turned.

What she saw lying on the floor was not a dragon. It looked...it looked like a pony. No, it was too lanky for that. A hippogriff, maybe, but without any wings. Its coat was a patchwork design of other creatures’ coat types. It was green all over. Green fur turning to green feathers and green scales on its lower half. And its blood was the pink that was currently soaking Gallus’s chest.

Harvest came closer to it, quickly realizing that it wasn’t just fur or feathers. It was covered in some kind of vegetation. The kind that grew on rocks near the beach. It looked like a timberwolf of the sea, except fused with a hippogriff, somehow. A bit of sea dragon, too.

“I’ve never seen one in real life. I don’t think anycreature has claimed to in like, thirty years,” said Gallus. “It’s a Kelpie. They’re hippogriffs. They used to be, at least. Hippogriffs that were exiled from Mount Aris for messing with the wrong magic. I honestly just figured that they were an old navy legend, but I guess they’re real.”

“Kelpie,” Harvest repeated. “Don’t think I’ve heard of them. And what, do they have mind magic?”

“Kind of,” Gallus answered. “What they’re supposed to do is torture sailors with their past regrets. They feed off of the misery that reliving the ugly parts of your past creates. They’re also supposed to eat you while it’s happening. Looks like this one just felt like screwing with me first.”

“Are we done, then?” Harvest asked. “Why is this place still here?”

“There’s more than one,” Gallus said, searching the walls of the Treehouse. “That’s what I think, at least. It might take too long to hunt down every single one. We need the Amulet of Aurora. We need to find Silverstream and make her expend its full power. That’ll ward off any dark magic on board.”

Gallus walked towards the door, past the kelpie corpse. Harvest trailed behind, but he seemed to be dragging his feet. He must have been, because she passed him and got to the door in no time.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, looking over her shoulder

Gallus was stopped a few paces behind her, staring back at the couch where his younger self was frozen.

“...Hey,” she called.

Gallus’s wings twitched, and he turned around. “Sorry,” he said, laughing softly. “I thought maybe, I don’t know. I saw something. But it was nothing. Let’s go.”

“Stop! Stop!”

Just as Gallus arrived, Silverstream took an elbow to her jaw, roughly scraping a cut into her cheek. Her head lolled to the side as he flew in, appeared to spot something, and then landed towards the end of the room.

Silverstream cried as claws tore into her chest, ripping out feathers and slicing into her flesh. Her double was absurdly strong, and beyond that, good at fighting. Silverstream struggled, trying her best to throw the identical hippogriff off of her.

“Gally?” said her double, her face showing no signs of exertion even as she held Silverstream down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Silverstream glanced to where Gallus was. He was frozen, staring at where she was supposed to be in this memory. “You didn’t,” he said, talking to the wall. “What—what’s up?”

“I woke you up,” said her double, managing to get a good grip on Silverstream’s neck with both of her claws. Silverstream tried to gasp as pressure fastened around her throat. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been...been thinking. I can’t stop thinking. Seeing. I can’t sleep. Haven’t slept for more than an hour.”

“Me neither,” said Gallus. His voice was growing faint. Or maybe that was Silverstream’s hearing. Her vision was growing black.

Silverstream’s legs kicked around, and she found her left leg able to wrap around the leg of her double. She grabbed one of the arms holding her down, the left one, and pulled down hard on it before turning in the same direction.

Her double showed no surprise as Silverstream reversed their positions and ripped her claws off of her throat. “I’m hungry,” she said. “Wanna make grilled cheese?”

“That’ll wake Smolder up,” came Gallus’s voice.

Silverstream raised a fist, but saw the grief-stricken wetness in her double’s face. Her face. She leapt backwards, wings flared, ending up beside Gallus. He was emoting exactly as she remembered this memory, albeit to the wall and not her.

“Hey,” he spoke softly. “You know we all love you, right?”

“I know,” said her double. She began to stand up. There was something wrong with her eyes. Some sickly green streaks interrupting the purple of her irises.

“You know we won’t leave you?”

“I know,” her double, who was now standing stable, repeated. She crouched, getting ready to charge. “Can I tell you something?” she asked.

Silverstream looked into her double’s eyes and braced herself.

“Yes,” said Gallus. “Of course. Anything, Silly.”

“Remember what happened before we got to that castle?”

“I do,” he said. “But I have a feeling that you’re gonna give me a refresher course.”

“You ran off after fighting with Smolder and we waited. We waited for hours and hours until Ocellus realized where you were. Then we rushed to Lavan’s and we found you, and then we could use the crown and we took him down.”

Silverstream blinked. “I-I didn’t say it like that.”

Gallus’s voice grew softer. “Yeah…”

Her double charged. Silverstream waited until she was close enough before she took to the air. As her opponent raced under her, Silverstream bucked downwards, connecting with the center of her double’s back.

The doppelganger fell to the floor, sliding until she hit the wall, but she immediately got back up, eyes as miserable and grieving as ever, and began to speak. “I can’t stop thinking, you know? I can’t stop thinking about how if we were like, like even ten minutes earlier my dad would still be alive, and after that I can’t help but notice that I can’t look at you anymore. That’s silly, right? Why wouldn’t I be able to look at Gally?”

Silverstream landed, panting. She felt a warmth on her chest and glanced down: the Amulet of Aurora was glowing. Finally! She cheered within her mind. It’s about time, Amy!

“S-Silver—”

“I can’t stop lying about it,” said her double. “I can’t pretend like I don’t blame you and that I’m not mad. You’re the reason we were late. You’re the reason my dad’s gone. And I really don’t think that—that I can stop thinking about that. I don’t think I can look at you without thinking about it. And I can’t...forgive you. I don’t know if we can be friends anymore.”

Silverstream watched numbly as her double began to charge her again, but before they could meet, she reached up and held the amulet close.

Get me out of here.

The room turned white. The floor disappeared. Silverstream didn’t bother closing her eyes as she started to fall. Tears streaked hot on her cheeks, and though her wings still worked, she didn’t bother flying.

Silverstream hit the floor. She was still at the bottom of the ship’s stairs. It was like none of that had even happened.

That was a Kelpie, wasn’t it? That was the source of the illusions. Silverstream remembered the stories. She never expected to meet one in real life.

One thing to note about those things, my dear, Seaspray’s voice entered her mind. They might simply be monsters, and the things that they show you might be just to upset you, but in the end, those are your own memories that they make you watch. Those ghosts are real.

She stood up, recognizing the familiar walls of her ship, and she wiped frantically at her wet eyes before she took off towards the medical bay. She had to keep going, find Gallus, get the crown, do everything she could, real ghosts or not.

SPECTACLE

Author's Note

A/N: Little continuity error that I caught way too late in regards to last chapter that no one probably remembers: the last villain that Gallus mentions him and his friends fighting is Catrina, not Caimus.

yes it’s important

Also I don’t know what happened but a conversation between Silverstream, Brine and Terramar was lost at some point—it pretty much illustrated Silverstream having to find Gallus so they could tap into the crown’s power

Everything’s fixed now, sorry for any confusion :fluttercry:

And apologies for the wait, I'll do my best to get the next one out much quicker.

SPECTACLE

Even after the six hours of Ex-Headmare Twilight taking them around the city, giving them a tour of the castle and hosting a scavenger hunt in the maze where Discord first made his return, and even though Silverstream was sweaty and tired from sightseeing, and all she wanted was to fly back to her room and sleep forever, seeing the sunset was well worth the effort.

It was radiant, and she wasn’t prone to calling many things radiant. Radiant was a new word to her. No one ever used it back in Seaquestria, because not many things shone like the sun underwater. Radiant was something truly special, and this sunset, with the way that it glittered as it said See you later! to the world, it was radiant.

“I take it you’re enjoying this?” Gallus asked. He had been the one scout the towers of Canterlot Castle, vetting the sights from the top of each one and coming away with the conclusion that Twilight’s old, unused tower had the best view.

“Nope!” said Silverstream. “I hate it.”

He nudged her side with an elbow. She laughed and pushed his arm away without looking. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the view.

“Silly?” Gallus asked. He stood up and circled around before flopping back down, curled up beside her like a cat.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for coming up here with me. I was kinda worried that you’d think watching the sun go down would be a stupid thing to do.”

“Why would I think that?”

“Cause I’m dumb.”

“That’s pretty true.” She sighed aloud, happily. She inched a little closer to him. The roof was warm, and the way it felt on her butt made things extra comfy. “You know, I don’t even care that we’re missing curfew!”

“I’m glad you think so,” said Gallus. He clicked his tongue. “I wish the others were here.”

“Don’t think about it too much. They’re just sleepy babies. None of them could stay up past their bedtime if the world was ending,” Silverstream said.

She smiled, and she didn’t know how, because it wasn’t a particularly large movement to make with one’s face, but there was a little shift in the air that let her know that Gallus was smiling too.

“What was your favorite part about today?” he asked. “Weirdly enough, I really liked the shopping. There’s something about seeing Smolder and Sandbar play dress up that makes me laugh.”

Silverstream had the answer immediately. “I loved everything!”

That made Gallus laugh. “But if you had to pick one part?”

Silverstream drummed her talons on the roof tiles, enjoying the pretty sound that they made when they were tapped in just the right way.

“Well…” she trailed off, and realized she hadn’t taken her eyes off the sunset since she had first started admiring it. “Right now’s pretty good, I think. I have my best friend, and I have this beautiful sunset, and it’s the end of a good, long day. I think right now is my favorite part. What about you? Oh, oops. You already—”

Arms wrapped around her and brought her close, and as Galllus squeezed her and wrapped a wing across her back, she realized that this was the first time he had ever hugged her on his own volition.

Silverstream turned her face to him, and Gallus let go so she could pivot and hug him back. And then the sunset didn’t matter anymore.

Silverstream hurried down the corridor towards the medical bay. Outside, the rain sounded like a bottle of soda fizzing over, only a thousand times louder. There were no crew members around as far as she could hear, and that made her feel so profoundly alone that when she finally reached the medical bay, she walked right into the door.

Rubbing her beak, Silverstream entered the med bay, and she found all of the beds empty. Suddenly her insides felt like she had just chugged a glass of boiling water.

Maybe Harvest had started walking around, and she and Gallus went back to the mess hall for drinks. Maybe they went to Gallus’s quarters and were safe there now. Maybe they hadn’t fallen victims to the kelpies. Maybe they weren’t walking through their most painful memories.

Silverstream really hoped that she was the only one. She left the med bay, making purposeful strides toward the mess hall.

She wondered what the kelpies might be showing Gallus, if they had taken hold of them. Was it Sandbar leaving Ponyville? Ocellus fracturing her exoskeleton? Or maybe his showdown against Catrina…

She wondered if she had a place in Gallus’s broken heart.

Maybe, Silverstream thought, she wasn’t worth it. Maybe she never mattered enough to Gallus to deserve a spot in his trauma trophy case. But that didn’t make sense, either, did it? Didn’t she have worse memories? Things that tore her up more than her broken friendship with Gallus? Why were her illusions based solely around him? Maybe the kelpies had picked up on their fight, and they were using all the fresh hurt to try and wound her further.

Something that Seaspray had mentioned to her during his old sea monster stories was that kelpies were always looking for some new, fancy dark lord or lady to pledge themselves to. Kelpies were a sign of an alliance.

In the off chance that you ever encounter one, my lady, you must stay on your guard. Kelpies are always followed by something worse.

So, who sent the kelpies?

Silverstream arrived at the mess hall and pushed her way past the doors...

...and ended up on a cliff next to Ghastly Gorge.

“You’re kidding...”

A hot velvet breeze brushed over her, making her tartan coat flap anxiously. She sighed. Her wings fidgeted, unable to stay still, ruffling her feathers enough that she was sure she’d have to spend an hour preening if she managed to survive this ordeal.

The grass was still moist with morning dew. At the end of the cliff sat a dragon and a hippogriff—Smolder, and another double. Smolder’s legs swung one after the other, hanging over the cliff’s edge. The double merely stared down at the grass.

Silverstream was far enough away that she couldn’t hear the specifics of their conversation, but from the tone of their voices, it was serious.

She inched closer. These were definitely kelpies, but what else could she do? How else could she escape what happened?

“I miss him,” said the double. “We used to talk every day and—Smolder, I don’t know what to do! What am I supposed to do? Sandbar came to my room yesterday and started crying. He hates this. He wants it to be done. He wants me and—he wants us to fix it already.”

“Can it?” Smolder asked. Her claw rested on the double’s shoulder. “Look, I talked to Sandy. That wasn’t cool of him and he knows it. You don’t need to do anything that you don’t want to do. That you can’t do.” Smolder’s tail flopped to the side and curled up against her own thigh. “Are you listening, Silver? Talk to me.”

“I’m sorry,” her double whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m ruining everything, aren’t I? Do you think we’re going to be like this forever?”

“Let’s find out,” said Smolder, but her voice was different. It was she was suddenly choking on water.

Silverstream’s veins turned freezing cold. Her double and the illusion of Smolder turned back to face her. They were angry.

“Who—uhm, who sent you?” Silverstream asked. Her words and her voice wavered. She took a step back.

The two of them stood up, never once taking their eyes off of her.

“Who sent you?” Silverstream asked again.

“The King,” said her double.

“The king?” Silverstream pressed. “Which king? The Storm King? Is—Is he back?”

The kelpies didn’t say anymore. They looked at each other, and then suddenly dashed towards Silverstream.

They were too fast. Silverstream went to lift her legs, to block them or at least soften their imminent impact, but Smolder got to her too quick. The dragon did not crash into her. Instead, Smolder flew past her and grabbed her neck with a claw. Silverstream was dragged backwards for several yards before being thrown roughly into the ground. Rocks cut her skin, making her gasp as sharp pain cut into her nerves. Damp, mushy grass stained her feathers green.

Silverstream scrambled to her feet, but her double bucked her in the side and sent her rolling.

Amy.

Silverstream came to a full, groaning stop, and grabbed for the amulet around her neck. She cast a glance to the kelpies, who had slowed their approach now that she was beaten to the ground. She pulled the amulet away from her chest. Get me out of here. Take this magic away!

For a moment, there was nothing, and then in an instant the air around her was warm with magic. The amulet began to glow!

The top of Smolder’s foot whipped across her face. Silverstream moaned brokenly as her head snapped to one side. She heard something crack. Immediately it was as if breathing was the hardest thing in the entire world. Silverstream struggled to inhale.

Two pairs of claws grabbed her hind legs, and she held her breath as she was dragged across the gravel, and then thrown into the air.

Silverstream yelled aloud as she dropped. She was too weak to take both kelpies on. She couldn’t do it.

She landed on coarse wood. She grunted and pulled herself to her feet. Her head was spinning, and felt hot. Tears trickled out of her eyes. For a second, she tried to swallow down the blood in her throat, but could only muster up a pulsing, writhing pain.

How much more punishment could she take? How long before she simply couldn’t go on?

Silverstream shook her head. No. She was still responsible for her crew. For Late Harvest. For the prisoners she had taken onto her ship. Lives were at stake. She wasn’t going to keel over and die because of a few rotten sea monsters!

A crowd of idle conversation came to her ears.

Silverstream searched around, taking in her surroundings. She immediately recognized where she was.

Sunbeams flowed like golden yards of silk from the sky onto the sparkling lake, where the teaching staff and the very first graduating class of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s School of Friendship were all seated on what was essentially a giant raft, hoofbuilt out of apple-tree wood, floating in, and magically fastened to the centre of the lake. Silverstream was standing just before the stage, in front of rows upon rows of gowned students.

Graduation day.

She ignored the crowd for a moment, and peeked beyond the island where family, guests, and assorted members of the Ponyville Press were watching on the beach. It had been a highly publicized event. Her mom, brother, Skystar, and Auntie Novo had shown up, as did Princesses Luna and Celestia, and the rest of the Equestrian allies’ leaders. It was a full-blown spectacle. The world was watching the next generation of friendship come of age.

Bringing her focus back to the crowd in front of her, Silverstream saw her younger self not a few paces away, seated with the rest of her friends. The speeches clearly hadn’t started yet, but she could already hear wet sniffles coming from Sandbar and Ocellus. Yona wouldn’t be far behind. Smolder, Silverstream remembered, cried after the ceremony, once they’d retreated to the Treehouse.

Silverstream realized who was missing. Her stomach flipped as the entire crowd erupted into joy as the Valedictorian took the stage, just behind her. She heard the familiar flaps of his wings.

She wanted to leave, but she wouldn’t let herself. She had to let this play out, take on whatever kelpie revealed itself, and get out. But first she had to watch.

The kelpies had extracted the perfect memory to torture her. One that she had replayed in her head every day for the past ten years.

Silverstream turned around. His podium was directly above her.

She looked up at his proud, handsome face on what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of his life.

Gallus looked mature. Serene. He looked upon his peers with proud, wet eyes, boldly vulnerable in a way that made the grumpy griffon that everycreature had gotten to know on that very first day of school completely unrecognizable. This was his moment.

The applause died down. Gallus cleared his throat. Silverstream wanted to look away. She didn’t. Her mind’s eye was only so vivid. The accuracy, the detail to which this moment was constructed was almost dazzling. It was like she was at a magic show.

“Hey, guys,” said Gallus. “So...we made it, huh?”

Cheering pierced through the air. Gallus grinned. He continued when it began to die down. “I guess it’s speech time. Wrap up four years in the span of, what, like, five minutes? You know, I was worried about what the world would think when Twilight first told me I was going to be Valedictorian. Ocellus has way better grades than me—than all of us, actually—and she’s a lot cuter than me, too.”

Laughs came from the students and the changeling spectators. Ocellus smiled bashfully.

“After I apologized to Ocellus, and made completely sure that she wasn’t going to kill me for taking her spot…” Another chorus of giggles came from the crowd, dying down faster than the last. “I guess I started to think to myself: ‘Why me?’. I mean, I’m awesome, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think that I’m any more special than any of you.

“So...why me? Well, I think I just said it. I think it’s because I’m not any more special than any of you. I think that I’m up here, addressing you all today before we get on with the rest of our lives, because I am one of you. We are all part of each other. That’s why Princess Twilight decided that she was going to invite not only ponies, but the other creatures that live on this continent.

“I’m here because I’m nobody. I grew up on the streets of Griffonstone, alone, hungry all the time...and now my life’s better than it’s ever been. I have friends. A life. A future. I’m here because I’m living proof that friendship makes your life that much better, and that anyone and everyone who’s willing to take the time and effort to understand it, deserves it. I’m here to show the world that there’s everything to gain from opening yourself up to friendship, and nothing to lose.”

Gallus’s voice wavered. He put on a quick smile. “And you all know how much I love making a profit.”

Tearful laughs rang out from the crowd like morning bird songs. Silverstream’s heart was racing. She felt herself begin to sweat. Still, she didn’t look away. She had made her bed. She was going to lie in it.

“So, now that I’m done telling you why I’m qualified to give this speech, I think it’s time to finally start making a point and talk about someone other than myself.

“Over the years we’ve been through it all: from Professor Pinkie’s lectures on proper key lime pie that somehow ended up arming us with the knowledge to make fireworks, Headstallion Sunburst’s accidental summonings of nearly every obscure demon you could find in a library’s forbidden knowledge section...oh, and who could ever forget their first time seeing Professor Blaze turn into a Nirik?

“Yeah. We’ve—we’ve come pretty far. Makes you wonder where the time went, right?” Gallus asked.

Silverstream heard Ocellus begin to cry. She wanted to cry as well, no tears fell.

“You all ready for the cheesy part? Alright, here goes… I have had an amazing four years with you. All of you. I’m proud to call you my friends. I doubt any of us will soon forget the kindness we’ve shared with other at this school, nor the laughter. The honest truth of our lessons will shine through for the rest of our lives, and the generous gifts that we’ve received are what we’ll cherish forever. We will step into our new lives, loyal to the things we’ve learned and the friends we’ve made, and let me tell you: we’re going to work some magic.”

The sun hit the stage in such a way that it lit Gallus from behind, and through the gold shining off of his feathers and the playful way that he smiled, so satisfied with himself, he looked positively radiant. Silverstream felt her body grow sicker as the crowd collectively gasped. This was a paragon of friendship. This was the love that the school had nurtured, grown healthy and thriving.

“But as much as you’re all my very best friends, I’d like to call out some specific ones. A group of creatures who’ve made me the griffon that I am today, and who I’ll always be grateful for. Because as much as it makes sense for me to be up here today, it makes more sense for me to share the stage with my friends. My family.

“You might remember us from the very first Friends and Family Day, which we totally wrecked,” Gallus said, to a few nostalgic chuckles from the crowd. He then turned to Silverstream’s double, and he smiled. Without malice. Without desperation. With joy. Hope. Pure love.

Acid licked at Silverstream’s insides. She struggled not to vomit.

“Sandbar, Ocellus, Yona, Smolder...Silverstream? Why don’t you guys come up here so we can steal the spotlight one last time?”

The crowd cheered. Silverstream watched as her friends got up. She watched as her double stayed seated. Her expression was empty, a contrast to the visible tenseness in her shoulders.

Sandbar, Ocellus, Yona and Smolder took the stage. Silverstream did not. It was like she hadn’t heard him, like his voice hadn’t been washing over the entire crowd for the last few minutes.

There was a pause.

Silverstream closed her eyes as Gallus waited. “Silverstream?” he said. Unsure. Hopeful.

She didn’t move a muscle.

Gallus attempted to go on with the speech, as planned, but she had been successful in completely ruining the moment. The crowd’s attention had split between him and her. Their eyes drifting between them endlessly. Gallus’s diction had faltered. He failed to say the words in quite the same, magical way. He never stuttered, but he took long pauses in the middle of sentences, and it was only through Ocellus’s constant nudging that Gallus had even finished was he was going to say.

In the current moment, however, the speech didn’t continue.

Silverstream shuffled in place anxiously. The projections of her friends stood smiling at the crowd, frozen in time. There was a stillness in the air. Something was wrong. Undeniably out of place.

Silverstream backed away from the crowd. They weren’t breathing. The miniscule amount of noise that the act of breathing made—the shuffling of clothes as chests rose and fell, the murmured inhaling and exhaling—was absent. It was like being in a forest that was completely silent.

The crowd turned to look at her. All of them. Pairs and pairs of emotionless but somehow judging, somehow intrusive eyes that would take her days to count. Silverstream continued walking backwards, shaking her head.

“I...I—”

She fell off of the island, and the water dragged her down. Silverstream gasped for breath, but water flooded her mouth and her throat and lungs, and she shut her eyes and beak. Her claws went to her amulet.

You have to work! You have to!

The Amulet of Aurora lit the water up. The darkness around her turned white. Impossible to look at.

Silverstream smashed into the deck. Her body was aching. Urgently, she doubled over and started to cough. Water spouted from her throat and splashed against the floor. Her lungs were tired and caustic, but she could breathe again. Air had never felt so good.

“What the fuck was that?” came a voice.

“It’s the Captain!” said another. “Came outta nowhere!”

Her crew. Her crew was here. Silverstream attempted to stand and address them, but there came the blunt crash of a fist against her face, and then there was nothing.

The castle from Ocellus’s report was easy to find. It wasn’t doing much to try and hide itself, after all. It was a giant, black castle in the middle of the white tundra.

It had a stupid amount of stairs, and nothing decorating its insides. It was reminiscent of the Castle of the Two Sisters in that way, except it was completely hollow. There were no memories to be found here, only a fight at the top floor.

Spatterings of blood were bright against the lighter colors of Gallus’s face. His wings flapped uselessly, and the crown on his head looked as if it would fall off. He struggled to stand, but couldn’t, and so as he kept trying to lift his exhausted body off of the castle’s cold stone floor, he focused a scowl at the creature in front of him.

It looked like a minotaur, only his body—from the neck down—was covered in a raging fire. His eyes, sclera to pupil, were blacker than coal, nothing in them except empty hunger.

“You won’t get away with this,” Gallus gasped.

“Maybe not,” replied Lavan, his voice like a grove of trees on fire, “but I will kill you, and you won’t ever get to find out.”

Gallus attempted to throw himself at Lavan, but only really made it a few feet forward before he collapsed onto the ground again.

“He really beat the shit out of you,” said Harvest.

The real Gallus flinched. He had forgotten that she was even standing there. He took a second to stabilize his breathing, and rolled his eyes in response to her..

The scene that played out before them appeared to have reached a climax. Lavan stood over the beaten body of Young Gallus, who, to his credit, exuded nothing but contempt with everything he did—even the shuddering breaths he took were directed angrily at the creature above him.

Lavan lifted a hand. Fire appeared in his palm. “You are brave,” he said, winding his arm back.

Young Gallus closed his eyes. Lavan roared as he twisted and threw the ball of fire at his head.

An orange blur flew across the castle floor, and the fire hit the ground instead, exploding brilliantly upon impact.

Young Gallus opened his eyes and found himself in the safe, strong arms of Smolder, who squeezed him hard.

“Sorry for calling you useless,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Sorry for calling you a dumb cunt,” he replied, resting his head on her chest. “I’m alright. Been better.” He coughed.

From their spot on the sidelines, Harvest fixed Gallus with a dirty look that he saw out of the corner of his eyes. He shrugged his shoulders, but didn’t bother to turn and look at her.

Smolder wasted no time. She gently placed Young Gallus on the floor and stood between him and Lavan, who looked verifiably angry now.

“The others?” asked Young Gallus.

“On their way. I’m the vanguard,” said Smolder. “It was a while before we realized that you were here, so everyone else had me fly as fast as I could. I’m glad you’re alive, by the way. I half thought I’d find your corpse. Is the crown still working?”

“I’m ready.”

Smolder nodded. “Hit me.”

For a moment, Young Gallus’s eyes were taken over by a white light as the Crown of Grover’s purple gem shone brightly. Smolder grinned before her eyes were overcome with the same light, and she levitated off of the ground. Then, all the light shuttered off, and she was back on her feet.

“My Inner Fire,” Smolder said. She snorted a plume of smoke out of her nostrils, rolling her shoulders as a practiced smirk bled onto her expression.

Gallus nodded. The Crown of Grover glowed majestically. “For the record, I’m glad you didn’t find me dead either.”

Lavan yelled incoherently and extended both his arms outward. Thick tendrils of fire emerged from them, hurling towards Smolder.

Smolder crouched, one foot in front of the other, and breathed in. Lavan’s fire came within inches of her. She breathed out.

Purple fire beat back against Lavan’s, crashing against it like angry tides against a cliff. Slowly, surely, Lavan’s fire died out, and the purple stream bore down on him without mercy. Lavan screamed as it engulfed him completely.

But Smolder could only breathe for so long. The Crown of Grover stopped glowing, and her fire petered out to reveal Lavan still standing, albeit with his posture broken, as well as his confidence.

He sure didn’t show it, though. He roared again, loud enough for Smolder to wince.

“Chill out,” she said.

Lavan stepped towards her. “I’ll destroy you!”

Smolder’s wings shot out. She held her claws out in front of her and sneered. “I dare you to try, buddy!”

There came a rush of wings and hoofsteps behind them, coming from the entrance.

“Not without us!” yelled Sandbar, coming in beside her. Around his body was a light green cloak fastened with a clover brooch. He reached into it and pulled a giant seashell out, passing it to Smolder as he waited for the rest of their friends to arrive.

Silverstream got to Gallus first, helping him onto Yona’s back before they joined Sandbar, Smolder and Ocellus in facing off against Lavan.

Gallus swallowed audibly. “G-Guys, I’m—”

“Apologies later, dude,” said Sandbar, turning to him with a wink. “We’ve got a bad guy to take down, remember?”

“Right,” said Gallus. He rolled to his side and fixed a glare on Lavan. “Ready to go back to whatever extradimensional hole you crawled out of?”

Lavan roared again. The fire around his body blazed. He stretched his arms out.

“Everyone ready?” asked Gallus, to affirmative grunts from his friends. “Alright, guys. Let’s end this!”

Fire wrapped around Lavan’s body as his roar grew louder, and he erupted into a swirling pillar of flames, heating the air in the room like an oven. The fire stood still for a long moment, and then it launched itself towards them.

Gallus put a claw to his crown. His eyes lit up, and a silvery hue surrounded him as he began to float up. The same happened to his friends. They floated, eyes aglow, into the air until they formed a circle with Gallus in the middle. Their respective artifacts pulsed with energy, humming subtly enough that the noise was eventually lost to Lavan’s raging fire.

The Crown of Grover connected the minds and hearts of creatures, pooling their energy and enhancing it to a heightened level. It was how Grover managed to inspire an entire city to greatness. All for one, one for all.

Lavan, wrapped in his blazing fire, got to the six quickly, but instead of bulldozing past them, the pillar of flames was stopped in its place.

The same silver light that surrounded the six surrounded the fire, and Gallus smiled as his friends’ energy began to flow through him, the crown weaving their energy together.

“Lavan,” he said, his voice echoing through the room. “You’ve proven yourself to be behind the recent disappearances in the Crystal Empire. You’ve kidnapped our loved ones, hurt our friends, put Equestria in danger. But we have something that you don’t.”

Through the fire’s crackling, another roar could be vaguely heard.

“Friendship, asshole,” Gallus said. “It’s friendship.”

The magic coursing through them swirled into an unstable, spitting orb in front of them that grew larger and larger until it split into silver ribbons and wrapped around Lavan’s fire, slithering around it until it was wrapped tight. Slowly, the fire began to die.

“What’s it like?” asked Harvest.

Gallus, snapping out of his trance, turned away from the battle to look at the earth pony. “Not enjoying the show?”

“There’s a little too much light. It’s hurting my eyes. What does using the crown feel like? Growing up pony, you hear a lot about all these different artifacts and the cool stuff that you can do with them, but no one ever talks about what using them feels like.”

Gallus frowned. “Would you believe me if I said I’ve forgotten?”

Harvest smiled at that, but there was something in the way her eyebrows furrowed that put an undertone of sadness to her expression. “Nah. You don’t remember anything?”

There was one thing. Gallus went to tell her, but blinding light washed over the entirety of the room, fading quickly to reveal the six panting over a shiny red crystal stallion laying on the ground. Remnants of Lavan’s fire still remained across the room, but they died out as the creatures gathered themselves.

“Did...did we do it?” Silverstream asked.

“Tie him up,” Ocellus gasped.

Sandbar, producing a bundle of rope, went to work with Smolder, tightly binding the crystal pony in no time.

Young Gallus was wiped out. Yona had helped him sit up against a wall, but beyond that, he could do nothing to help. “Guys?” he said loudly, encouraging everyone to turn to him. “I’m really sorry.”

Gallus remembered this. How ashamed he felt. He felt a need to watch this moment intently. It was never the first thing he thought about when he remembered this night.

Yona patted his shoulder with a hoof. “It’s okay. Friends forgive.” She looked to the rest of the group. “Friends forgive, yes?”

Ocellus nodded, Silverstream gave a thumbs up.

Young Gallus turned to Smolder and Sandbar nervously. The two creatures shared a look...

Without saying another word, the duo rushed him and held him in their embrace, and the younger Gallus began to cry as the tangle of supportive limbs grew as each of their friends joined in, evolving into a saccharine group hug.

Gallus groaned, mostly to himself. He felt his feathers ruffling, the skin underneath them tingling electrically.

When the group pulled apart, Smolder singled out Ocellus, Silverstream and Yona. “I guess it’s time we got to your dads, huh?”

“Pharynx isn’t my dad!” Ocellus protested.

“He basically is,” said Smolder, putting a claw on the side of her face and brushing a thumb against her cheek. “We’ll watch this joker.” She drew her claw away from Ocellus and gestured to the crystal pony on the floor.

Silverstream looked to Gallus, who had sat down against a wall beside Sandbar. Worry pirouetted behind her hyperactive eyes. “Did you see them? Were they okay?”

Gallus nodded. “They were here when I arrived. Before I could get to them Lavan trapped me in a ring of fire and magicked them out of the room. They’re probably still in the castle, though. I think I heard them yelling from around the hall.”

Silverstream sighed. “Good. We’ll get on it. That’s what we came for! To save our dads!”

“Prince Yak good yak, but not dad yak,” Yona said, though she was already cantering off to the doorway that led to the rest of the castle with Ocellus.

Silverstream followed them, cheerily announcing, “Well, Sky Beak is my dad!”

A conversation about the definition and specifics of fatherhood proceeded, though it disappeared around the corner with the trio.

Smolder looked to Sandbar and Gallus and she smirked. “Well, now that the girls are gone…”

Sandbar chuckled. Gallus attempted to, but then, his lungs were too weak.

“Take it easy, bud,” Smolder said, sitting on the ground in front of him. “You don’t wanna overwork yourself.”

Gallus wheezed, both out of pain and as a replacement for a real laugh. “Sure thing, mom.”

“Mom?” Smolder repeated. “If anyone’s the mom here, it’s Sandbar. You shoulda seen him once Ocellus figured out you weren’t going back to town. He cried a whole bucket begging me to come after you. I said yes. Obviously.” Her voice lowered. “I’m glad I did, for the record, but I’m no mom.”

“I can accept that,” said Gallus.

“Wait, what were we talking about?” Sandbar asked. He blinked hard and turned to them. “I was spacing out.”

“You know, he’s actually more of a little sister,” Gallus said.

“Nah.” Smolder shook his head. “Mom, for sure.”

Sandbar’s eyes narrowed. “Are we discussing getting me pregnant again?”

Smolder smirked. “Now that you mention it—”

“Let’s not go down that road,” Gallus said. He regarded Sandbar with mirth in his eyes. “Smolder said you were begging her to come for me?”

Sandbar blushed. “W-We had no idea how long you’d been at the castle. Lavan—”

“Has anyone looked at him, by the way?” Smolder asked, turning to the crystal pony in the center of the room. He was still unconscious, still tied up, and didn’t seem to present any threat. “I mean, it was like we all forgot about him the second we had permission to.”

“What could be wrong with him?” asked Sandbar.

“I dunno. What if he’s dangerous? Or dead?”

“Ocellus would have noticed.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“You guys rely on her too much,” said Gallus.

“She’s the smartest creature in this castle,” Smolder countered. “And besides, you’re the one pulling all-nighters with her every weekend.”

“Jealous?”

Smolder scoffed.

A loud, pained whining came from the crystal pony. Sandbar and Smolder stood, expressions and interest perked. Gallus stayed seated.

The crystal pony attempted to tear at his binds, but was powerless in their grasp. He writhed, whining further, speaking no words in a way that brought a primal alertness to the three creatures watching him.

Smolder and Sandbar exchanged looks. Sandbar stepped forward. “Hello?”

The crystal pony froze. His head swivelled towards them. His eyes were a sickly yellow. His fur, which was as glossy and perfect as the rest of his tribe, was visibly matted and sweaty.

“Hello?” he said. His red coat seemed to dim a little. “Hello? Hello?”

Sandbar moved before Smolder and Gallus could protest. He was kneeling by the stallion in an instant, a worried frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Hey, don’t worry, you’re safe. What’s your n—”

The crystal pony spat in his face. Sandbar cried out, stepping away.

The room lit up with an orange glow as Smolder shot a sharp stream of fire over the crystal pony’s head, who merely smiled plainly in response. She darted in front of Sandbar in a second, protectively placing herself between the two ponies with her wings flared.

“Sandbar!” Gallus yelled.

Sandbar wiped his face with a groan. “I’m fine, guys. No need to—”

The crystal stallion erupted into a sudden, spasming bout of laughter, whipping his head around as he rocked back and forth from his place on the floor.

Smolder raised an eyebrow. “Got somethin’ to say?”

“I melted them!” squealed the stallion, grinning up at her. “Together!”

Back at the sidelines, away from the scene, the real Gallus closed his eyes. Beside him, Harvest shifted nervously. “Hey, what does he mean?”

“What do you mean?” Young Gallus said. “What does that mean?”

Smolder attempted to say something, but she took to the air instead, flying to the room’s exit and howling “Celly! Ocellus! Don’t—”

Contorted, horrified screams slipped into the room from around the corner. Smolder’s wings locked, and she fell to the ground, barely landing on her feet. The griffon and pony behind her didn’t move—couldn’t.

Smolder shook her head, exhaling heavily as she took to the air once again, towards the exit.

That was when the screaming turned to sobbing. Gallus’s closed eyes began to feel less like an escape and more like a dead end. Harvest had gone completely silent.

“No! Please—no!” Silverstream shrieked twice, loud and hard enough that she was surely damaging her lungs Her voice sounded like an animal’s.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Gallus grabbed his own wrist, intending to still its shivering, but there was nothing he could do for the slight quiver in his hind legs. He opened his eyes as the scene stopped cold: his copy was in the midst of being helped up by Sandbar. Despair had already wormed its way into their expressions.

Harvest was shaking beside him, as scared as anyone in the room. He considered placing a claw on her back, but instead he walked towards his copy and Sandbar. He didn’t want to see what she was thinking, anyway. Experiencing horror yourself was one thing—seeing the same horror on multiple faces over and over was different.

Gallus stood before the double and Sandbar and he tried not to pay too much attention to their expressions. He crouched slightly, bracing himself for the impending action. “Alright, guys. Your stupid show’s over. Which one of you is it?”

His double dropped to the floor. Sandbar took a step forward. His eyes flooded with green.

“Right,” said Gallus. “I have to fight Sandbar. Woe is me. Whatever will I do?”

The earth pony took a running start and leapt at him, legs outstretched and roaring.

Gallus avoided Sandbar’s tackle by rolling onto his back right before the moment of impact. He stretched his hindlegs out, planting them on Sandbar’s belly as he grabbed the earth pony’s forelegs, and continued the momentum of the roll, keeping his legs straight and taut until their positions reversed, and Gallus was straddling Sandbar, coming nose to nose with him as the roll stopped.

“Guess what?” said Gallus. He leaned his weight back and squeezed his legs, tightening himself against Sandbar’s chest. “I’m going to take everything—every single thing—out on you.”

Gallus pulled his elbow back towards him and twisted as he whipped it against Sandbar’s snout. A crack split the air.

Sandbar barked in pain and tried to turn around, but Gallus stayed on top. He refused to be shaken. He continued elbowing the kelpie’s face, relentless and savage and growling ferally with each successful hit. Spatterings of pink blood began to cover the two of them.

He could vaguely hear Harvest behind him, yelling at him to do something, but Gallus missed her completely. All he could think about was pain and causing it, and how he deserved twice the amount he was dishing out.

When Gallus went to bring his elbow back, he noticed that something was wrong. The creature under him no longer resembled Sandbar—it barely looked like anything at all.

Gallus was on a mass of writhing, rotting plant life, and somewhere in the green he could make out a pair of sickly eyes.

A tendril of wet plant wrapped itself around Gallus’s neck and began to squeeze. He went to tear it off, but another tendril restrained his left wrist, and then another had his right. Gallus grunted, trying to launch himself backwards, but there were more plants wrapping around him by the second. He could barely move.

The eyes floated to the top of the mass of plants, and the plants formed a head that vaguely resembled a hippogriff’s. Two curved, jagged pieces of rock jutted out of where the hippogriff’s beak should have been, and it opened its mouth and lunged at Gallus—

Harvest’s hind hooves smashed through the head, splattering pink blood on the castle floor. The plants went limp, and Gallus fell on his back. He quickly rolled over and coughed, vigorously rubbing his neck as he crawled from the monstrous vegetation.

Harvest’s eyes were dilated. Her gaze flitted between Gallus and the kelpie’s corpse. “You—you okay?”

“Fine,” said Gallus. “Thanks.”

“Don’t...mention it.”

“I’ll try not to,” he said. He stood and placed a claw on Harvest’s shoulder. He was still short of breath. “We need to keep moving. Hopefully that was the last one, but I kind of doubt it.”

“Right,” said Harvest. She was shaking, but she went along when Gallus pulled her from the gruesome sight.

They walked to the end of the room together, to the closed stone doors, and they stepped through.

The first thing that Gallus noticed was the heat. The second was the burning barn in the distance. Flames crept up its side, blackening its pastel yellow paint as it consumed the wood.

Gallus squinted at the barn. If this was a place he had been to before, he barely remembered—

Harvest gasped.

FOR NOW

“Stop!” Gallus screamed. “Harvest!”

Harvest didn’t listen. She ran through the fields of twisted grapevines, towards the burning barn in the distance.

Gallus’s broken wings, tucked close to his body, reminded him of just how useless they were. A memory flashed through his mind: that night in Griffonstone, frantically searching for Gabby after she disappeared. If he could even just flap like Scootaloo could, chasing Harvest down would have been much easier..

Harvest sped up, her hooves blurring as she ran through the scorching wind. It was like something had possessed her. The barn was all but collapsed now—melting into itself like a pile of burning leaves—but she didn’t halt her steps, even as planks of wood came crashing down in front of her.

What was she remembering? Was there someone she cared about inside that barn? Was she in there?

“This is a memory!” Gallus called again, hopelessness beginning to set in. “You’ve seen it for yourself!”

She disappeared into the yellow barn, swallowed up by the smoke and the shadows of what lay within. Gallus charged after her, the grass and dirt underneath his feet turning into soft sand and hay.

He tried to track her steps, but the acrid stench of smoke made him cough hard. The ceiling was crumbling, and the sounds of its destruction made it hard for him to stay focused on finding Harvest. He went from looking into the wavering streaks of light and shadows that enveloped the barn to anxiously glancingat the ceiling, then back again. His gaze never seemed to settle.

He found Harvest in an obscure, hall-like structure at the side of the barn, looking up at a door that stood at the end of it, likely leading to the farmhouse. Her posture was tight. Alert. As Gallus came closer, he could see sweat ruffling the fur on the back of her neck.

Heavy machinery surrounded them: big iron apparatuses that sparkled magnificently in the light.

Gallus ran up beside her. He spoke loud, over the din of the fire.

“Harvest,” he said. “It’s an illusion, remember? Some kelpie plucked all this bad shit out of your head. It’s not real. Whoever you’re looking for...they’re not actually here.”

“I know,” said Harvest. Her voice sounded vacant. “He’s not here,” she said. “Where is he? I wanted—I didn’t care if it wasn’t him—I just wanted to see him. I didn’t take any photos with me when I left.”

“I want to ask who you’re talking about,” said Gallus, “but first I want the both of us to—Shit!” he squawked, leaping out of the way of a falling piece of wood. His head snapped back to Harvest. “Stop screwing around, alright? We need to leave or we’re gonna die.”

“I’m…” Harvest shook her head.

“Now,” Gallus said.

She stepped away, only tearing her eyes off the door when Gallus grabbed her shoulder. They spun around and ran, Gallus keeping his focus on the decaying ceiling and guiding them both around the falling debris. They made it outside, stopping at a safe distance away from the barn, next to the grapevines.

Gallus was content to lie down and catch his breath, but Harvest did not stay where they had stopped. She started to wander the perimeter of the burning barn.

Gallus had the urge to follow her, but he had a bigger urge to just watch her first. She was so...apathetic towards the burning barn—completely opposite of how he felt. He was flinching at every crackle from the fire, every gargantuan crash from the burning machines.

Harvest stalked about the disaster with familiarity. Gallus wondered how many times she had replayed this memory in her mind, searching for whoever was supposed to be in there. A pitying sadness stroked the back of his heart.

Was this what he looked like whenever a kelpie recreated an event from his own past? Was this how Harvest felt, traipsing around inside his memories?

Harvest left his line of sight. Gallus stood and followed. She was searching for something. No, someone. She said something about a ‘him’, didn’t she? Whoever it was, they’d better find him if they wanted to leave this place.

With a bit of effort, he caught up to her just as she stopped in front of an outdoor shower. Her ears had flattened against her skull. As he sidled up next to her, he saw the expression on her face: utter confusion.

“Hey,” Gallus said. He waited for her to look at him, but she didn’t. “Harvest,” he said, dampening his voice. “You gotta tell me sometime. I have to get out of this, too. Who are you looking for? What is this place?”

She didn’t answer right away. Gallus didn’t push her. He merely listened to the sound of the burning barn, popping as the flames consumed the wood, flaring when it found knots in the wood’s flesh. He kept a lookout for anything that could sneak up on them.

There was nothing, though. Gallus’s memories had been so crowded. So filled with the possibility of anyone in sight being a kelpie. Harvest’s memory was desolate.

“This is the day that I cut ties with them,” said Harvest.

“...The fire?” Gallus asked.

“My fault.”

“What happened?”

“Why are they targeting me now?” Harvest asked, turning to look at him. She maintained his gaze for only a second before looking back to the barn. “Why am I here, Gallus?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You’ve known everything there is to know about those fucking things. You have to!”

“I don’t!” Gallus barked. “I—maybe it was because you helped me. Against that one that looked like Sandbar. That might have gotten you on their shitlist. But honestly? I have no idea. The Royal Guard trained us to fight monsters, but we didn’t spend a lot of time on the sea-based ones. Can you answer me a question? Why are there no kelpies here?”

“Because no one was home,” said Harvest, her voice growing quieter. “I mean, my brother was. But he’s not here.”

The barn faltered. The ceiling crashed like a wave over the machinery inside, which cried and creaked loudly under the assault until it let out a final, prolonged metallic scream, and the barn completely collapsed.

Gallus swallowed. “Was he in there?”

Harvest’s eyes widened. Then she laughed dryly, once. “No. You’ve still got me beat when it comes to personal tragedies.”

Gallus snorted. “Right. Well, where is he? Was he, I mean?”

“He was right outside when I set the place on fire,” said Harvest. “When I didn’t see him, I figured that if the kelpie behind this is appearing like him, then it must have wandered inside.” Her brows furrowed. She stared at the scorched wreckage and the fire devouring the barn’s remains. “I only saw it fall when I was on the road with my friends, running away. I never saw it up close like this.”

“The kelpie’s altering your memory,” said Gallus.

Harvest looked away from the wreckage, to the rows of grapevines. “Then where—”

“Late,” came a young, male voice, from somewhere inside the vines.

Harvest’s ears perked. Gallus looked for whoever the voice had come from. “Was that him?”

“It sounded like him,” said Harvest. “It—it’s just a kelpie, though.”

“Yeah. But it’s going to look like him.” Gallus asked.

“I haven’t seen him in years.”

“Are you ready to?”

The voice came drifting through again, from the middle of the field. Gallus and Harvest shared a look, and began to walk towards it.

“Earl?” Harvest called, unsure. “...Early?”

The voice called again, incomprehensible this time. They stepped between two rows of grapevines and ventured inside.

Gallus kept his guard up. He was reminded of the occasional Nightmare Night corn mazes from his youth in Ponyville, and all the times he had completed them alone to prove his courage. Where was his bravado now? Now, he only felt tired, and underneath that tiredness was a soft despair.

He felt like he was counting down the seconds on a clock.

Harvest continued to call every so often for her brother, but there was no reply. Eventually the grapevines ended, and they entered a clearing.

There was a set of stairs in the middle of nothing. They should have been able to see it from the barn, but they hadn’t. It looked as if someone had built a staircase leading to the top of a tower, and then melted the tower away, leaving behind only the steel stairs and, at the top, a lone door that led to nowhere.

“We’re being let out already?” Gallus asked. “What was the point of saying your name all creepy like that?”

“Bullshit.” Harvest narrowed her eyes. She spun back towards the grapevines, to the burnt pieces of the barn in the distance, and she began to yell loud enough to rasp her voice. “Early? Where are you? Coward! You talk in my brother’s voice and then you don’t even show yourself? Come the fuck out!”

She waited a moment. Gallus’s breath had hitched at some point. He exhaled and realized that waiting was no longer worth it.

“Harvest,” he said. “I think we need to go through that door.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why—why fuck with me like this? I haven’t—” She put a hoof to her mouth, stifling her next words.

“I know,” said Gallus. “Whatever it is, I know. But if they’re letting us out now then we need to cross that door. I don’t think anything’s gonna show itself here.”

“I know,” Harvest replied. Her voice was distant.

Gallus looked down at the beige soil rustling slightly in a breeze. “I get that whatever happened here—and I don’t need details—it hurt you, but it’s done. You’re here, but you’re not here anymore. You’re far away, in the middle of the sea on a hippogriff ship. Whatever you might have found here would have been fake. And it would’ve hurt you. It wants to hurt you.”

He looked up to see her staring at him, eyes wet.

He nodded. “Let’s get out of here, alright?”

She nodded. “I’ll lead the way.”

The stairs were rickety—shaking like they’d give out at any moment—and there was a mildew-y stink to them that made Gallus want to dry heave. Behind the door at the very top, he could hear voices. Loud and urgent.

When they were close to the top, Harvest began to slow down for him, and Gallus heard something faint ringing in the field they had left behind. A noise like tempered glass cooling in a bucket of water. He turned over his shoulder.

By the mass off in the distance, the blackened pile of wood and metal that was the barn, he could see a shape. It was...what was that? He could see wings, and something red. No. Brown? A creature that was wearing some kind of coat—

“Hey,” Harvest said. “Are you gonna make me face the next one by myself?”

Gallus’s vision must have been damaged by the smoke. The shape was gone. He didn’t even remember blinking.

If he so wished, Terramar could have changed into a seapony and remained on deck. That was how hard it was raining. He was at the bow of the ship, looking over the crew of The Coralvreckan like his sister loved to when the ship was sailing smooth.

It wasn’t sailing smooth right now, though. The rain sloshed across the floor in thick sheets, and Terramar watched even the saltiest sailors on his crew take moments to steady themselves. They had weathered storms before, and it wasn’t often that he felt as if the crew was in danger of falling off of the deck, but this was one of those times.

Silverstream had been gone for at least half an hour. Or was it reaching an hour, now? He wasn’t sure anymore. He had been counting so diligently, but there was something else occupying his thoughts now.

Around him, the crew worked on, with Brine flying between them all, giving orders and commanding the more tired sailors to perk up. Terramar had never seen the lieutenant so animated.

Silverstream had clawpicked her fresh out of officer school after walking in on a lecture she was teaching. They assumed she was a senior member of the military, but it turned out that her professor had simply let her take over for a few minutes.

Whenever Silverstream needed anything—anything at all—Brine was there, but as Terramar watched the light blue hippogriff zipping around the busy deck, and the expressions on her fellow crew members fall deeper into the bog of exhaustion with every order, he realized something. The one thing that Brine couldn’t be was Silverstream, and without their captain, sailing totally blind and being worked to the bone? The crew was losing hope.

Terramar couldn’t fault them. They had weathered storms before, of course, but nothing quite like this.

“Crew!” came Brine’s voice, which sounded like a jingling bag of pearls. Terramar tilted his head upwards and saw the lieutenant hanging off the side of a mast. Her beak was set, and she had confidence in her posture. Stable and strong, despite the coat of water over the wood. “I know it looks bad right now—I will not lie to you. But Captain Silverstream is coming with help. We need to trust her if we’re going to make it through this. Our captain’s never led us astray before.”

The crew’s spirits raised slightly. Terramar could feel it in the air. Brine couldn’t be Silverstream, but maybe she didn’t need to be. Terramar looked through the expanse of fog rolling on for countless miles in front of the ship. They only needed to get home. That was it. That was all they needed to do.

A shift—something that he couldn’t explain—made him look to the far end of the ship. There was an extra set of vibrations on the surface. Something more than the pitter-patter of the rain, and the burdened, struggling steps of the crew. Something multitudinous.

Across the ship, a door opened. The other members of the crew stopped what they were doing.

Terramar’s heart stuttered. It rose in joy and fell as soon as he saw the group of creatures stepping through.

There were griffons. Familiar ones. Terramar squinted, prying into his memory in hopes of remembering, before he caught sight of their sea-salted, matted feathers, as well as the look in their eyes. They were the crew of the ship that Gallus had been on. The ones Terramar and his team had rescued from drowning.

Beside them were ponies, mean-looking ponies with coats in different tones of the earth—greens and browns and beiges—marching tensely out from the lower decks. Most of them were pegasi, though a few were unicorns.

And for every few pairs of ponies and griffons there was a diamond dog. Terramar had encountered their kind before. The diamond dogs of Black Skull Island were a thieving tribe that, for the most part, lived lives of crime; they were much different from their gem-obsessed cousins that lived in the cave systems near Ponyville. These diamond dogs were big, hulking beasts with moon yellow eyes and dark, steel blue fur, and the way that they carried themselves made it clear that they were the ones in charge of the group.

A coup. That was the only explanation. The ponies and the dogs were most definitely from the ship of smugglers and criminals that The Coralvreckan had apprehended before the Amulet of Aurora prompted Silverstream to find Gallus. The griffons must have helped them escape.

Terramar did a hurried count of their numbers as they spilled out from the lower decks. When it looked like the majority of them were out, it seemed that they were in the fifties—about a third of The Coralvreckan’s crew, though only about thirty of them were on the upper deck.

What happened to those down below? Were they okay?

All of Terramar’s thoughts of the rest of the crew were frozen cold when he saw a final diamond dog step onto the deck. She was bigger than the rest, with scars riddling her muscular arms, wearing a tattered viscose tunic that was presumably hiding more.

In her arms was a limp, pink hippogriff in a tartan coat.

Terramar breathed his sister’s name, but his own incredulous voice was drowned out by Brine roaring at the top of her lungs.

“Attention, hippogriffs!” roared the diamond dog. “We’ve got your spindly captain over here and we beat down a good number of your mates down below. You are all fucked.”

When Gallus came back into the world, his first thought was that it looked depressing. Rain careened over the deck of The Coralvreckan, surrounding the ship with a thick fog. As thick as he had ever seen.

There couldn’t be more than a few metres of sight past the ship. They were probably sailing blind.

He and Harvest stepped further along the deck to see the crew gathered into a large crowd in the middle of the ship, paying attention to something other than their usual jobs.

“What’s going on?” asked Harvest, sounding like she was talking to herself. “This is the ship. Does that mean we’re back?”

“Looks like it,” Gallus said.

“The kelpie let us go? Just like that? Why?”

“Beats me. Maybe this crowd has something to do with it.”

They moved towards the center of the ship, where it seemed the majority of the crew were congregated. There was something tight about the air. He and Harvest had walked into something bad.

They nodded at each other before walking to one of the hippogriffs who was standing at the edge of the crowd. Gallus tapped her on the leg, making her turn around.

The hippogriff turned towards him, and her eyes widened.

“What’s going on?” Gallus asked.

“I—” The hippogriff glanced to the middle of the crowd for a second before looking back at him. “You should see for yourself.”

The hippogriff then moved to her nearest crewmember and whispered in his ear, and a chain reaction started.

The crowd parted for Gallus and Harvest, and as they moved deeper into it, they soon gained a clear image of what was going on.

A scarred, dark blue diamond dog stood at the very center of the crowd, and in one of her arms was Silverstream. She was limp, but she wasn’t dead. There would be a huge battle on deck, otherwise. Gallus’s gaze lingered on her blank, sleeping face. She looked oddly peaceful. He could hear the voice of her younger self in his mind—he had nearly forgotten she had gotten so big.

Looking at her made him feel…

No. He looked away from Silverstream.

At the dog’s back were what Gallus assumed to be her co-conspirators of the little coup she was staging: more of her own kind, some ponies, and the survivors of The Bloody Herring.

In front of the dog, standing apart from the rest of the terse sailors, were Terramar and Silverstream’s lieutenant—both of their eyes were dilated. Gallus could see Terramar grimacing.

The inside of Gallus’s chest stung. He had spent so long wanting to leave his memories that he had forgotten how the real world wasn’t much better. He sighed. His head felt like it was swelling. It probably was.

The diamond dog was growling demands. Her coarse voice somehow reminded him that he very badly needed a shower. “No fucking around here, hippogriffs. You’re arranging us a ship and agreeing not to follow us back to the Jagged Peaks. When we’re halfway to the Storm King’s old waters, we’ll dump your Captain and let her swim home. If she can go faster than the sharks, of course.”

Silverstream could outswim any shark, but Gallus figured that the sharks living in the Storm King’s realm were probably a different breed than the Seaquestrian kind. She could also fly when she wanted. Evidently they weren’t dealing with the smartest pup in the litter.

Gallus crept closer to the scene, ignoring how Harvest tried to grab at his hind legs, wordlessly asking him to stay. He had to negotiate Silverstream out of this. She was their best way back to Mount Aris, and therefore his best way home.

But for so long he had only ever settled dumb problems between grouchy griffons. When was the last time he had to deal with a ransom? Just after boot camp?

No. There wasn’t a choice. There was still a kelpie on board and Silverstream had somehow gotten herself captured. He needed to fix this before anything else happened.

“We’re not letting her go anywhere with you,” said Silverstream’s lieutenant.

“And besides, we won’t be able to do anything until we get rid of this fog,” Terramar explained, his voice shaky. “Even if we—”

“Shut up! It’s just fog, you idiot! It’ll clear,” yelled the diamond dog, “and then you’ll give us our ship. Now then... Her grip tightened on Silverstream. “This bitch has a fuckton of sleepweed in her system, courtesy of your medical officer—who’s gonna need a doctor of her own, by the way—so you better decide what to do and you better do it quick. Either we get our demands or I’m throwing her overboard right now and me and my buddies are going to die in the best way possible: killing hippogriffs.”

“What?” gasped one of the griffons. “You said that we’d get out of here easy!”

“I lied,” replied the diamond dog, baring her long, white fangs at him. “You guys said you wanted money? Money is risky. You better be prepared to die for it.”

Those were a lot of new facts. Gallus turned them over in his mind:

The fog around the ship was magical. It made sense. The way that Terramar said it made it sound like the ship’s communications were down.
The diamond dog had teamed up with the Bloody Herring’s crew. The way that she carried herself told him that she was from the pirate tribes living on and around Black Skull Island.
No one else knew about the kelpies.

Gallus kept them at the forefront of his mind. Diamond dogs appreciated strength. He would have to put up a front. He stepped forward, crossing the unspoken border between spectator and participant, the space that seemed reserved for the diamond dog female, Terramar, and...Brine! That was the lieutenant’s name.

“What a mess,” he said, stopping with the diamond dog and the hippogriffs on either side of him. His feathers ruffled as dozens of eyes focused on him.

“Gallus,” Terramar breathed.

“Who the hell are you?” asked the diamond dog.

“No one important,” said Gallus. He tilted his head at her.

He was so much closer to Silverstream now. Now that he knew she was pumped full of sleepweed, the peace on her face made a lot more sense. There was an underlying construction to it. Something artificial. She was forced to be like this.

One of the griffons backing the diamond dog, an old hen, pointed at him. “That’s the asshole who sunk our ship!”

“A giant squid did that,” Gallus said, moving his focus on the diamond dog. “What’s your name, miss?”

“Miss?” The diamond dog laughed dryly. “I’m no ‘miss’. Call me Basalt.”

“Basalt. I like it. Very dragon.” Gallus forced a smirk. “How long have you been pirating?”

“Did you have a point to make?” Basalt asked, glaring at him.

“Do you know who that is you’re holding?” Gallus nodded to Silverstream. “You know. Other than the captain of this ship? Because that girl right there is a blood relative of Queen Novo, and you’ve hurt her and drugged her up and who knows what else. You’ve screwed yourself.”

Basalt looked at Silverstream, the expression on her face like that of a picky eater examining her food. “So you’re saying that she’ll bring in a nice ransom.”

“Any price you want,” said Gallus. “You know, up until the hippogriff navy hunts you down and tears you a new one. If you knew who she was you’d never have messed around with this stupid plan of yours, which tells me that you’re pretty new to this stuff. Is that right?”

“Fuck you.”

“So I’m right,” said Gallus. “Look, pal, right now, there’s zero way that you get what you want and live to tell the tale. The captain you’re holding is royalty, not to mention personal friends with the Princess of Equestria.”

Basalt's mouth fell open for just a second, but it was long enough for Gallus to know that she had been caught off guard. She had definitely bitten off more than she could chew, and now she was going to panic.

“What you’re saying, then,” she said slowly. “Is that I should snap her neck right now and go to war with these pansies, right?”

Basalt drew Silverstream closer and wrapped a paw tightly around her slender neck, her eyes wide with adrenaline.

“Gallus!” Terramar screamed.

Gallus’s muscles tensed. Wrong angle.

Basalt noticed. A grin split her face. “That’s right. You still gonna sass me?”

Gallus gathered himself quickly and gave her a shrug. “Probably.”

Basalt laughed. “You don’t care if she lives or dies?”

“What I care about,” said Gallus slowly, “is that amulet around her neck.”

Basalt looked to the amulet in question. “Why? Is it expensive?”

“It’s garbage,” Gallus replied. “But I need it. You see, there are kelpies on board. Ever heard of those?”

He heard a buzz of recognition from various hippogriffs, but nothing from the mutinous crowd.

Basalt tilted her head. “Never heard of them.”

“They’re sea monsters,” said Gallus, “Now, I can get rid of them, and then whatever you do after that won’t be a problem to me. I’d even be willing to help you get back home if you gave me a ride where I needed to go. But shrimp over there?” he nodded to Terramar. “He’s actually telling the truth. No one here can do anything in this fog. It’s magical.”

“Again with this shit? It’s fog,” Basalt said with a growl.

“Magical fog,” Gallus said. “You’re in Equestrian waters. Don’t tell me you don’t believe in magic?”

“And what makes you think that I’m going to trust a royal guard?” Basalt sneered. “I can smell it on you. Who’s to say that this pretty necklace around the captain’s neck won’t trigger an alarm or some shit?”

Idiot. If she really knew what she was talking about, she’d know that he was a former captain, and she would be trying to kill him and sell his pelt on the black market for a fortune. Gallus raised a brow at her. “Everyone knows what’s going on already, don’t they? What would an alarm do?”

“An alarm to signal the rest of the navy!” Basalt yelled.

“So you’re scared of the navy?”

“No,” Basalt said, narrowing her eyes.

That was the key. She didn’t believe in the fog, and therefore didn’t believe that the ship’s communications were down. He had to “trade” their ability to alert reinforcements for Silverstream and the amulet. But it wouldn’t do to let her think he wanted to keep her alive. Her life was less valuable if he didn’t care for it, and thus wouldn’t be worth taking.

That made sense, right? He hated this. He hoped it did.

“Look, we don’t have to,” Gallus said. He took a step—

“Back the fuck away!”

Gallus grumbled, stepping back. “Look, I just want to help you remove that amulet and—”

“You think I’m stupid, don’t you?” Basalt roared, her paw tightening around Silverstream’s neck. “You think you can get in close and trick me or some stupid shit like that, you coward? You stay right there or I’m snapping her fucking neck.”

Gallus rolled his eyes. His right hind leg had begun to quiver. He slowed his breathing. Stay calm.

Then it hit him. He knew why the kelpie had let them go. He hadn’t been thinking about it or anything, but his subconscious must have been puzzling over it this whole time. What if the kelpie that had started Harvest’s illusion had retreated? At first, Gallus assumed that it was hiding somewhere on board, waiting for the right moment to catch him off guard again, but what if it was gone?

What if it went to gather reinforcements?

He didn’t have time to be playing games.

“Basalt,” Gallus said gravely. “You give me that amulet right now, or we’re all fucked.”

“We’re all fucked anyway,” she answered. “Your point?”

“Now!” Gallus yelled.

The ship rocked suddenly. Most on deck looked to the bow, yelling anxiously, probably worried they had crashed into a column of rocks or something. Gallus, however, turned to the side of the ship.

Silence overtook The Coralvreckan for a brief moment. Then, as crew and criminals alike turned back to carry on the ransom, Gallus saw shapes in the fog. Shadows expanded out of the thick veils, writhing for moments before diving down and disappearing altogether. A pit formed in his stomach.

Someone screamed, and then theywere everywhere.

They emerged from the water like spiders crawling out of an agitated egg sac. Kelpies, in their natural, disgusting forms, riding hard, high waves that crashed against the sides of the ship.

A mass of green tackled Gallus, attempting to wrap its tendrils around his limbs. Deftly, he unsheathed the claws in his hindlegs and raked them hard into the kelpie’s lower chest. Green ooze dripped onto his chest in droves, but he didn’t finish the job. He scrambled away once its tendrils loosened their grip and got to his feet.

They were swarming the deck, jumping and grabbing and attacking every creature in sight. The crew and the criminals reacted, attempting to fight the monsters as opposed to fleeing, but the kelpies’ numbers were growing by the second.

Gallus turned to look for Late Harvest, but she was gone.

Harvest was good at surviving. He had to believe she was going to be okay.

He whirled around and spotted Basalt. She was pinned against the ledge of the ship by two kelpies who cooed cruelly to her as she twitched and whined, her eyes rolling back into her head.

Kelpies usually took prisoners, Gallus thought. They whisked their victims away to some sort of strange pocket dimension to carry out their torture. But these ones were torturing where they stood. There was something repulsive in their eyes—something unpolished, warlike.

Then he saw who he was looking for: Silverstream, laying slack across a struggling Terramar’s back. They made their way towards the back half of the ship, where the captain’s cabin was. Gallus pursued. The deck wobbled, making him stop more than once to regain his footing. Somehow, Terramar never stopped moving. Maybe it was the extra weight keeping him stable, or the fact that his big sister was depending on him to stay alive. But his drive filled Gallus with a strange sort of jealousy.

Past struggling ponies, hippogriff sailors, and griffons, all clawing and kicking at the horrifying, muddy formed monstrosities that could just barely pass for former hippogriffs, Gallus chased after Terramar. Screaming and whimpering trailed his side like waves in pursuit. He did his best to stay focused.

Terramar got to the cabin, slamming the door behind him. Gallus leapt onto it a few seconds after, threw the door open with a feral cry...

...And ended up in Canterlot University.

“No!”

Gallus spun around on the door, but it was already gone. He hung his head and groaned.

It was the University, alright. Top floor. Gallus recognized it right away, with its clean winders, Celestia-white walls, floors and chairs, and the lonely air that coiled round his throat like a snake.

One part of him was pissed.

That was why the kelpies weren’t taking anyone. They were there for him. To trap him. And he had fallen right into it.

The other part of him was scared.

No. He wasn’t scared. This wasn’t real and nothing here could hurt him. Except for the kelpie.

Stupid. What a stupid, idiotic fuck-up he was.

Why did he let himself follow Terramar instead of doing anything else?He could have checked on Harvest. Ran to the lower decks to find survivors. Hijack a lifeboat and take his chances on the unknown sea.

The amulet. Of course. It was to get the amulet. To use it and the crown in tandem and get rid of the kelpies.

He began to walk. Shredded ribbons of golden metal littered the floor, along with blood. He turned a corner to find more of the same. He didn’t want to be here.

No, he reminded himself. He wasn’t here. This wasn’t real.

Gallus inhaled and held his breath. He released it after a few seconds in a sigh. Wishing he was somewhere else wouldn’t help him now.

He turned another corner. The golden metal on the floor, previously scattered in paper-thin ribbons, was now jagged chunks. More blood appeared, in larger splatters, and in the midst of the blood were feathers. Blue ones.

The weather was wrong. He hadn’t noticed until now, but it wasn’t a sunny day like it should have been. There was a fog outside, as thick as rainclouds. Gallus thought he could see movement in it—small struggling shapes amongst predatory ones—but he had no time to stop and smell the roses. He needed to get out of here as fast as possible.

The amount of gold, blood and feathers increased, covering the floor of the next hallway like unwanted weeds in a fertile field. Gallus found it hard to step around it all.

When he next turned a corner, he found something different. There was his old helmet, torn apart by claws, completely ruined. The gem in the middle of his old chestplate had been ripped out and stomped on until it looked shattered as a fallen beehive.

But, to Gallus’s surprise, there was no copy of him. No crying, slobbering young visage at the mercy of the abyssinian he had locked away in the deepest parts of his mind. On that note, she wasn’t here, either.

So what was?

A rustling from behind made him jump. He glanced over his shoulder: no one there. When he turned back, it was to see that his armor had been cleared out of the way. Lying at the end of the hallway was the Crown of Grover.

“What do you want?” Gallus asked whatever was listening. “You want the crown? You’re not getting it.”

The air gave no answer.

Gallus sighed and walked towards the crown. What was the point of all of this? What were the kelpies up to?

This isn’t real, he reminded himself. Nothing’s here.

But it was real. It happened, didn’t it? That made it as real as anything else that had happened in the history of the world.

He stopped a few metres away from the crown. It couldn’t be this easy.

Could it?

Just as he crouched down to pick it up, he felt her.

Immediately he remembered her slitted eyes, orange like the sunset, against sickly red sclera, damaged by all of the potions she had medicated herself with for years on end. He remembered her fur, off-white and shaggy, and her claws that were eternally unsheathed.

“Griffon,” she whispered. She was right on him. “Did you miss me?”

“Fuck you,” Gallus said. He spoke with half the volume he had meant to.

“What should I break this time?”

“Fuck you!” Gallus yelled, spinning back and—and throwing a punch at the air.

He was alone.

“This is perfect,” said Catrina, the Witch of Abyssinia, the creature who had ruined his life. Her voice came from behind him, sounding like hot coals freshly splashed with water.

“Where are you?” Gallus asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” said Catrina.

Gallus felt a paw trail up his back. He looked to the floor. He could see her reflection on the tile—warped and grinning. “Don’t do that.”

“Stop me.”

I can’t. He couldn’t even close his eyes.

He could deal with Smolder and Sandbar. He could deal with anything else.

“No one’s coming for you,” said Catrina.

“I know.”

“You won’t even try to stop me?”

Gallus scratched at the floor. Do something! Anything! His heart was racing. Part of him wondered if it was going to burst.

Catrina’s paw stroked his back in a way that was meant to be calming. And then it travelled to his right wing.

He felt the paw wrap around his feathers, and before he could prepare for it he felt a jolt of pain burn through his wing, right through to his chest. Catrina had ripped out a fistful of his primaries.

Tears made their way down his face. Attack her! She’s not real! She’s a kelpie!

This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real and she wasn’t going to break—

More pain. Gallus shuddered out a groan as she ripped out feathers from his left wing.

“Won’t be using these anyway, will you?”

Agony. Not because of the pain of his feathers being taken from him, but because of the sheer dread that had a vice grip on his body. He couldn’t do anything. There was something primal in him that was holding him back. Something that he had learned over the course of the hour he had spent with her alone, at the top floor of this university.

Gallus sank to the ground, marvelling at how cold it felt, and he waited for her to kill him.

Nothing came.

“You’re no fun,” Catrina said. “But then again, that was why you volunteered for the guard instead of teaching at the school, didn’t you?”

Gallus said something. He wasn’t sure what it was, or if he even managed to speak coherently, but he was sure he said something.

“No one’s coming for you, you know. No one is here for you.”

And she was right. No one was there for him, and no one ever would be. He was alone, and he was hopeless. Any attempt he had ever made at thinking otherwise had always ended terribly. He was a burden. He deserved this. If the world was fair and just, he would be killed right here.

Gallus was scared. He had been scared, this whole time. He had been scared when he first figured out that kelpies were on board and he was scared now.

Prompted by something, Gallus’s eyes lifted from the floor, up to the Crown of Grover. It was close enough to grab, if he moved quickly.

There was no use lying about his hurt, because the hurting was real.

But the memories were just that. They were memories.

Catrina yanked more feathers from his wings, but he barely felt the pain after a few seconds.

“Someone’s here,” said Gallus.

“What?” Catrina snapped.

“Someone came for me. That’s the annoying thing about her, actually. She doesn’t know how to leave.”

Catrina began to respond, and Gallus leapt for the crown. It was so easy. His claws moved towards it like magnets. He grabbed it and held it tight to his chest, and he slid down to the floor.

For a split second he saw Catrina, and then he saw a disgusting, vegetal imitation of a creature looking at him in confused terror.

Gallus put the Crown of Grover on his head.

...

Magic. He was magic, and he could see other kinds of magic contracting, flowing around him in a radiant array of light. It was like being in an ocean of color, all forever changing, over and over, and for a sublime moment Gallus was a part of it all. But he had to let it go. It was almost loathsome of him to let it all turn gray, but he did, and then he concentrated on who he was looking for. She wouldn’t be hard to find. She had never been hard to find.

There was a blue spark amongst the monochrome, as true as an open sky. He drew himself towards it and he embraced it with all four of his limbs.

He breathed, and as he inhaled he felt her connect to him, and when he breathed out, so did Silverstream.

Gallus shivered. Emotions ran through him: Grief. Laughter. Ecstasy. Agony. And through the wave of emotion came knowledge. The knowledge that he was with her, and that he was her, and she was him. He felt her psyche, and her psyche questioned him.

They couldn’t talk through this connection, but he could show her things. And so he showed her exactly what she needed to see.

Silverstream’s mural was nearly impossible to comprehend. There were hardly shapes in the thing, after all. Only colors, blending into other colors and becoming new colors altogether. It was only after taking the time to really look at it that Gallus could see there was a deeper meaning behind it all.

She was hard at work on the mural, located on the wall of the staircase leading to the second floor of the Treehouse, and as such, she hadn’t yet noticed him walk in. She simply worked, humming idly to herself as she painted. Gallus watched her for a while from his seat at the very edge of Yona’s room, where he had the best view of everything.

“What does it all mean?” he eventually asked.

Silverstream froze. She was in the middle of speckling a valley of blue with a bright purple.

“Um.” She coughed. “Well, I wanted to do something about letting life go with the flow, you know? About, like, well...about doing things that don’t make sense and then letting them be, because once the paint’s on the wall there’s no way to erase it except by adding more paint.”

“It’s nice,” Gallus said.

“Yeah.” She set her easel down and sat on the floor. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Ruining graduation.”

Gallus laughed. “That was months ago. You don’t need—”

“Why haven’t we talked at all, then? That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”

Gallus shut up. All of a sudden, this was ten times harder than he wanted it to be. He examined one of his claws for dirt. It was spotless.

“Well,” he said, putting the claw down, “I think the painting’s pretty.”

“You don’t forgive me, do you?” Silverstream asked. Gallus was still behind her, but he could picture the look on her face. The tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes.

Gallus crept forward and sat beside her, but he kept his eyes on the painting. “Of course I forgive you.”

He turned and offered her his claw. When she didn’t take it, he placed it on top of hers. “Silverstream,” he said, “do you want to be friends again or not?”

Silverstream was crying.

“Oh…” He sighed, and took his claw off of hers.

“Of course I do!” she said suddenly, and wrapped both of her arms around him.

Gallus laughed, and she began to laugh too, and he hugged her back and dug his face into her neck.

“You’re getting tall,” he said into her feathers.

“You’re just short,” she replied. “...How was boot camp?”

There came a light when the memory faded, but it died out, and Gallus fell from nowhere, landing on his face.

He was on the floor of Silverstream’s cabin.

The kelpie imitating Catrina was gone. So were his injuries. Gallus glanced back out of curiosity to find that both of his wings had their feathers again.

Out of pure, stupid curiosity, he spread one of them. Maybe…

The sight that greeted him wasn’t pretty. Still wasn’t pretty. Still broken. He curled the wing back in.

Well, it’s better than nothing, I guess. Gallus stood up. No one else was in the cabin with him. It was quiet outside. He opened the door and stepped onto the deck.

The sun was out, shining luxuriously on the wet sheen that covered the surface of the entire ship. Gallus felt like the air was more refreshing than usual, somehow. He found himself taking deeper breaths.

A murmur arose around him. The crew was back at work, tugging at the various ropes and rigging sails. Some of them seemed injured, but not enough to warrant a visit to the medical bay, and thus sat on deck, looking out at the now visible sea or talking amongst themselves. Until they spotted Gallus, of course. That was when the whispering started.

Gallus walked around the Captain’s Cabin towards the middle of the ship. Some part of himself guided him in the right direction—a kind of itch that was like he had cut off his own foot and left it somewhere, and he had an intrinsic knowledge on where exactly it was.

Silverstream, Terramar and Brine stood on the deck, talking to each other. They all looked okay. No. They were okay. He knew that. Why did he know that?

Perfectly on cue, Silverstream stepped away from her brother and her second-in-command once Gallus was in sight, and she smiled at him.

Gallus knew what had happened.

The crown had snapped Silverstream back into consciousness just as she nearly fell off the edge of the ship, and it had increased the powers of the amulet tenfold. It had cast a light—brighter than she had ever seen, enough so that she had to close her eyes—that incinerated most of the kelpies, though some still managed to get away. They wouldn’t be returning any time soon, though.

After that, reorganizing the ship was easy. It wasn’t even half-an-hour since Silverstream had woken up.

The prisoners were being escorted back to the brig currently. There was still a question as to how many casualties of the crew were inflicted by the criminals prior to them stepping onto deck for that bogus negotiation, but that was being investigated right now.

But how did Gallus know all that?

Silverstream flew towards him, and suddenly the air he was breathing felt all the sweeter, more clean. It was like that metaphorical severed foot was making its way back to him.

He was still wearing the Crown of Grover. They were still connected.

Gallus ripped it off of his head just as Silverstream stopped.

Both of them winced from the discomfort of their connection being broken off so abruptly— like someone was roughly stroking their stomachs from the inside—but they got over it pretty quick.

Silverstream’s smiling face thrust itself into Gallus’s personal space.

He frowned.

“Hi,” she said.

“Don’t,” Gallus responded. “Don’t try it.”

Her smile fell for a moment, and she stepped back before smiling at him again. “Fine. I won’t. For now.”

FOREVER I

Gallus leaned against the edge of the Coralvreckan’s deck. He breathed delicately, savoring each inhale and exhale of ocean air as the breeze swept across his feathers and face. It hadn’t noticed it until now, but back when he was in that...that maze of kelpies and broken memories, the air was dank and thick. He was grateful to be breathing fresh air again.

“What did you see?” Silverstream had asked him, not long after she rallied the crew into working after a brief rest on their part.

“Nothing important,” he told her.

She knew he was lying. He knew she wanted to tell him about all the terrible illusions she’d seen under the kelpies’ influence. He wasn’t interested.

He left her in her quarters to deliver a report to Seaspray using her weird hippogriff communications orb. Apparently it stopped working when the fog came in. He wasn’t surprised.

It wasn’t long before he tired of the dusky sky’s reflection on the ocean. He turned around and observed the crew as they worked. Lots of callouts and grunting and long, swinging ropes. Gallus sighed. The Navy was a bit of a bore when it came down to it. He couldn’t imagine ever being a part of it. He had toyed with the idea before—some of the jobs sounded like a fun thing to do during the summer break—but he figured he could leave that to a him in another universe. Someone better, who deserved it a little more.

“Gallus?”

Terramar hovered down from the sky in Gallus’s peripherals, landing somewhat near him.

“Hey, shrimp.”

“What are you doing?” Terramar looked at him like a puppy to its master. His eyes were wide and adoring and so full of pure innocence that it almost pushed out the glimmer of sapience that shone underneath his irises.

Gallus snorted. “Hanging out, I guess. Not much else to do on this ship.”

“You haven’t fully explored it, then. There’s a ball pit and a rock climbing wall somewhere in the lower decks.”

“Mmm.”

Terramar’s hesitation hung tangibly in the air. He twitched forward, but stopped. It was like Gallus had a glass cube around him.

And maybe he did, in a way. Gallus rolled his eyes and pat the space beside him. “C’mere. I’m not gonna bite you.”

The hippogriff got closer and sat down. Gallus tried not to feel bitter that Terramar of all creatures was now taller than him. His feelings, predictably, won out over his will.

“Are you and Streamie friends ag—?”

“No,” said Gallus.

“Oh.”

“Was that all you came to talk about?”

“I also wanted to ask how you’re doing,” Terramar said.

Gallus smirked. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Because Deadwater said you have a concussion.”

“Nothing like a good concussion to wake you up in the morning.” Gallus tried to chuckle, but right then the ship swayed in the worst way, and he doubled over. His brain felt like it was spinning inside his head like a globe.

Terramar’s claw found his shoulder. “Gallus?”

“I’m fine.”

The claw left. “Okay.”

Gallus rubbed his temples for a few moments. Eventually, he found the strength to sit up again.

“Harvest was wondering where you were.”

“Was she?”

“I think so. I just saw her looking around the medical bay. I don’t know who else she’d be trying to find on this ship.”

“Maybe she’s checking for ghosts,” said Gallus. Another wave of dizziness washed over him, and he resorted to lying flat on the floor. The firmness of the wood against his belly and chin helped calm the warzone inside his skull.

“You should lie down or something,”

“What do you think I’m doing, shrimp?”

“Fair enough.” Terramar tried to laugh. What came out of his beak didn’t sound happy.

That was concerning. The kelpies had gone after everyone on deck back there, hadn’t they? And that must have included Terramar. Was there something he saw that upset him? Was that why he was over here, acting friendly and making pointless conversation?

“Are you okay?” Gallus asked. He tried not to act surprised that he had even asked.

Terramar’s brows rose high.

“You heard me, didn’t you?” Gallus was blushing. He didn’t dare acknowledge that, either.

“I’m okay. Thanks for asking, Gally.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Terramar laughed. It sounded much better than his last attempt.

Gallus was...satisfied. Still not happy, but it was better than nothing. Terramar being all sullen wasn’t right.

The moment didn’t last long, of course. Silverstream’s voice came braying on the wind not seconds after the sound of her cabin door opening made its way to them. “Gallus!” she called. “We need you in here!”

“Good luck,” Terramar teased.

Gallus grunted and left.

It had been a while since he had come into contact with hippogriff technology, so he was only mildly embarrassed when a projection of Admiral Seaspray burst forth from the communications orb on Silverstream’s desk and he launched himself backwards with a yelp, banging his ribs against the sharp corner of a nearby table.

Silverstream giggled. Seaspray, thankfully, hadn’t seemed to notice. Perhaps the spell was still processing.

“Coralvreckan,” said the projection of Seaspray. So it was still processing. “You—” He stopped suddenly and took note of Gallus rubbing his side. “Hello, Captain. Are you injured?”

Gallus, biting down the urge to whimper, looked at the glowing purple hippogriff as stoically as he could. “I’m fine. And I’m not a guard anymore, Seaspray.”

Silverstream entered the conversation, saluting Seaspray cheerfully, with Brine following the action from the corner of the room. “You were saying something, Admiral?”

“Captain.” Seaspray saluted her in return. “Now that comms and sonar are finally working again, we’ve reestablished surveillance of our waters. Unfortunately, that has led to the discovery of something perplexing.”

“Perplexing,” Silverstream repeated. “Fun word! But... this probably isn’t something very fun at all.”

“It’s not,” Seaspray said. “Do you remember that old saying about kelpies, my girl? It seems to have proven true. The magical fog that accompanied their appearance seems to have been a cloak to conceal an enemy even more dangerous.”

Silverstream’s smile fell. “I was right. Not fun at all. What did you find?”

“Our sonars have detected the imminent arrival of a living creature swimming up from the depths of the deep sea, approximately the size of Mount Aris. Its current trajectory appears to be towards Mount Aris and Seaquestria as a result, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. By our estimates, we place the time of arrival at around twelve hours from now. 0600.”

“Huh.” Silverstream’s wings stretched out halfway. She preened herself briefly, organizing a few misaligned feathers on one wing. Gallus saw from the wooden, forced way that she did it, she was just trying to make herself relaxed. He waited for a reprimand from Seaspray—preening wasn’t the most respectful thing to do in the presence of one’s Commander—but the other hippogriff said nothing, waiting patiently until she finished. Was this a nervous tick that she had developed in the last few years?

Silverstream’s stern, authoritative facade came back. “What are our orders, Admiral?”

“We suspect the creature to be a kraken, or something similar,” Seaspray said. “Your orders are as follows: Stay at your current location. I’ve sent a third of the fleet to rendezvous with you. As of now, their estimated time of arrival is one hour from now, at around1900 hours. After you rendezvous, I am placing you in charge of the fleet to eliminate the creature before it gets too close to our home.”

“I’ll have to work in the dark,” Silverstream said. Her wings shook, and there was a trembling in her throat, but as soon as Gallus took note of it, she made herself still again. “Okay. Anything else?”

Seaspray shook his head, wished them good luck, and his image disappeared.

A contemplative quiet entered the room. Gallus waited, watching as Silverstream paced back and forth, her wings fluttering tightly against her sides. Brine, on the other claw, stayed frozen in the corner of the room, statuesque. When the time came to speak, Brine went first.

“I have several options in mind, Captain, but did you have an opinion on how to handle this?”

Silverstream, who had paced to the other side of the cabin, walked slowly back towards Brine and Gallus, stopping when she was close enough that Gallus could see the details of her face. Her tight, nervous face. “Yes,” she said. “But I want to talk to Gally first.”

Don’t call me that, Gallus was about to say, but kept his beak shut. Instead, he shrugged at her. “What?”

“I’m thinking we hit it with a triple-chocolate double-decker layer cake.”

Gallus couldn’t help but smirk. The Dessert Code. Not approved by the Equestrian military—or any military unit ever for that matter—it was the result of Pinkie Pie getting hold of a military tactics book and incorporating it into her lectures at the School of Friendship. She was ultimately shut down by the rest of the teaching staff, but the Code had stuck with Gallus, Silverstream, and four other creatures that he didn’t want to think about right now.

Triple-chocolate double-decker layer cake: tackle the target head on with a squad of skilled combatants, usually the Elements of Harmony or a similarly skilled team. Try to make friends with it, and if that doesn’t work out, like it usually doesn’t, kick its ass.

“That would be fine,” said Gallus. “Who would be the team?”

“We have a zonal spell that soothes primitive creatures,” Brine said. “Cases of giants like this are rare, but the fleet being sent to us likely has enough able shamans to bring one down. The only problem is that the ritual would take hours.”

Sometime after Princess Twilight’s coronation as the Ruler of Equestria, the hippogriffs had a big cultural push to reconnect with the magic and technology that it lost during their period of hiding underwater. What happened in the following years could be described as three things: cool boats, advanced communications tech, and weird sea magic.

Gallus had no idea how the magic worked, but he knew it was similar to what zebras used, at least in terms of the ritual. And that, as Brine said, took time. More time than they had in claw.

“Magic’s out, then,” Gallus cut in. “We might need to rethink this. What if the thing has armor? I doubt that you guys have any weapons to account for that.”

“Krakens are all soft tissue,” said Silverstream. “Except, you know, really muscular. They’re like anacondas except even bigger.”

“It’s also not confirmed to be a kraken,” Brine said.

“My point exactly,” said Gallus.

“What do you think we should do, then?” asked Silverstream.

Gallus rolled his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? Honey salsa cupcakes for the appetizer. Mint chip ice cream to finish it off.”

Silverstream licked her beak. “You’re making me hungry!”

Gallus raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. And what do you think of the plan?”

“It’s good, Gally,” Silverstream said, puffing her chest out. “Pretty common sense.”

Brine stepped between them. “So we set two fields of explosion runes, one for when the creature is a third of the way to us, and another when it nears the surface, and when it breaches the surface we cannon the cracks that the mines have made in its skin or armor. I have major reservations with that plan.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Gallus asked. Then both his eyebrows raised.

Brine had understood. She knew the Dessert Code. Who had taught her...?

Gallus shot Silverstream a look. She smiled innocently.

If Brine had picked up on his displeasure, though, she didn’t show it. She went on: “We’re depending on those last few cannon shots to take the thing down. If the runes fail to detonate, or they do detonate and the creature isn’t exposed, then the cannon shots will be ineffective and we’ll be obliterated. That’s not even considering the fact that there’s no record of our people ever killing, or even injuring, a creature of this size. We’ve only ever sedated and soothed krakens, megalodons and the like enough to divert them away from us.”

“We can combine the first plan and this one, then,” Gallus said, tapping his claws on the floor. Who else knew the code now? Probably the whole ship, knowing Silverstream. “What if we used the runes to slow it down enough to make the ritual viable?”

“Again, placing a lot of faith in the explosions,” said Brine.

“Can you think of anything better?” Gallus asked.

“No, but I’m sure the Captain can,” she replied, turning to Silverstream. Gallus did as well, if only to glare at her.

Silverstream’s eyes widened. “Um. Actually, I can’t. Gallus’s plan sounds good to me.”

Brine frowned. “Is there no other way?”

“There’s an hour before the fleet gets here,” said Gallus. “Let me know if you think of something better by then, but I think you’ve been outvoted, Lieutenant.”

Brine scoffed. “Will do.”

“Now—” Gallus coughed. “If you’ll excuse me, I really gotta hit the can.”

He was halfway out the door before a cheery whistle stopped him in his tracks. He turned to see Silverstream smiling—an ordinary sight, but this time feeling brighter, somehow.

“Gally?” she said. “Thanks for your help. I haven’t had that much fun planning something in forever! I’m really happy that we’re working together again. ”

Together again, whispered Gallus’s mind. Again.

Forever.

“Sure,” he said, and he walked away.

He found the male’s washroom before his breathing got too out of control. He lurched over the sink, thankful that he was alone.

Something was wrong with him. It wasn’t the concussion. Well, part of it was the concussion, obviously, but not all of it. He caught sight of himself in the mirror. The Gallus staring back at him looked like an entirely different griffon. He looked tired and old, which was fine, he was incredibly tired and he was getting damn old, but there was something indescribably off about himself.

What was he doing? And why was he doing it?

He wasn’t a guard anymore. He said so himself. Silverstream didn’t need him. Couldn’t need him.

And he couldn’t need her.

He thought of warm nights by Gilda’s fireplace. Gabby’s laughter. Her smile whenever she left on trips to Canterlot. Her smile whenever she came back. He thought of the passing conversations in the morning as he left to deal with Greta’s broken stove or another dispute between Gilroy and Glenda. He would never be able to replace all of that.

At some point, he’d gotten distracted. He’d forgotten why he was really here, and why he wasn’t home. He barely even had time to think about home, what with all of the horseshit since the night Gabby and Gertrude disappeared. He needed to leave. Get support from Canterlot. Come back for Gabby and any other griffons that might need help.

They were probably all dead, but he had to try. That was the plan. He had to stick to it.

Gallus’s life—his life before Griffonstone, with Silverstream and the rest of them—was ruined. There was no point in salvaging the shards of broken glass he had left.

Silverstream watched from the foremast as the fleet arrived, thirteen ships strong, and all at the same time, too. It was fun to see! It was like being the first one to the party because you got there early by accident and waiting hours and hours until suddenly, at some magic time that everyone agreed on unconsciously, the rest of the guests arrived all at once. Silverstream felt like laughing in joy at the sight. She didn’t, though, because she was too busy being as nervous as she could possibly be.

She had never been in charge of a fleet before. Why had Seaspray suddenly decided she could do this? Why didn’t he ask, first? She would have said yes, obviously, but he could have asked. But that wasn’t really how the Navy worked. How it worked was that you did what you were told to the best of your ability, and Silverstream was going to do just that. Even if she was being asked to fight a kraken in the dark. She didn’t even know if it was a kraken.

Kraken-thingy.

The ships all parked (“parked”) just behind hers, but also beside hers, too. Kind of. That wouldn’t make much sense if she said it out loud, but luckily she was thinking this and no one would have to know.

The first order of business was the ship taking the prisoners to Mount Aris. Silverstream oversaw the first half of the transfer, and when she was sure that the rest of it would go off without any problems, she went to greet her assigned officers. Brine was surely already waiting for her in her cabin.

She made her way back just in time to see the iridescent orb in the middle of the room erupt in light, spitting out different projections of hippogriff captains she had never met across the walls of the room. They all saluted her as soon as the orb scanned her and sent her projection to all of their orbs in kind.

“Captains,” she said. “Thanks for coming to my aid!”

They saluted again, muttering a chorus of things about the respect they had for her and the fact that they would do their best to carry out her orders.

Silverstream was thankful that Brine was in the room to step in and explain the plan. She felt weird. Nervous about something more than just the responsibility. Nervous about the plan.

Brine was right. There was too much counting on the explosions’ ability to stun the kraken-thingy in Gallus’s plan, and it was the plan now, because they hadn’t been able to come up with anything better.

Brine finished her explanation, and the captains didn’t have any objections, surprisingly. Or maybe they did and they just weren’t voicing them. And just like that, all of a sudden, Silverstream was spearheading a plan to neutralize a giant kraken-thingy before it crashed into Mount Aris and/or Seaquestria.

Well, she was already spearheading all of that, but now it was official. Now it felt real.

The images of the other captains blinked out and the orb went dark, and before Brine turned around, Silverstream gulped.

She needed advice. Fresh, insightful advice from someone who knew about being a leader. Brine would work. The lieutenant was an admiral in the making. But Brine wasn’t the best for emotional support. Not the kind she needed right now, anyway. So, who was left? There was Terramar, but he didn’t need any more stress than he already had right now.

All Silverstream could think of was Gallus. Gallus, the ex-royal guard captain. Gallus, who had taken down many a villain plotting to overthrow Equestria in his time. In their time. Gallus, with whom she was barely on speaking terms again.

The Crown of Grover never left any permanent information in the minds of those it linked together. There was true understanding under its influence, but out of it, there were only simple impressions. Silverstream could only vaguely remember what it felt like to be in sync with Gallus, but she knew that he was hurting and tired and old. She knew that he wanted to move past the bitterness surrounding their past. She didn’t know if that was because the run-in with the kelpies had changed his mind, or because he always really wanted to fix things, or a little bit of both, but that was enough.

The decision was made. She needed Gallus. He would help her. Hopefully.

Silverstream stepped out of her cabin, only to run over one of her sailors. He was a private, one of the fresh-faced new recruits she had brought with her on this specific outing. His powdered-blue feathers matched his eyes and general demeanour, and reminded her of his name.

“Private Cerulean,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “What are you doing outside my cabin?”

He looked at her with a slight frown, his eyes wet. “I have a message for you, Captain.”

Silverstream could feel it in her gut. This wasn’t going to be a message that would make her happy.

The Coralvreckan grew smaller in the distance, receding underneath the purple sky above. The shape of it was blending into the ocean’s darker hues, and soon it would be indistinguishable from the vague, crashing shapes of the waves upon which it sailed. Gallus kept his eyes on it through the small window beside his table. Yet another thing he had run away from.

Without looking, he took a tater tot off of the plate that he’d acquired from the kitchen before he left, and side-eyed the pony and the hippogriff sitting across from him.

“If you didn’t want to come, you shouldn’t have,” he said. The ship that had arrived to transfer the prisoners from the Coralvreckan was happy to take him, Harvest and Terramar back to Mount Aris, especially because it didn’t know they were on it.

“What else was I going to do?” Harvest asked.

“We need to turn back,” Terramar said quietly, turning to look at his ship. Nearly out of sight, now.

“No, you need to turn back,” said Gallus. “Aren’t you going to get in trouble for leaving your station?”

“I’m a magic advisor, not an actual member of Her Majesty’s Navy. I can come and go if I want. The rest of my team is on the ship if Streamie’ll end up needing anyone to consult on runes, or whatever she needs.”

“You’re a shaman now?” Gallus ate another tot. “That’s kind of a weird thing for me to be learning right now, as we’re leaving the ship, no longer in danger of magical creatures.”

“You never asked,” said Terramar.

“Fair.”

“Gallus, why—”

“Why the fuck did you leave?” Harvest asked. “And why did you try to leave without me?”

“You found me before I could find you,” said Gallus.

“Yeah, thankfully. Now answer the first question.”

“I already did when you found me. If only you were actually listening.” How hard was it to understand? The entire point of leaving Griffonstone—of leaving Gabby and Gilda—was to haul ass to Canterlot, grab some alicorn-style backup, and save his hometown and everygriff in it, though with how long it was taking to even get across the sea, it was unlikely that there would be anyone left to save. So he was a failure already.

Silverstream, the Kelpies, the fucking Bloody Herring going down. It was all fluff. A ball of yarn that he didn’t need to untangle. He had to leave before it tied him up.

“Well, your reasoning is stupid,” Harvest spat, taking one of his tots for herself.

“Okay,” said Gallus.

“Okay?” she repeated. “So you’ll go back?”

“No.” He turned, finally, to look at the two creatures narrowing their eyes at him, and he looked to the off-white hippogriff. Terramar smelled like a sea breeze, but then, maybe that was just the sea.. “What about you, shrimp? You look like you’ve got something you want to say.”

“I…” Terramar started, but he cut himself off, his beak twisting into a scowl. He stood up out of his seat. “No. I’m going to the deck.”

Gallus watched as he walked away, eventually disappearing around the corner, leaving him and Harvest alone.

“Are you going to be yelling at me the rest of the way?” Gallus asked. He had a feeling that he already knew the answer, seeing how stiffly she was staring out of the window. The Coralvreckan was gone. So was Silverstream. It wouldn’t be long until they arrived at Mount Aris.

Harvest didn’t speak to him for the rest of the trip. She didn’t leave, either, which he appreciated.

He popped another tot into his beak. Hippogriff potatoes tasted extra starchy.

Later, Gallus found himself staring out at the sea. The sun had long since set and the air had become cold, and the water was now akin to a galaxy. It looked like the void of space, and if he squinted he could see the dim reflection of the sky on its surface. He began to shiver.

“Are you looking forward to seeing Mount Aris again?”

Gallus turned to see Terramar standing beside him. “Not really.”

“You sure?” asked Terramar. He sat down. “I remember that even grumpy old you couldn’t help but love the sights. You have to have at least one good memory.”

Fireworks. Seafood. The beach. And—

Gallus opened his eyes. His gaze settled on Terramar’s beak and he promptly redirected it to the upper half of the hippogriff’s face. His face had aged. it was elongated and more slender and elegant than the nervous, soft wreck that it used to be, but Gallus knew that this trembling beanpole of a hippogriff was the same Terramar that he had known since his teens.

“Why are you crying?” asked Gallus.

“I’m not,” said Terramar, blinking the tears out of his eyes. “Gally, don’t go. It’s not too late.”

“Don’t call me that,” he sighed. “I have to. It’s—” He stopped. “Gabby. She’s somewhere in Griffonstone. I can’t do anything to help her by myself. I mean, look at me.” Gallus made a show of spreading his busted wings. “I need to go and fetch Twilight. Spike too, for good measure. All the elements. I don’t know, I just need help.”

“Auntie Novo could help you,” said Terramar. “Seaspray too. You’ve done a lot for Mount Aris and—”

“I happened to, under service to the Equestrian Crown.”

“You’ve done a lot for Mount Aris,” Terramar repeated, raising his volume, “and I know that they would want to help you out.”

“That’ll take too long,” Gallus grumbled. “Assuming that Queen Novo and Seaspray would even consider mobilizing against Griffonstone. They’ve got too much on their plate already, anyways, running a nation that’s still in the process of reclaiming its lost magic and technology and all of that junk.”

“What, Princess Twilight doesn’t have anything to worry about?”

“It’s not that hard to run Equestria,” Gallus said. “I could do it for a few days if I wanted. Besides, Griffonstone’s got better relations with Equestria than it does Mount Aris. You know that.”

“Well, sure, but—”

“But what?” Gallus asked. “The answer’s no, shrimp.”

Terramar crossed his arms and sighed. Gallus gripped the railing harder.

“What are you going to do, then?” asked Terramar. “Just leave?”

“Yeah,” said Gallus. “You don’t need to come with me. You might be able to fly back to the Coralvreckan in time to help your sister out.”

“I...no.” Terramar sighed again. “I have time to get back. I’m going to see you off. Someone should.”

Gallus blinked. The sea had suddenly become more interesting. “Alright.”

Gallus was gone. He’d taken Terramar with him. Silverstream was supposed to command an entire fleet of ships into battle, and she was alone. She was stressed. Obviously.

Mister Gallus leaves his apologies. He wanted to say that he wishes he could stay, but he can’t. Specialist Terramar went with him, as did the pony, Miss Late Harvest. This is really awkward, Captain. I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you this.

This was fine. Everything was fine. And it would all stay fine as long as she didn’t freak out.

She was going to freak out any second. She knew exactly why: she wasn’t actually a very good soldier. She commanded her own crew fine enough, but catching pirates and battling the odd sea serpent was one thing. Something on the scale of Mount Aris was entirely different. Besides, the amulet had always done most of her job for her, and she didn’t know if it was going to fail her again.

Silverstream fiddled with the amulet. She wished she was outside, in the cold evening wind. Instead she was trapped in her cabin with Brine, waiting as the dive team got ready outside. Elsewhere, the sea shamans from the fleet were preparing to dive themselves and meet the team as soon as they were in the water. After that, they would travel to two locations.

The sea shamans would be dropped off about two hundred metres from the surface. Some of the escort team would be charged with keeping them safe as they conducted their ritual. The rest of the team would travel farther down, just to the border of the deep sea, and set up the explosion runes. In theory, it was a fine plan. Hippogriffs were practically royalty in their own waters, and no sea creatures would dare get in their way while they set up the ritual. The only thing that could go wrong was the runes. There was a chance that they wouldn’t work on the creature. The kraken-thingy. There was a chance she was sending a lot of seaponies to die.

“Is something wrong, Captain?” Brine asked. She was standing by her desk, poring over various documents that Silverstream didn’t feel like asking about. Too much in the brain already.

“The plan’s going to work, right?” Silverstream asked immediately. “No. No, don’t answer that. I don’t know why I’m doubting things. If there were problems with it, you would have told me.”

“Correct, Captain.” Brine nodded. “And I misspoke just now. I should have asked if there was anything you wanted to talk about.”

“Nope!” said Silverstream. “All good.”

“Please, Captain. You’ve never had a problem confiding in me before. It’s necessary for me to do my job.”

Brine made Silverstream feel strong on good days. Brine helped her remember her duty on the bad ones. But she couldn’t help now.

Her brother was gone, whisked away by her friend—her ex-friend—and with them left Silverstream’s confidence. She should have been professional about all of this. This shouldn’t have been hurting her as much as it was. Yet there she stood. Heartbroken.

Silverstream was alone in this world. Part of her wished selfishly for another chance to glimpse at her past. She wanted to remember why she deserved this, if she deserved this. She wanted a reason. There were none.

“Something about all of this doesn’t feel right,” said Silverstream, disgusted with the waver in her voice. “I’m really worried. I-I have a bad feeling that something bad is going to happen, and now I feel worse because I feel like because I said it out loud, something bad is definitely going to happen!”

“I believe that everything will be fine,” Brine said. “You and Gallus were right. This plan is the best available to us, and your crew is ready to do whatever you wish. Morale is high. We have a decent chance of success... as long as the sea is kind.”

“I...but what if I can’t pull it off?”

“I believe in you, Captain.”

That should have comforted her. It really, really should have.

The communications orb lit up.

“Team’s in place, Captain Silverstream,” came the voice of Whirlpool, one of the captains from the fleet. Her image burst forth from the orb, treading water as she stared forward. She had volunteered to escort the sea shamans with her own dive team, one member of which was probably holding their orb right now. They would switch to purely audio-based communications once they were in the deep water, but formality dictated that Silverstream was to literally see them off.

Sriracha honey cupcakes, triple chocolate double decker layer cake right afterwards.

What if the dive team got something wrong? Or what if they did everything right but outside circumstances came into play and they didn’t know how to react? Communications orbs weren’t the most reliable things in the world, as seen mere hours ago, when they were all jammed by dark magic.

They would need someone there to help them.

Whirlpool could do it. Whirlpool was great! But this plan was risky to begin with. Everyone down there needed morale. A bright light to guide the way. And it wasn’t like Silverstream was going to do much up on the surface anyway.

“Captain?” Brine asked.

Brine was a good leader, too. Steadfast. Strong. Calculating. She was just the hippogriff to command an entire fleet.

“Captain,” said Whirlpool, tilting her head. The passive light from the orb in her person made her pastel red scales shimmer with iridescence. “Permission to submerge?”

Silverstream’s heart raced.

She cleared her throat. “Um. No. Hold for a second.”

Silverstream loved Princess Twilight and everything she did to keep the sun and moon going all day long, but this night sky was definitely not her best work. The sun had set super early, and while the moon and stars that replaced it looked bright, it was a trick. Their combined light petered out before it touched the sea.

Down where Silverstream was, standing at the edge of the Coralvreckan as it coasted on the sea, there was only dark water. Gloomy water. It looked like a shifting, eternal void. She didn’t want to jump into that. So why was she about to?

Brine stood beside her, breathing heavy in the seaside air. Her voice was stony.

“You’re acting like there aren’t any competent soldiers besides us two on this ship. In this fleet.”

“I’m not,” replied Silverstream.

“Still, I don’t agree with this decision, Captain,” Brine said. Ordinarily, her tone would soften just a tad, but it seemed that she was past pleading. “You’re abandoning your command.”

“I’m overseeing the mission directly.” Silverstream couldn’t take her eyes off the water. It was supposed to be her second home. Seaquestria wasn’t very far, after all. But now it seemed alien. “I’m making our chances of success better.”

“Are you sure this decision isn’t coming from something... unrelated to the mission, Captain?”

“What are you implying, Lieutenant?” Silverstream asked. There was an edge in her voice she didn’t care to dull.

“Nothing, Captain.”

“Good.” Silverstream nodded. “You’re Acting Captain while I’m gone.”

“I know.”

“You’re going to do great.”

“...Be careful,” said Brine. “Don’t be reckless, and you’ll come back safe.”

“I hope so.”

“I know so. Whirlpool’s waiting. Dive towards the water, halt momentum ten feet above, submerge after that,” Brine said. “On my mark. Captain—you’re sure about this?”

She nodded again.

“Three. Two. One.” Brine exhaled. “Mark.”

Silverstream jumped off of her ship. The cold, dark void received her wholly.

Gallus couldn’t find anything to do. He retreated back to his room after twenty minutes of silence with Terramar, and had stayed there for another hour just staring at the ceiling. He didn’t feel like sleeping, he couldn’t talk to anyone else, he wasn’t hungry...

He found himself back at the deck, but instead of staring at the sea, he laid on his back on the freezing metal floor and gazed up at the moon. Twilight had given him a shining night sky to light the way to Canterlot. He wondered what she was up to, nowadays. He wondered if he ever crossed her mind.

The sound of the water churning underneath the boat began to put him into a sort of trance. It sounded angry. Alive. But it didn’t sound dangerous.

Gallus wished he had someone to talk to, if only to talk about nothing at all. He supposed that he could have found Harvest, but she didn’t seem to be in a social mood. She had holed up in her room and he had left her to it. She didn’t approve of him leaving the Coralvreckan. No surprise there, but Gallus had anticipated it. He knew that—

That this wasn’t the right thing to do.

But neither was staying.

Gallus kept his eyes on the moon. Somewhere across the sea was Silverstream, about to fight something incredibly dangerous. And he was here.

He didn’t regret it, and he didn’t envy her. She would be fine. She had the amulet, and an entire fleet to back her up. All she had to do was sit pretty inside her cabin and wait for her crew to get the job done. Piece of cake.

Terramar wasn’t even there right now. That meant that he thought she would be fine too. Why else would he tag along with Gallus in the first place?

You know why.

Because he was an idiot, of course. Terramar had always been soft. Too sentimental. Darting in and out of creatures’ lives and always, always having it turn on him.

It felt like something was watching him. A sailor, maybe? Gallus didn’t really care. Whether there really were a pair of eyes on him was irrelevant. Only two creatures on this boat knew him, and neither of their opinions mattered.

His mind drifted to Late Harvest. He had never really apologized to her for dragging her into the whole kelpie thing, had he? In his defense, it really wasn’t his fault, but it sure felt like it. She had seen so much of his past. And he had spent way too long in that incomplete memory of hers.

Say sorry. That’s why she’s been avoiding you.

Gallus decided to apologize when he could. Right after he finished staring at the sky.

He remembered being a guard, helping Admiral Seaspray capture a fleet of former Storm King affiliates. That had been a simple affair. Earned him a medal. There was a nice party, too. The hippogriffs sailed in with their party boats. It lasted for two days straight.

He wasn’t sure why he started thinking about his old job. He loathed doing that.

His mind flowed in and out of thoughts and memories, the tide on a rocky shore, spreading over the crevices that the rocks made and swimming underneath them only to retreat when it got too close to the sand.

The ship shifted suddenly, like it was slowing down. Gallus sat up like a shot, startling a passing hippogriff sailor. Then he stood.

Mount Aris loomed overhead. Its buildings contained a soft orange light. Gallus thought they looked like eyes.

The trip to the train was depressing. Gallus felt like he was walking to somegriff’s funeral. The saddlebags that laid across his back—heavy with the Crown of Grover and a pile of compensated bits from Silverstream’s personal chest—may as well have been a coffin. Terramar and Harvest hadn’t said anything past one word answers since they left the docks. At some point, they quickened their pace to get ahead of him, and he didn’t have the energy to catch up. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

The only good thing about the walk was seeing the town of Mount Aris again. Its buildings and roads had become more beautiful over time, though the overall atmosphere was about the same as Gallus remembered.

In general, the hippogriffs favored two styles of architecture: one where buildings looked like the trees of the Harmonizing heights, and one where the buildings were like crystals—tall and narrow and geometric.

Like walking through a forest! he remembered himself saying, years ago. A forest with giant crystals and giant bird ponies flying around everywhere. Except now the trees were even bigger, the fine polish of the crystal-like buildings shinier than ever. And the hippogriffs themselves looked as serene and grateful to be alive as they ever had. They were flying everywhere, laughing and screeching like a flock of feral birds in the summertime, even though it was ten o’clock and the sun was down. Obviously they hadn’t been told about the maybe-a-kraken headed their way.

Gallus was jealous. If he could fly now he would have been in Canterlot by now. If he could fly he could fight the entirety of Griffonstone. He wouldn’t win, but he could try.

It wasn’t long before they arrived at the station, a dome of pale red glass with rows of benches lined up in parallel like the pews of a Celestial church. A clawful of creatures sat waiting to leave.

Gallus froze by the entrance, and it took Terramar and Harvest a few steps to realize that he’d stopped moving. Almost in unison, they turned around. Terramar spoke first.

“Hey,” he ventured, staring intently at the ground next to Gallus. His beak was quivering. “I don’t really know what to say. Bye, I guess.”

“Follow me,” said Gallus. He eyed the both of them before walking to the side of the building, away from any creature in earshot. It was as private a place as Gallus could find in less than thirty seconds.

Terramar and Harvest followed him sullenly.

“What?” asked Terramar. He looked uncomfortable, unable to stand still. Some part of him, his legs or his eyes or his wings, fidgeted continuously. It was like the air around him was turning unbearably hot.

“If you think I’m making—I don’t know—like a mistake or something here, then come out and tell me,” Gallus said, eyes narrowing. “Seriously, shrimp. You think that being a meek little baby bird’s gonna get you what you want?”

“Since when do you care about what I want?” Terramar scratched at the station floor, leaving slight marks in the tiles that probably weren’t as deep as he hoped. “Do you even—? No. I should go.” He grimaced. “I didn’t say anything because I’m sad. Disappointed. But I shouldn’t be. I should have expected this. Goodbye, Gallus. Harvest.”

Terramar tried to move, but Gallus was already blocking Terramar’s path. He was half of Terramar’s size, but that didn’t stop him from making it feel like the opposite was true. The hippogriff trembled before him.

“Excuse me?” asked Gallus. There was a rising tension in his voice. “You ‘should have expected this’? Are you kidding me? I told you to leave me the fuck alone when you found me. This is your fault.”

“You did,” Terramar replied. His voice was waning with every word. “And somehow, I’m here. But I’ve learned my lesson.”

Gallus scratched at his neck. The shrimp was starting to piss him off. “You didn’t learn shit, shrimp.”

“Whatever.”

“Terramar, I—”

“Do you want to know what Silverstream was like when she first came home?” Terramar growled. His wings shot straight out, unsheathed like swords.

Gallus jerked his head back.

“She barely took care of herself,” Terramar continued. “She’d go out and she wouldn’t come back for days and she’d never tell us where she went. Sounds bad, right? But she was just making friends. And staying in their homes. And then making more friends and staying in their homes. She was doing what she did best, but she was lost. Just, forever couchsurfing with no point and no goals. That’s why she ended up with the navy. It was my idea. I wanted her to have the family that she was looking for, because clearly me and Mom weren’t enough.”

The muscles in Gallus’s legs tightened. His throat was dry. “Whuh—why—?”

“It’s good that you’re leaving,” explained Terramar. “I’m sorry for thinking that you should have stayed. Maybe you were right, you know? Maybe we should all just stay as far from Equestria as possible and never have anything to do with it.”

Terramar stepped towards Gallus, and Gallus stepped backwards. Just once. His gaze fell to the polished floor.

He heard Terramar say something else—some kind of weak attempt to salvage the situation. Then he took to the air. By the time Gallus’s feathers stopped tingling from the breeze Terramar made with his takeoff, the little baby bird was gone.

There was a drawn out silence. Gallus noticed Harvest biting her lip. The sounds of the train station patrons filled the space between them.

Finally, Harvest sighed. “Hey.”

“Yeah?” asked Gallus.

“This is definitely the worst time to tell you this, but... the train’s coming soon.”

“You’re right.” Gallus cleared his throat. He straightened his posture, looking at her in her tired eyes. “We should go.”

“Right,” she said. She smiled slightly. Bitterly.

“What?”

“I’m…” Harvest sighed. “I’m not coming with you either, Gallus. I can’t go to Canterlot yet.”

Gallus closed his eyes. “Really,” he said.

She had to be joking. But there wasn’t anything funny about this. She was serious. She wasn’t coming with him. Gallus would be getting on this train alone.

He had spent so long in Griffonstone. So long dealing with the same old griffons, with Gabby and Gilda, not thinking of anycreature else. He didn’t have to there.

A friend. He had made a friend. The first in years. He had barely noticed that it happened.

And now she was leaving.

Harvest shook her head. “I’ve seen a lot of shit in the past few days, buddy. I—I need to make things right.” She stomped a hoof, staring down at it with her jaw set. “I’ve decided that I have to go back home. You helped me see that. So I’m catching the next train to Fillydelphia in the morning.”

“I see,” was all that Gallus could say.

He knew what she was getting at. And from the look on her face, he could tell that she knew that he had figured it out.

Terramar, Silverstream...Gabby, Gilda and Gertrude—they were all made worse for having known him. Harvest saw that. She saw into his past, literally, and the messes that he’d made. Gallus was a walking vial of poison. It was only a matter of time before he slipped and broke and contaminated whoever was around him. The smart thing to do was to leave while you could.

He had never told her, but she reminded him of himself. A younger, less stupid version of himself. And that’s part of what he liked about her. She hadn’t had the time to fuck her life up yet.

And that meant that she could still be saved. He was duty-bound to let her go,no matter how much he wanted her to stay.

“I’ll be seeing you, then,” he said.

“Yeah.” Harvest’s smile changed slightly, becoming less taut. “Thanks for getting me out of Griffonstone, dude. I don’t know where I’d be without you. I’ll... be seeing you.”

She held her hoof out. He shook it. An awkward, standard goodbye.

He remembered something. It felt ridiculous to mention now, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Zebrica.”

Harvest tilted her head. “What?”

“Remember back on the Herring?” said Gallus. “I was thinking about going to Zebrica and never thinking about Equestria again. And you said that we could go together. I’m, uh... gonna be needing a vacation when all this is over.”

She put a hoof overtop his claw, smiling wider. “It’s a deal, Gallus.”

“I’ll come find you,” Gallus said. “Score us tickets when I see Twilight. And I’m sorry.”

“...For what?”

“The kelpies. Everything at sea. That wasn’t a good time.”

“It was eye-opening.”

Harvest gave him a wink, slipped her hooves out of his grasp.

Pale yellow coat, short red mane, leaves for a cutie mark. The colors of autumn walked away from him, and he did his best to still his quivering back when they were finally gone.

Gallus was alone, completely.

Trains came and went, hippogriffs and ponies alike got on and off. The train to Canterlot would be arriving in fifteen minutes, according to the signs.

Gallus sat in the corner on the floor, away from the benches, glad that he had nothing more than his saddlebags with him. The sizes of the suitcases that some of these passengers were dragging around made him feel exhausted just looking at them.

There was a knot in his stomach. He doubted it would unravel with food or drink. But a splash of water to the face might do the trick.

“Where’s the nearest washroom?” he asked a passing hippogriff wearing a bright striped vest.

The hippogriff directed him to a flight of stairs going down into a dimly lit hallway, and at the end of that hallway he found a clean washroom with a mirror that he was almost too short to see himself in.

Gallus turned a faucet with a blue stripe on the handle. No water came out.

Hot water would have to do. He turned the other faucet.

Nothing happened.

“There’s no water here,” said a voice.

Gallus’s breath stopped. He looked up at the mirror.

Just over his shoulder, standing behind him, was Gabby, smiling wide with that same squishy face, gray feathers and green eyes he had seen every day for years. Gallus used to joke about how her colors were those of a water dam. Or a sewer. She used to tell him he looked like a parrot one would find in a Somnambula night market.

But there was something off about her. The soul in her eyes wasn’t the same. There didn’t seeem to be a soul there at all.

“Hello, Gally.”

“Who are you?” asked Gallus.

“Straight to the point.” Gabby snapped her claws. “Very nice!”

“Answer me.” Gallus narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t think I will!” said Gabby, tilting her head.

Gallus turned around, expecting her to be gone, just a hallucination in the mirror, but there she stood. Exactly like how he remembered her.

Every bone in his body was torn between relief and rage, flowing between one and the other so seamlessly that he was no longer sure which was which. Someone was wearing Gabby’s face. Was this Gabby’s real body? Was this a projection? Did this mean she was still alive?

The next time Gallus blinked, she was wearing a dress. Scarlet red. Her least favorite color.

“You’re not Gabby,” Gallus breathed.

“Very astute,” Gabby said. Her face turned coy. “You know, you’re a lot different from what I expected!”

“Are you a kelpie?”

“Kelpies can only do half of what I can,” Gabby snapped. “Kelpies play with memories.” She paused to look over her red dress, almost flirtatiously. “Do you ever remember seeing me like this?”

She had him there.

“Tell me,” she continued, taking a step forward. “Are you happy with the Crown of Grover?”

“What?” Gallus stepped to the side, turning his rear towards the exit. He put a claw on one side of his saddlebags. The crown was in the other side. It wasn’t the most clever ruse, but it was hard to think of anything better.

Gabby smiled at him hungrily. “Is your hearing broken too, Gally? I said… Are you happy with the Crown of Grover? ”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because it’s tainted your life so much!” She took a few teasing steps toward him, giggling. Her dress swayed, sanguine fabric rippling like disturbed water. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you? It’s that thing that makes you special. It’s why you were on all those adventures with your friends that—between you and me—ruined your life. It’s probably why Princess Twilight Sparkle made you a guard in the first place! Without that crown, Gally, you’d just be a normal, sad little orphan griffon, and your life would’ve been so much better. That crown is for those who have people to command. To bring together and unite! That crown isn’t for you.”

Gallus slouched his posture slightly. Gabby looked playful, but there was a catlike tension in her movements and the way she stood. Any second now, she would pounce.

“All these bad things happening to you,” Gabby went on, “are because of that crown, Gally. Do you really think something so powerful wouldn’t attract equally powerful things from the universe? That it wouldn’t attract kelpies, or sea monsters, or just plain bad luck?” Gabby pouted. Gabby never pouted.

“Shut up,” said Gallus tersely.

“Gally.”

“I said shut up!” Gallus snapped. “Don’t call me that! You—you aren’t Gabby!”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m Gabby or not,” she said. Gallus’s breathing sped up. She sounded so much like the Gabby he knew. The Gabby he had to abandon. “What matters,” she continued, “is that we both come to an agreement.”

“...What kind of agreement?”

“If you give me the Crown of Grover, then you can save Griffonstone.”

Gallus blinked. The room they were in—the washroom—it wasn’t there anymore. They were somewhere dark. Candles were scattered across the floor, engraved with some sort of floral patterning that he could swear he recognized. Heat attacked his skin and feathers, digging deep. The scent of dust and sand entered his nostrils.

Gabby was standing in the midst of a circle, drawn crudely with sky blue chalk.

“Why have you been clinging to the crown for so long?” asked Gabby.

“I haven’t,” said Gallus. “I’ve nearly lost the thing more times than I can count.”

“It follows you,” said Gabby, “because you still want it. Come on, you’re smart enough to know that. You’re still bound to it, in your heart. You still keep it. You never throw it away when it comes back into your arms. You never dare.”

Gallus simply stared. His neck was tense. “Where are we?”

“You’re not in the washroom anymore?” Gabby put a claw to her beak and looked around. “That’s interesting. It’s got to be the crown enhancing your magic.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” said Gallus.

“Your latent magic,” Gabby explained. “Your reserves.” She put her claw down. “You barely even know how the thing works! That poor artifact. Please, give it to me. I would treat it so much better than you.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t!”

The crown had stumbled into his life by accident. It had chosen him as its sole user by accident. There was something important about that. The same kind of happenstance that had pushed him into the School of Friendship was what brought him to glory. He had become useful by accident, but he was useful. He was needed, maybe not now, but in the past. The crown reminded him of that.

He couldn’t lose it.

“You’re useless with or without it,” said Gabby.

Gallus’s eyes widened. “Get out of my head.. Now.”

“Even when your wings worked, and you had friends who loved you, and you felt like the crown was yours, you felt useless.” Gabby raised her eyebrows. “If you gave it to me, you could save your friends. No, wait. You don’t think of Gabby and Gilda as friends, do you?. You think of them as sisters. Your second chance at a family, and you lost them. How sad… But if you give me the crown, you could get them back, Gallus.”

Gallus’s stomach twisted, feeling like it was folding around itself. He doubled over.

“You’re useless with or without it,” Gabby repeated.

“I don’t feel like that anymore,” Gallus muttered.

Gabby blinked. “What?”

The sudden nausea, and even the nausea he was feeling earlier, went away. Gallus let out a breath. “I don’t feel like that anymore. I don’t think I’m useless.”

Gabby squinted at him.

I need to make things right. You showed me that, Gabby.

“I don’t feel useless,” he said again, standing a little straighter. “Not anymore. I saved an innocent pony.”

“And brought her into more chaos.”

“That she’s getting out of now,” Gallus said. “And sometimes we can’t help but run into chaos. The kelpies—we made it through their attack.”

“Because of Silverstream.”

“Exactly,” Gallus said. He felt lighter, all of a sudden. “And you know, Terramar still thinks I’m a good person.”

“That hippogriff is an idiot.”

“Definitely.” He looked Gabby in the eyes. There was determination in them, but it was unraveling like a rope, string by string. “You’re telling me that if I give you the crown, you can save Griffonstone, right? How?” He pat his saddlebags again.

“Not just Griffonstone. You can save Silverstream, too,” said Gabby. “You can save all of them. I can stop all of it.”

“Tell me how!” Gallus yelled. “You’re not going to stop them, are you? You’re what’s behind everything. You’re pulling every string. Who are you?”

Gabby roared in response, and it was a terrible thing to hear. Whatever was putting on Gabby’s face as a disguise was done pretending. Something deep, desperate, and warped came out when Gabby roared.

She pounced. In a moment one claw was pushing Gallus’s head to the ground as another searched the depth of his saddlebag.

She realized what was going on too late.

“Did I not put it in there?”

Gallus jerked his head to the side, escaping the claw that was pushing his head down. He took the crown, which he had slipped out of his other bag, and bellowed as he decked her across the face with it.

Then he was in the washroom again, staring into the mirror. His claws were in the sink. Hot water poured over the crown.

His face was slick with cold sweat, but he looked like himself for the first time that day.

You can save Silverstream, too.

What did that fake Gabby mean by that? Was something coming for Silverstream? Something other than that giant creature that the navy detected hours ago?

Did something go wrong with the creature?

Gallus was drawn to the crown in his claw. He still knew how to use it, but he doubted that it would have any effect from this distance.. He already knew it would fail. It was pointless to even try.

It wouldn’t matter if he did try, though.

The Crown of Grover seemed to grow heavier. It was like it could read his mind.

Gallus lifted it to his head and slipped it on.

The crown glowed. He was thrown into a current of blinding, twisting lights—a current of magic.

FOREVER II

Silverstream took a single rune in her fins and tried to speak the proper words. A spear thrust towards her—she swam to the side, glaring at the ugly, sharp-toothed creature that grinned back at her. She thought he had missed, until she tasted a metallic brine across the side of her body. Her gills were taking in her own blood.

The creature screeched, trying to stab her straight on. Silverstream dodged again, dropped the rune, wrapped the spear in her fins and tried wrenching it from the creature’s grip. It struggled, tugging the spear back towards it desperately, but she was stronger. When it was hers she snapped it in half.

She drew back, expecting the next attack to come from its teeth, but the creature instead swam away into the darkness and disappeared.

Silverstream would not die in water. She had spent too much of her life without the sky. No. She was going to die somewhere nice—on land, by a beach, with the sun setting as she closed her eyes. She was going to die surrounded by her friends and family. She was going to die a good death.

The Naga: a primitive, sapient tribe of sea monsters that lived in Seaquestria’s waters. The current theory was that they were descended from ancient sharks, or something like that. They looked like it, at least. Sharks with arms and legs and bipedal bodies the length of two ponies standing in a line. Intelligent thoughts were not visible in their eyes. They were supposed to be completely harmless—their spears only meant for hucking at schools of fish. Apparently the arrival of giant sea monsters in their territory had turned them aggressive.

Silverstream was breaking all kinds of Navy records today: concrete sightings of Kelpies, gargantuan kraken-thingies emerging from nowhere, Naga turning into big jerks…

Silverstream’s sailors swam in place, breathing hard, and always, always checking their surroundings. Many of them held runes in their fins, but none of them dared start their incantation. The Naga swarmed them like piranhas whenever they tried to place a rune, as if they had money riding on the kraken-thingy obliterating Seaquestria.

“Everyone in one piece?” asked Silverstream. She suddenly remembered the rune she had dropped, but it was already lost to the darkness below. Here in the deep water, they couldn’t see more than a few metres in front of them. But the Naga didn’t seem to have that problem.

There were no words. Only nods and murmurs. The water had gained a soft tinge of red from all the blood. No grave injuries yet, thankfully, but they were hurting.

“I’m going to try the amulet again,” said Silverstream. “Prepare yourselves.”

Her sailors mustered enough energy for a loud “Yes, Captain!”

Silverstream took the amulet around her neck with both fins.

Please, Amy. Please work this time.

She closed her eyes and asked for light.

The amulet shone, illuminating the water around them with brilliance for at least a fifty metres out, and in that moment, Silverstream saw them all.

She and her sailors were completely surrounded. There were at least fifty Naga. Maybe a hundred. And they were all...waiting—heir spears at the ready, cold eyes trained and watching. But even as the light from the Amulet of Aurora flashed, Silverstream saw no visible reaction on their part. Like they were mannequins, cast adrift from some flooded department store, floating motionless in the water. They didn’t even shield their eyes from the light.

The amulet’s glow receded. Silverstream and her squad were surrounded by darkness again. She wished she hadn’t looked.

It was hopeless, anyway. The amulet drove back dark magic. It seemed that the Naga had none of that influencing them. Why were they so aggressive? What was blocking the communications orbs? None of it made sense.

“Anything, Captain?” asked Whirlpool. She was treading just above her, her rune clutched to her chest.The goggles they wore protected them from the amulet’s light, but only the one holding the amulet could actually see.

“No,” said Silverstream. “They’re just...still.”

“Should we try setting the runes again?”

“No!” Silverstream blurted.

“Then what?”

I don’t know, Silverstream nearly said. I have no idea. But she didn’t dare speak it.

Silverstream had hoped that her presence would keep her sailors safe, but so far, she was just as useless down here as she would have been on her ship. She was just another seapony stuck in the depths of the ocean.

They couldn’t leave without being attacked, and they couldn’t finish their mission without being attacked. They were sitting ducks. Outnumbered. Tiring.

She hadn’t smiled for a while. She thought that might help, but that thought broke in under a second.

“Movement!” Whirlpool’s voice thundered. The sailors readied themselves as the whistling sound of the Naga shooting towards them became louder.

Silverstream’s eyes closed. They hadn’t done anything this time. They barely even talked about the runes.

Whirlpool roared. “Naga incoming!”

Gallus slipped into a stream of magic. As the current coursed around him, the stream turned into a river, and then an ocean. His eyes were open, but they felt closed. He could see beams of blinding light, but it didn’t hurt to stare. Colors and colors and colors swam into each other and out again. Vastness left him profoundly small and hugged him tight at the same time.

He floated, never touching any of the webs of light. He floated past them, between them, searching for what he needed to find.

A minute passed before he found her. He heard her calling in the distance. And what was more, he heard the voice of the amulet.

He didn’t know how he knew it was the amulet. He just did, and its voice was beautiful. It sang to him in gentle tones, saying things that he struggled to understand but that he knew were heartbreaking. He swam towards the silver light it cast.

As he got closer he could see something underneath the amulet’s light, a color—light blue, the same as Silverstream’s mane. It seemed to be flickering. Fading. But as it receded, the amulet shone twice as bright, and the song that it sang to Gallus became more urgent, more alluring.

She needed him. He would go to her.

He was so close now. All he had to do was reach out.

The core tenets of themselves came trickling in, uninvited, like a castle moat overflowing, the water creeping under the walls of stone that were supposed to keep them out. They smelled white sand and sandalwood and strawberry rhubarb pie. They saw the sun rise on land for the first time, felt its rays on their face. They had their wings broken. Stomped on. No one came to visit them as they lay in the hospital. They buried their father. Surprise-kissed Professor Fluttershy on the cheek on a dare.

They became two again after one of them realized what was happening.

Silverstream caught her breath. She had been holding it for a long time. A spear flew towards her.

Move. She moved. But it wasn’t her own voice that she heard in her mind.

Gallus?

With a thought, he curled one of her fins into something resembling a fist. Whoa, fins are weird. Um. I’ll try not to move your body.

The crown, she thought. I thought...

She didn’t need to think anymore. She already knew. She just had to grab the memory that lay in her mind’s reach. She saw Gabby in a red dress. Watched Terramar and Harvest walk away. Felt her heart break for the three of them. Then the four of them.

“Gally,” she sobbed aloud. An apology was on her lips.

You’re not the one who should be saying sorry. Watch it!

A Naga shot through the water towards her, graceful in its movement like an arcing arrow. She could just barely see its empty eyes in the darkness.

She swam under it and then rose up just a few feet away. The naga raised its spear and charged. Silverstream dodged and grabbed the spear again, this time rolling into a backflip and pushing her tail against the creature’s chest, sending it tumbling away, unarmed. When it rounded on her again, she held the spear up to its throat. It stopped, raised its arms and slowly backed away.

Nice moves.

Who, Gally, me or you?

I think that was you.

Thanks!

Now stab the bastard.

The spear lunged forward suddenly, but she stopped it just as the point pricked the naga’s throat. It yelped and swam away.

No! We can’t hurt them.

Beg pardon?

They’re being controlled by something. It’s not their fault.

She heard Gallus sigh from inside her head. That same sarcastic sigh. You’re going to make this difficult, aren’t you?

Yes!

Another sigh. Alright. I have an idea. You ready for this?

Silverstream could tell she was ready, because Gallus was too. This was a level of sync they had never felt before. Not even in their younger days. Gallus had a plan. He didn’t know if it would work, but Silverstream cast away the doubt as soon as it materialized. Of course it would work. Of course it would!

She swam down, sinking beneath the battle.A quick check behind her told her that she had three bogeys on her tail. She didn’t have time to check on her soldiers. But they were doing fine. They were agile. They’d be—

She heard a rasping groan. From the corner of her eye, a seapony went limp.

Mourn later. Gallus brought her back to the plan. You’re too easy to distract.

Was that concern?

About the mission. Not about you.

She was glad to know that he was lying to himself, but her heart still stung. She could smile later.

Yes. Smile later. Fight now.

She swam through the battle and flipped herself so she was facing everything from underneath. Two more naga had joined the three pursuing her. Behind them, she could see her sailors fighting them off. Protecting her. From here, their odds didn’t look good.

We are the odds. Silverstream relished in his flow of confidence. She opened her fins wide.

“Shine,” they said. And the amulet did.

Its light blossomed outward from the base of her neck, silver-white. Her sailors paused their movements and covered their eyes, curling in on themselves. The naga—every single one—turned towards her, transfixed.

Gallus gave her his strength. She felt like she was flying high, towards the moon. She could reach the stars beyond.

The light from the amulet cooled into a light blue that made the both of them want to laugh in euphoria. The naga swimming towards her stopped.

No, ‘stopped’ was wrong. They froze. Stilled in time. If Silverstream and Gallus focused their sight, they could see that the naga were all held in place by a telekinetic grip. They could see the beasts’ mouths opening and closing, their eyes blinking, unsure of what was happening.

This is new, Silverstream wondered.

I know.

Her sailors couldn’t move. They would be blinded. They didn’t have her eyes.

They don’t, but they could.

“Gallus?” Her eyes widened.

Instead of answering, he acted.

A deluge of thoughts poured into her mind, thousands of them, thoughts she didn’t recognize as her own or Gallus’s, but they weren’t overwhelming. They didn’t quite meld into her.

We’re not going to sync up with them all the way.

Silverstream was amazed. We can do that?

Her sailors opened their eyes, unbothered by the blinding light. Silverstream took a collective gasp with them as their intentions were shared, their feelings suddenly were understood, and they were suddenly more. They became one mind, but at the same time maintained their own, individual thoughts. A perfect team.

“I’m gonna guide you home,” said Silverstream. “We’re gonna win.”

They believed her.

They held onto that feeling and swam towards her, ducking under the frozen spears and weaving around the frozen bodies of the naga, who could only stay where they were and follow them with their eyes.

Silverstream’s sailors came to her, pulling their casualties with them. She didn’t need to order them into formation. They did so on their own, swimming in front of her, and making the rough shape of a shield with their bodies.

The naga glared unblinking at them.

We can’t hold them there forever. Every moment she could feel a strain on her entire body, and she knew that if she gave into that exhaustion, the naga would get free.

We don’t need to. They’ll come to us and we’ll be ready.

They exchanged thoughts, trading feelings back and forth, a quick argument without any words.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

They both suppressed a laugh.

But there was no time for thinking any more. They had to adhere to a theory and hope that it was true. The plan was formulated quickly and passed on to every sailor present in less than a second. There was a brief barrage of objections, but Silverstream and Gallus won out. They were the leaders. What they said, went.

We should do this more often, Silverstream thought.

Don’t press your luck.

The group split into two halves. The first half readied themselves.

Silverstream let the naga go. They wasted no time in swimming towards them, sharp teeth bared and spears primed for bloodshed.

The first half, the combat half, swam to meet them. The second half waited until they were ahead, then swam forward as well. Silverstream stayed back to watch. Her heart was racing.

They’re gonna be fine.

She hoped so.

Stick to the plan.

It wasn’t long before the combat portion of the team met the naga, and the naga attacked. Silverstream lifted her amulet slightly.

Now.

Blue light poured out of the amulet and grabbed hold of the naga again. The sailors in their reach swam effortlessly under the frozen spears, adjusting themselves so not one of them was vulnerable to attack. Silverstream could see through all of their eyes, leaving her with no blind spots, and she adjusted their positions accordingly.

Silverstream shut off the amulet.

The naga attacked empty space. Roaring, they all turned to their closest targets, moving to attack once more, only to be held still by the Amulet of Aurora again. The combat half adjusted again, putting themselves out of harm’s way. Evasive maneuvers only. No more casualties today, seapony or otherwise.

Silverstream released her grip, waited for the naga to attack, and froze them in place yet again. It was a dance. The naga would step, and she would hold them still while her sailors took their step, avoiding the sharp spears..

Remember that rave that Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie threw for us? Gallus mused. Junior year.

Of course I do! Silverstream had always loved strobe lights.

The second half of the team, led by Whirlpool, swam around the frozen fray. Whirlpool knew the coordinates, and she could navigate the sea like no one else could, and thus, so did the rest of them. She led them through the cluster of allies and naga, gliding freely through the array of bodies until her team was finally out.

Phase Two—the runes. Not wasting any time, the second team released the triangular carved stones in their fins and began their incantations.

Silverstream took a deep breath. She was beginning to feel a strain on her body, but it was now up to her to start holding the naga for longer periods of time. Pretty soon they would figure out the plan, and stop wasting their time attacking moving targets. The rune team couldn’t be interrupted, let alone stabbed.

You’re fine.

Stay here and I will be.

I’ll stay, but you don’t need me.

But she did. She began to grimace under the pressure building in her muscles. It was like she was back at training camp.

Silverstream upped her output, begging the amulet to hold the naga still for longer. Two more seconds. Three. Six. Fifteen.

Thirty seconds. Fifteen seconds. Seven. Eighteen. Ten. The combat team would be on their metaphorical toes if it weren’t for their pooled minds. They dodged and swam and pushed and pulled. But the naga were inching closer.

Panic. Silverstream felt it in one of the younger sailors. A new recruit. Slippy. This was only his third mission and he wasn’t ready for any of it. He thought he was going home today! Nothing had prepared him for any of this.

Nothing could have prepared you for this shit, kid.

Gallus had terrible bedside manner, even when he could read minds.

The panic was going to spread. It was only logical. Their entire plan hinged on this mission, and this mission was now relying on weird magic that none of them had ever heard of and an old, washed-up Royal Guard.

You’re not that old, Gallus.

Silverstream refused to let the panic spread.

I’m gonna guide you home, she whispered to Slippy, to all of them. Those weren’t empty words. She opened herself up further, reaching each of their mindsShe held the naga for longer. Twenty-five seconds. Then twenty-two. Thirty. The combat team began to catch their breaths. They felt her reassurance. The naga inched closer to the rune team, but just barely. They wouldn’t make it before they were done. When the runes were ready, there was no way the naga could stop them except for setting them off. Silverstream just had to hope they were smart enough not to.

Stick to the plan.

That’s the spirit.

She didn’t have to wait much longer. Whirlpool was coming to the last words of the incantation. The combat team prepared to either retreat or keep fighting. The rune team prepared to swim back, closer to the surface, past the first set of runes, where the shamans waited and prepared their spell.

“Ilios brenner am bryllo eali,” Whirlpool chanted, waving her fins over the thirty rune pieces she was charging. The rest of the rune team did the same.

The runes came alive. The writing on them glowed orange, and they came together, holding fast against each other like magnets. Magic swirled around them, crackling dangerously as the triangular shapes shot away from the seaponies to the proper coordinates. They froze there, each completed rune a few meters away from each other, a clusterbomb of magic waiting to do some serious damage.

Silverstream watched the naga with wide eyes. She could feel Gallus’s heartbeat sync with hers, she felt the both of them racing. She released the grip that the amulet had on them.

The naga turned to each other, growling softly. Unsure of what to do. That was a good sign.

Then they dove towards Silverstream. She almost panicked, but realized they weren’t looking at her. In a powerful current they flew past her and disappeared into the darkness.

Silverstream almost exhaled. Then she remembered the kelpies, suddenly leaving only to come back with reinforcements.

Everyone waited, casting each other pensive, frightened looks. Even Gallus was tense.

Going once...

Silverstream dared to look over her shoulder at the depths below.

Twice...

She listened with all of their ears. Looked with all of their eyes.

Gone.

Silverstream hollered. Elation spread like fire amongst them, and they all swam together. Silverstream hugged, shook fins, and endlessly praised her sailors who were so brave, so amazing, she couldn’t have done any of this without them and… and Gallus was just as relieved. The realization gave both of them a shock, and Silverstream stopped swimming. Suddenly, the both of them felt so much more exposed than they should have, escaping death at the hands of scary feral shark people.

Well, you escaped death. I would have been fine.

So you were being selfless.

I thought I told you not to press your luck.

Gallus and Silverstream laughed, then suddenly realized they had an audience. Gently, they lessened the connection between themselves and the sailors.

We… have some things to talk about. Silverstream felt Gallus scratch the back of his neck.

Silverstream touched the back of hers, feeling the tips of his claws against her scales. He came back for her. He really did.

Like I said: you’re not the one who owes an apology.

I’m waiting.

I want to say it to you. You know… out loud.

She could have just reached for his regret. Felt all of it. Understood it completely, as if it were her own.

“Captain?” asked Whirlpool. She was just a few meters away. “You feel that? In the water?”

And suddenly Silverstream could. She could feel the slight waves. The disturbance in the flow of the sea. The thing, the giant, probably a kraken, thing was swimming against the current, towards them.

Gallus’s voice echoed all around them.

Leave.

The growl rolled over them like the winds of a monsoon. They were passing the second batch of runes on their way to meet the shaman team, but the sound made Silverstream and the rest of the sailors stop what they were doing to turn around.. They could see it now. Far off in the distance, a shade of darkness too opaque to see through, growing steadily larger as they stared.

Gallus became frustrated, wanting to ask why they stopped moving if they were so scared, until he saw a memory of Silverstream’s. It was from her childhood: her father’s chest and the comfort it provided her, her mother singing gently, and her brother cowering in a corner. All of it was set to the tune of battleships and cannons in the distance, searching for the hippogriffs who had somehow escaped their grasp. Stay quiet now, he heard her mother whisper. Terror bled out of her voice.

Gallus understood. Learned fear was hard to get over. He could feel it grabbing her by the mane, felt its claws working the ends until it had a firm grasp on the top of her head, worming its nails into her skull, warning her to stay still.

After giving her a moment, Gallus reached up and pressed his crown onto his head.

Silverstream felt like cold water had been splashed onto her face, despite being completely submerged in it. She shook her heard. Right. They still had to get to the shamans.

Let’s finish this, she thought. Her sailors caught their collective breath. She smiled at them. I’m getting you home. She asked them to remember that. All was fine. They just had to trust her.

The soft orange glow of the shamans’ communal magic was the first thing she saw as they got close. There were sixteen of them, gathered in a diamond formation. The murmuring of their incantations drifted through the water until Silverstream and the rest of the team were close enough to make out the ancient words.

“Is the pacification spell ready?” she blurted at them.

None of the shamans paid her any mind except for one. A mint green seapony at the closest point of the diamond, four gold chains wrapped tight around his neck, engraved in runes. Terramar’s old teacher, Nubis. He gave her the slightest shake of the head before refocusing on the ritual. They were all pressed for time. No interruptions.

Does it look like it’s ready? Gallus snarked.

Silverstream ignored him and turned to her team. She gestured for them to move an appropriate distance away, so they wouldn’t interrupt. When they were far enough, she called for a check on the communications orbs.

A pastel purple sailor came to her, presenting a glowing orb.

“Rune Team?” came Brine’s voice. “Come in.”

Silverstream laughed. “Finally!”

“Captain,” said Brine. In her mind’s eye, Silverstream could see her lieutenant’s expression glimmer ever so slightly in relief. “Good to have you back. Did everything go well?”

“No,” said Silverstream. “Well. No and yes. We had an aggressive encounter with the naga, if you can believe it. Something about them was causing the orbs to die. Like when the kelpies came on board.”

“Naga?” Brine replied. There was a pause. “You’re breaking all kinds of navy records today, Captain.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I’ll send a report in. Any casualties?”

“Four.” Silverstream grimaced. “We’ll send them up now.” She signalled to Whirlpool, who wasted no time gathering the troops needed for the trip.

“Roger,” said Brine. “Anything else to note, Captain?”

“Gallus,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

Yeah, that’s right. Me.

“He came to my aid,” Silverstream said. “All of our aid. He used the Crown of Grover to sync all of our minds.”

“Again?” Brine asked. She clicked her tongue. “Sorry, all of you? As in the entire team? All twenty-six of you? I thought the most he had ever managed in the past was five.”

No need to act so surprised, Gallus grumbled in her head.

Silverstream smiled. “He broke a record for sure.”

“Interesting. What are the advantages?”

“We can discuss that on the ship.”

“Understood. Anything else?”

“I wanted to know the creature’s status.”

A pause.

“Brine?” asked Silverstream.

“What the…” said Brine quietly. She sounded like she was across the room. “That can’t be right.”

“Brine,” Silverstream said, raising her volume. “Lieutenant, report!”

“Captain!” Brine yelled. “The creature’s—”

The communications orb went blank, leaving Silverstream to gawk at her own reflection. She looked scared.

The sailor holding the orb’s eyes widened. “Captain?”

Silverstream panicked. And that meant the whole team was panicking. What was going on? They did everything right. They did everything they were supposed to.

The water pulsed below them, so rough and fast that it knocked each of them out of place. The shamans struggled to keep their ritual going, and looked like they succeeded.

Silverstream turned in time to see the flashes of light fading down below. Nothing more than specks. Glittering dots in her vision that could have been sun rays. The runes had detonated. Silverstream could only hope they had slowed the creature down.

That’s fine, isn’t it? Gallus thought. We expected that.

Wasn’t that too fast?

No.

Because that seemed too fast.

Silverstream, calm down. Think.

The next set of mines were thirteen hundred metres below them. The border of the deep sea, where her team fought the Naga not even an hour ago, was two thousand metres below. The creature was moving at a serious speed, and it was less than two kilometers away.

“Whirlpool?” Silverstream turned towards her subordinate. Her eyes were wide. “You’ve seen this ritual done before, right?”

“Um… Yes, Captain.”

“How much longer do you think it’ll take?”

Whirlpool took her time before answering, scanning the diamond of shamans as they chanted away. “I think… half an hour,” she said. “Give or take ten minutes.”

Silverstream winced. The shamans weren’t going to be ready in time. They were finished. This was always a shoddy plan, a stupid gamble. They knew it from the start. Seaquestria was doomed, and they were all going to die.

Will you Stop?! Gallus shouted in her mind. Everything’s fine.

Then what was Brine worried about?

Brine worries. It’s what she does.

Silverstream guffawed internally, and her mirth poured over the caustic burn in her belly left behind by her earlier despair. She does not.

A second tremor pushed its way up through the water. Silverstream’s entire body shook. Panic bloomed in all of their hearts, spreading like fire. They could see tiny explosions appearing below them, then snuffing out in an instant.

“It’s almost here,” whispered Whirlpool.

Okay, yeah, Gallus muttered inside Silverstream’s head. That might be a little too fa—

Her skull split into a thousand pieces. She howled in agony, and to her horror, the rest of her sailors did as well.

The connection was broken. Suddenly she felt more alone than she ever had in her life.

Gallus?

No answer. But he wasn’t gone. She could hear him, the buzzing cadence of his voice, somewhere far away. He was still hanging on, but he didn’t know if she could sense him.

“Oh, gods,” Silverstream said. She shook her head, eyes wide.

Gallus? What do I do? Answer me, please!

She heard him call out for her. She called back. She felt him hear nothing. She shut her eyes.

“Oh, no. No, no, nononono—”

“Captain?” asked a sailor. She wasn’t sure what her name was. “Do you have orders? A plan?”

“Give me a second,” said Silverstream. “Just...just hold on!”

Gallus! Gallus!

What was that game that they used to play in school? The one that Professor Twilight would have them try?

She breathed deep. In, then out. She honed in on her memories.

Gallus. The Royal Guard. Her friend. She thought of the good times, of the feel of his wings around her and his smile when she gave him her leftover food. She thought of the way he laughed when Sandbar or Yona would smother him in hugs, or the passion in his voice whenever he got into an argument with Ocellus or Smolder. She thought of clouds. Of afternoons spent lounging around with him after class, trying to study but always going off on a tangent.

It was thirty seconds before she realized that she was doing absolutely nothing. Two minutes wasted while a giant sea creature was bulldozing its way through the water towards them.

She gave up on trying to find Gallus. She was the captain. She was still the captain as long as the mission was ongoing. She needed to stay strong, even if she was alone again.

Whirlpool was still at attention, ignoring the rest of the team’s nervous chattering around them.

“Captain?” she said.

“Do you have any suggestions?” asked Silverstream. Her words came tumbling out of her mouth.

“I…” Whirlpool looked around. “I’m not sure, Captain.”

“That’s okay,” said Silverstream with a nod. “That’s fine. I’ve got this. We can swim up to the surface, and come back with as many runes as we can gather. The second that this thing hits anywhere near here it’s going to get blown to smithereens.”

Whirlpool furrowed her brows. “But—”

“I know that it takes time to make runes. I know that we need the sea shamans to do it, but if we send a small team up, they can contact my brother and he can teach them how to use magic well enough to make more so we don’t lose any shamans here. It’ll be a tight squeeze, but we’ll be fine!”

“I don’t—”

“Look, I’ve been in plenty of these situations before. I can work something out. We got this! Time be damned. Screw time! We’re seaponies. Time isn’t even real under the sea. Gather some volunteers for the team. That’s an order.”

“Captain.” Whirlpool raised her volume. “Nothing in that plan is realistic.”

Silverstream laughed monotonously. She turned back to the shamans, who were still chanting away at their spell. The magic in the midst of them glowed warm, b ut not warm enough. They weren’t going to make it.

She turned back to her team, looking past Whirlpool at the wide eyes of the seaponies who had followed her here, who had believed that this shoddy plan was ever going to work. They weren’t going to make it.

She looked down at herself. She had several cuts on her scales, but she was fine for the most part. She had survived the naga and worked with Gallus again. She thought that…

It didn’t matter what she thought. She wasn’t going to make it either.

“Captain,” Whirlpool whispered. “Please.”

Silverstream looked at her. The current carried her tears away.

Whirlpool deflated. “It’s okay,” she said. She smiled softly. “We tried, didn’t we?”

“We aren’t going to save Seaquestria,” Silverstream whimpered.

“Seaquestria has plenty of time to prepare. They’ll be okay.”

“I’m sorry…”

“No, Captain, don’t be.” Whirlpool swam closer and put a fin on Silverstream’s neck, stroking it softly. “Don’t be sorry, Captain. Our people will prevail. We spent years and years under the sea preparing for war. We’re tougher than some kraken.”

Silverstream shrank into herself, but not enough to pull away from Whirlpool’s touch. She didn’t dare look at the rest of her subordinates. She didn’t want to see the pity and the disappointment and the anger. “I failed you.”

“You didn’t,” said Whirlpool. “Captain Silverstream, you were only doing your job.”

“My job is to keep you safe.”

“Your job is to do your best, and you have been. I’m honored to have been in your service.”

Silverstream curled in on herself, burying her face in Whirlpool’s chest. It was as good a place to wait out the time as any.

Gallus was scared.

Something was wrong with Silverstream, with the mission, with the crown.

He couldn’t find her. He could find everyone else on Mount Aris and Seaquestria. He could find any hippogriff he wanted except for the one he needed right this moment.

Gallus brought his hands to his crown and gripped it hard, knowing full well that he wasn’t doing anything to help. The metal points of the crown dug into his claws. He welcomed the pain, squeezing harder.

Silverstream. Silverstream. Where are you?

She could be dead.

No. Gallus grunted. He shut his eyes harder. That couldn’t be true. She wouldn’t go out like that.

There would be a beach. A sunset. Her friends and family. And if he was still alive by the time then, he would be right there beside her, holding her claw.

Hot tears spilled down his cheeks. He didn’t bother to wipe them away.

Come on. Silly, answer me.

His heart felt like it was splitting open slowly. His blood burned and his ears roared with white noise.

Then he found her. Huddling for comfort inside of herself. Broken and bruised. Feeling useless and sorry for herself. Scared. Wishing that someone was there for her. She failed to see that he was right there.

Silverstream had never looked more familiar.

Gallus roared in triumph. He fell into her headfirst.

So anyways, the plan.

Silverstream’s heart jumped. But she didn’t want to hope.

You’re not hearing things.

Silverstream began to cry harder.

Stop feeling sad. It hurts and we have a kraken to stop.

Was it really him?

Yes. We don’t have much time.

They didn’t. That was true. Below them, the darkness was growing. Silverstream gathered herself, with his help. She wiped her tears away with her fins.

Whirlpool tilted her head. “Captain?”

“I can fix this,” she said.

“What?” Whirlpool asked.

But Silverstream didn’t respond. Instead she began to swim. “Stay there!” she ordered, looking around at the rest of her sailors. “Stay right there and I will make sure that this mission succeeds! Just let me know when they’re ready!”

Whirlpool saluted unsurely, and Silverstream plunged into the depths.

She hadn’t noticed through her tears, but the currents were changing, swayed by the swimming of the approaching creature. She swam toward the chaos. She could feel the water brush over her scales like wind. It was like it was giving her a trail to where she needed to be.

Gallus said nothing, but she could feel him over her shoulder, hear the rush in his head and his heart. He was with her.

Her muscles ached, her eyes were tired. But Silverstream grit her teeth. Accounting for the time that she spent in despair, the creature was no doubt minutes away from reaching the final wave of runes. She had to get there first. She had to get in range.

The Amulet of Aurora weighed heavy on her neck. If only she could take it off…

Don’t joke about that.

She nearly laughed. She would have if she wasn’t busy exhausting herself.

The water grew dark. That wasn’t right.Silverstream looked up. The surface was no longer in easy reach, but that didn’t explain the sudden darkness..

How near was the kraken, now? Was it a kraken?

She looked forward.

Holy shit. Gallus’s eyes widened with hers.

It was close.

Silverstream could see a body. It was too large to take in all at once. She lifted her head and slowly lowered it, following its body and noting any details that might come in handy. Its head was triangular, its body oblong, branching off into tentacles. Definitely a kraken, but there was something wrong about it. Darkness spread out from its core like a cloud. It was inky, but there wasn’t any ink. It exuded the absence of light, and now that she realized she was in range of it, Silverstream felt a jolt of hollowness in her chest. There was something unreal about this creature. Corruption, but not dark magic or chaos. Something else entirely.

Whatever it was, Silverstream knew it had something to do with the naga. Something to do with the kelpies. Something to do with this whole mess. She just didn’t know how something so big could be taken down.

It’s going down all the same.

“Right,” said Silverstream. “So, this plan. I’m ready for it.”

The plan is to stop it.

“That’s it?”

It’s the best I could do.

Silverstream was about to snap at him, but the full scope of Gallus’s intention suddenly became clear. The Amulet of Aurora floated into her vision, like it had a mind of its own.

“Oh,” Silverstream said. She grabbed the amulet in her claw. “Stop it. Right.”

She swam further towards the kraken. The runes were becoming visible, floating in clusters. The kraken was approaching, its tentacles swaying as it swam, graceful like a flower under the wind but so, so big. She doubted she was taller than...than any part of its body that she could think of. What was she to it? Did she exist? Did anything exist to it that wasn’t itself and other kraken?

“Gallus,” she said, words shaky.

She felt his claws on her shoulders.

Just a little closer. Get in range.

“I’m scared.”

Good. At least I’m not alone.

His words didn’t dull her fear, but they made it feel like it had thinned out, spreading over her entire body and not just a single spot in her brain. She was plain terrified. But she would let that fear travel beside her instead of trying to bat it away.

She knew when she was close enough when she could, just barely, start making out the runes.

The Amulet of Aurora began to shine pre-emptively. Maybe it knew what she was going to attempt.

It would be like holding a jigsaw puzzle together in the midst of a tornado. It would be like hauling cinder blocks over a freshly frozen lake.

The kraken was approaching. She estimated a few seconds until it reached her.Now or never.

She held the amulet away from her chest.

Aurora once used it to guide the entire hippogriff people through thousands of miles of darkness, not a single light in their way. It was their sun and moon for sixty weeks. It led them to the continent that they ended up settling on. And now Silverstream was going to use it to protect their people once again.

She hoped that Aurora would be proud. She hoped her father would be.

Ready, Silly?

Gallus’s voice was the push she needed. She asked the amulet to shine, reach as far as it could, and when its light touched it, hold the kraken in place.

Gallus lay sprawled on the dirty tiled floor of the train station bathroom, his crown hanging over his eyes, his claw hanging on the edge of the sink. He still reeled from the feeling of the kraken in the amulet’s magic. Even now, an hour after he’d disconnected from Silverstream, he could recall with perfect clarity the way that it felt to hold something so gargantuan in their magic. He could barely stand, and he knew that Silverstream was probably feeling twice as tired.

The light had swallowed the kraken up like it was the water itself. Gallus had the benefit of Silverstream’s resistance to the brightness, and through the light he saw how the kraken struggled like a bug caught in a web. It thrashed in the amulet’s magical grip, twisting its head and trying to wrench its tentacles away, but to no avail.

The pain was excruciating. For five whole minutes they were there in the water together, roaring in agony as they struggled to hold the creature. Had Gallus heard it talk at some point? Had he seen something sober in its body language, felt it looking at him curiously? It was all such a haze now.

Whirlpool had let them know they could stop, just as Silverstream ordered. At this point the connection was beginning to fail, so Silverstream heard Whirlpool yelling that everything was ready before Gallus did.

She had let the kraken go with a sigh, watched it blow past her towards the shamans. At that point, her body was numb from the pain. All she really felt was that she was being pushed away by the water.

Gallus could see the shamans’ light, coming to the kraken in ribbons, piercing through its head and making it glow softly. That was the last thing he saw before he passed out, his concussion given to him on TheCoralvreckan returning in full-force.

He saw things in his sleep: tentacles tensing and relaxing, and slithering away; chests rising, falling; tears carried away by the current to the sound of soaring cheers.

But he knew it wasn’t a dream. Mount Aris was still standing. Seaquestria was safe.

And so Gallus limped out of the bathroom, ignoring all of the grumpy hippogriffs that tried to stop him with questions and mean looks. His mind was blank, focused only on getting to the docks. Getting to Silverstream.

When he arrived, he nearly passed out again, but he was caught by a pair of hippogriffs from the Navy, who were clearly unsure of what to do with him. Gallus couldn’t blame them. He let them hold him up until he felt well enough to stand, and then he did, and nearly fell over for a second time.

A single hippogriff caught him this time. He smelled like coconuts. Coconut shampoo bought from the farmer’s market every three months on the dot. Gallus tried not to looked too shocked as he turned to Terramar.

“Hey,” Terramar squeaked. His eyes were sorry. His beak was a smile ready to wilt into a frown.

“Sorry,” Gallus said.

“What?”

“I said—”

“No, I mean, why?”

“Everything,” Gallus said, looking away. He leaned against Terramar, finding comfort in the familiar curves of his body. There was something like a star in his chest, and he struggled to keep its astronomic heat from bursting out of him. “Just...everything,” Gallus said again.

Terramar held him tighter. “I forgive you.”

Then the Coralvreckan appeared on the horizon. Behind it was the rest of the fleet. Gallus heard cheering across the water. Saw hats being thrown in the air.

Every minute of waiting was agony.

Gallus had a thousand words stored up in his mind and even more ways to try and make things right, but when the ship finally docked and the ramp was rolled out he forgot every single one.

He walked first. Some of the sailors who were waiting on the docks went to stop him, but they themselves were stopped by Terramar. A group of sailors whom Gallus recognized from their little tango with the naga saluted him as he came onboard, and they brought him to Silverstream’s cabin.

He didn’t have to be told that she was still in there, resting in bed, awake but not wanting to leave the warmth of her sheets.

Gallus considered knocking. Before he did, he heard her voice asking him to come in. He entered without hesitating.

“Hey,” she said. She was on her side, across the room, facing him from under a thick blanket. She looked like hell.

“Hey,” he replied. He looked twice as bad. He probably looked older, too.

She reached a claw out for him. Gallus’s heart soared, but there came a familiar awkwardness with the sight of her that he was surprised to feel. He walked to the bed on shaky legs and sat on the end.

Silverstream smelled like the ocean, but also like roses. She must have had some really great shampoo.

“I’m sorry I left you behind,” he said.

Gallus felt something break. It might have been all of his ribs at once, or maybe it was simply his heart. He began to cry.

Tears rolled out of his eyes softly. Silently. He stared down at his lap, his entwined claws.

“I should have…” he began, but didn’t know where he was going. It took another minute for him to try speaking again. “I don’t know why I left. I mean, I do, but I don’t know why I let myself leave. I should have been here for you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m—” He swallowed hard and pressed his tongue onto the roof of his mouth. He didn’t want to sob.

“I shouldn’t have let you leave,” said Silverstream. Her voice was toneless.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know. But I shouldn’t have.”

He turned. His breaths were coming short. His back was heaving.

Silverstream was looking at him with all of the love he figured she threw away. Her eyes were soft and her beak was quirked into a smile that understood how he was feeling.

Gallus felt nothing but fear. The walls of the cabin were slowly becoming indistinguishable from the closet he had accidentally locked himself in as a chick. He felt like he was squirming on the floor of Canterlot U, his wings freshly broken. But he lifted his arms anyway and he smiled a frail smile. He knew that Silverstream would want a hug.

She raised a brow and offered him a claw.

Gallus’s arms fell back to his sides. He stared at it, eyeing it like it was something venomous. But it didn’t bite.

Silverstream let him take his time in reaching out, and they grasped each other’s claws tight and shook once. Then she withdrew.

Gallus laughed weakly. He wondered if he was in a dream.

The bed shifted as Silverstream shifted, sitting up, scooting up beside him so their shoulders touched but nothing else.

“I…” Gallus whispered, “I missed you.”

“That’s good.” Silverstream laughed.

And then suddenly they were both laughing through tears. They stayed in place, shoulders pressed urgently against each other until their tears ran out.

“Are you staying this time?” she asked when they calmed down.

“Forever,” he said. She looked at him in shock. “Probably,” he added, grinning. Her smile was better than any sunrise, any hoard of gold.

Silverstream has joined the party!

Interlude II

Strata was a long way from home, but home could honestly suck her nuts. She liked Klugetown. It was a nest of dumbasses and traitorous snakes; it suited her like a nice dress.

There was nothing quite comparable to the feel of Klugetown’s gravel roads, splattered with booze and blood and every single bodily fluid imaginable underneath her scaled feet. She walked down one now, humming a song that she didn’t know the melody to, and so made one up as she went along.

She would have to apologize to Lady Smolder, the next time she saw that two-faced bitch. Being sent here was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

Before coming to Klugetown, her near thirty-two years on this measly planet were all spent eating gems. There were gems in Klugetown, and she ate those at first, but they all tasted like hot garbage. She was forced to adapt. So she ate what the locals ate and drink what they drank, so they’d feel at home with her and, as a result, have the whole of Klugetown increase their business with the Dragonlands. And along the way she became a regular at the local ramen place.

The restaurant didn’t have a name. There was no sign above its doors. Creatures simply knew where it was. Strata turned a corner and found a crevice in the alley wall, where two bland, dirty panels of plywood stood in the way of chatter and the nutty scent of miso. She pushed the doors open.

A dingy, low lit hole in the wall greeted her, tables scattered in the ashy darkness opposite a bar that the kitchen lights cast a sunset orange over. There were a menagerie of creatures bunched together at the tables: kirins on the verge of becoming niriks, dragons discussing work with hooded, masked beings that seemed to make up a good percentage of Klugetown’s population, tired, hungry zebras eating their ramen and minding their own business. The place smelled like heaven.

Strata chose to sit at the bar, where a giant frog-like creature took her order. She wasn’t sure what his race was called, and didn’t care too much, but he (if he was a he) was a chef that worked most days here, and he made some truly amazing shit.

She asked for a standard bowl of ramen, all the usual stuff. Whatever the usual stuff was, she had no idea. She just ate it, and knew that at this point it tasted better than the cores of a thousand fire rubies melted together.

There were no other patrons at the bar. Seemed like everyone was here to do business or be left alone. Which was lame. Strata was finished with her business for the day, and right now all she wanted was a good fight or a fun drinking buddy. Maybe someone to spend the night with. The wasteland nights were getting colder and colder, after all, and it was nearing hatching season. Her instincts were a little more heightened than they usually were.

Like he had heard her wish, he entered the place and sat a seat away from her.

He was an abyssinian in a maroon-colored coat. Some kind of heavy wool. Way too heavy to be comfortable out here. His fur was sleek, though, and it was that calico pattern that Strata had always found really delicious looking.

Friendship often starts with a greeting, came Lady Smolder’s smoky alto.

Strata said hi to him, embarrassed at the weak tone in her voice. She would have to review Lady Smolder’s lessons sometime. She was sure that she had a lot to remember.

But the abyssinian smiled, and then they were talking.

“Are you new here?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you around.”

“Yeah, just moved in from, well, you can guess.”

She could guess. “How do you like the place?”

“It’s...nice. It’s weird. I hate almost everyone I know. But it’s nice.”

“I know exactly what you mean. How long were you living here before you discovered this place?”

“This is my first time here, actually.”

“Really?”

“Is it—you know, is it good?”

“Not bad,” said Strata. Their food came, and they thanked the chef. “It’s pretty fucking good actually,” she added, right before digging in.

The abyssinian enjoyed it as much as her. Strata found that she liked the look of him when he was happy. Something satisfying in seeing it.

They continued talking. She explained that she was here as the official emissary from the Dragonlands, helping to facilitate the exchange of ore and spices between them and Klugetown.

“So you’re a big deal?”

Strata’s tail began to wag. She was a big deal. She loved it here. It was starting to feel like home more than the Dragonlands, actually.

The abyssinian smiled at that. He was happy for her. He hoped that he’d be feeling like that soon enough.

She asked him if he’d like to see where she lived.

He took a second to answer. Maybe prospective bedmates weren’t very forward in Abyssinia. But he accepted.

Strata left, her arm entwined with his like twin snakes. She couldn’t tell if she was leaning on him, or he her, but she liked it. She felt safe.

And that was a mistake.

Interlude III

The Song of Saltbird: I

Saltbird stepped into the ocean. He had never understood how ponies and the like could ever feel cold in water like this. To hippogriffs, water had only ever been refreshing. Safe.

He waded further, walking against the tide until his long legs could no longer touch the ground, and then he relaxed. The tide rocked him back and forth as he idly floated in place. Saltbird had always felt like the ocean was where he belonged. He wasn’t sure why he kept returning to land. Here, in the water, he was nothing but truly, completely peaceful.

Saltbird transformed. His feathers became scales. His rear legs melted into a giant tail. His insides scrambled around painlessly as they adjusted to his new body, granting him gills and different anatomy, but he himself stayed the same. One of the only things that didn’t change when one went from hippogriff to seapony was one’s brain.

He dove into the water. Where it felt like another being before, the ocean was now a part of him, and he was a part of it. One giant community of seaponies and fish and everything else in the sea, at harmony with each other.

Saltbird swam. In the distance, the glittering lights of Seaquestria beckoned to him. There, in the heart of the city, was his home. As distant cousins of Queen Novo and the current generation of a long line of artists and musicians, his family lived somewhere that seaponies of their station deserved: a giant tower filled with smooth, polished clamshell floors and reinforced pearl furniture, bright chandeliers that dimmed when night fell and imbued the water with a colored glow. Most importantly, they had seats at Queen Novo’s court. Power and influence. The artist district of Seaquestria was theirs.

He felt the urge to swim to his family’s tower, take a nap maybe. Maybe order some takeout. But he wasn’t going to Seaquestria tonight.

A couple of miles away from the city was a pit, a former nest of sea dragons long abandoned that had, in the last five years, become a lawless, writhing pit of teenagers looking to be away from the pomp and circumstance of Seaquestria. A haven for kids who weren’t allowed to live on Mount Aris.

Saltbird was not one of them, but his best friend was.

Bowsprit. They met when their fathers had introduced them at a gala of some sort. They met again when they were put into school together, bonding quickly over their similar scale patterns. Their honey colored bodies and light teal fins were indistinguishable from one another. The only way to tell them apart was by the color of their eyes. Saltbird’s were like mud. Bowsprit’s were bright blue, like a clear sky viewed from under the top of the ocean. Saltbird hadn’t seen him for a month.

Queen Novo was asking a lot of Bowsprit’s family. As the patrons of the city’s Pleasure District, they were in charge of keeping companions and the like safe from criminals and rowdy tourists, and that was becoming more difficult as more tourists from Equestria arrived to take part in the exuberant delights of Seaquestria. Bowsprit was likely being worked to the bone. This was probably his first night off in months.

Saltbird felt himself smiling. The more tired Bowsprit was, the more he was down for a party. And the Whirlpool, which is what kids called the pit he was currently heading to, always had something wild going on.

Before he knew it he passed Seaquestria. The waves of lights were behind him now, slithering and circling around each other in an endless array of joy that he no longer saw. The lights lit his way for a quarter of a mile after he passed, and then suddenly it was dark.

It wasn’t pitch, so Saltbird wasn’t afraid. It was as if he was focused on a task and hadn’t noticed that the sun was setting.

The Whirlpool had its own cluster of lights. Saltbird waited until he could see it. It hadn’t felt long at all before he could.

There existed a genetic phenomenon amongst Storm Children, the generation of seaponies born during the Storm King’s reign, the first seaponies born in Seaquestria. It wasn’t a particularly life-altering feature, though it made for the occasional confusion for outside scholars on Seaquestrian art.

Storm Children could see just a little bit past the ultraviolet spectrum, as some saltwater fish could. It wasn’t quite as vivid, but it was there. Seven colors that only Saltbird’s generation could see. No one else in the world. Three of these colors that shot out of The Whirlpool, making it so most of the adults in Seaquestria would have no idea that such a large gathering of people were congregated within its walls.

Saltbird, upon seeing the lights, sped up the pace of his swim. He was quick to notice that after a full minute of exertion, he wasn’t getting any closer.

He stopped. Something was holding him in place. He didn’t feel a grip around his body, however. Magic?

He looked around, craning his neck and squinting his eyes to try and spot anyone nearby. But there was no one.

Saltbird began to move, not of his own accord.

It was the tide. It was pulling him backwards, away from the lights. Something was controlling the water. Saltbird opened his mouth, trying to yell for help, but feeling more confused than anything. This area had always been safe from magical creatures. What was happening?

The Whirlpool went further away, away from Bowsprit and his plans for the night, and then Saltbird realized he was gaining speed. Whatever was pulling him was pulling him at an increasingly accelerated pace. Soon the water began to hurt, seeming to turn solid every other second, so it was like he was being pulled through a row of walls.

Saltbird grunted as he tried to thrash and headbutt the area around him, struggling in vain against whatever had him in his grip, and then, suddenly, he was catapulted upwards.

He breached the surface, and his pearl shard lit up, changing him from sea pony to hippogriff before he landed back into the water. A biting chill immediately set in, now that his body had no scales to protect his insides from hypothermia.

He screamed, mouth filling up with rain. A hard crash of thunder roared out from the sky.

Saltbird screamed again. He was in a storm.

“Salt!” came a voice, faint on the wind, weak and dying.

Saltbird turned towards it, and through a flash of lightning he saw that he wasn’t alone.

Hippogriffs. Dozens of them. Maybe a hundred. All treading water. Flower-colored blurs yelling and groaning in the midst of the storm. Saltbird squinted, looking for the source of the voice that called his name, and then he saw him. Honey colored feathers tipped with teal. Bowsprit.

This wasn’t right. Why wasn’t anyone turning into seaponies?

Saltbird grasped his pearl shard and tried to activate the magic in it, but he couldn’t. He felt his heart sink.

“Salt!” came Bowsprit’s voice again.

Saltbird went to call back, but a chorus of cries made him stop. He looked to where the other hippogriffs were and he saw a wave, taller than Mount Aris, and it crashed down on him before he knew what to think.

Saltbird had never drowned before. He had never felt what it was like to struggle in water, to feel it fill your lungs and burn you, strangle you on the inside out.

Days later he woke up on a beach. Sand crusted his nasty, mangled feathers. His mouth was dry. It took him a few minutes to realize he wasn’t dead.

And that was where the Kirin found him.

Interlude IV

Galyn rubbed his face. To say that it stung would be an understatement. He had never imagined that his first contact with the Crown of Grover would involve being bludgeoned across the cheek with it.

He glanced at the dragon lying slumped in the corner of the room, scarcely breathing and struggling for consciousness. She was looking at him, and there was a soft lightness to her eyes. Pleasure.

Galyn chuckled. He wanted to tell her, “I suppose you have reason to enjoy my pain,” but he couldn’t. His jaw was broken.

He snapped his head in her direction, and she screamed as her body faded from the material plane, swallowed up by the aetheric space he used to store his vessels. She would stay alive for a while yet, locked in a hazy stasis until he next had a use for her. If he had a use for her.

Dragons. They were useful primarily for their vitality and secondarily for their passion. Galyn whispered the words he couldn’t hear, accessing Strata’s inner fire and transferring its energy to him—specifically to his face. His shattered bones remade themselves, his jaw set back into place, and he didn’t feel the pain that he should have felt, instead giving that to Strata as she lay dormant in the nothingness he had set out for her. He whistled as he touched his healed cheek and rubbed his beak. Gallus must have broken half his face. Maybe wearing Gabriela’s face was a little too insensitive. Maybe he should have expected nothing less from the former captain of Princess Twilight’s royal guard.

He rocked forwards and steadied himself on the restroom sink. He had used up all of his power for the last week or so getting everything in Griffonstone together: whisking away the heart of that pathetic community of commoners at the base of the great tree, galvanizing the council, maneuvering Gallus onto a ship, summoning not just a coven of kelpies but rousing a whole kraken from its deep sleep at the bottom of the sea…

All for nothing. He was stupid. Useless. Feeble.

No. He smoothed his headfeathers over. No. Those thoughts were not real. He was the next great leader of Griffonstone. He was lion and eagle. Bred perfection. He would roll the world over and tear open its belly to feed himself and his family.

He had to get back to Griffonstone, converge with the others and get their advice. He had anticipated that, even separated and broken, the former students of Princess Twilight Sparkle would prove formidable. He knew that it would take more magic than he had ever used, that he would encounter setbacks. He had to go home and rest and prepare for the next step.

It was time to rain fire on Canterlot.

UNDRESS

“Time’s almost up. Now or never. We’ll support you no matter what, but I can’t lie to you. I don’t know what we’re gonna be able to do.”

“Celly, hey, c’mere. Give me your hoof, okay? You feel me squeezing it? Remember that feeling. Don’t worry about anything else. Just remember me. Look at me. Remember my face. Remember me telling you that you can do this. Trust me. Have I been wrong before?”

Ocellus tilted her head, watching her own reflection in the pool. Her slender body had grown another two inches in the last year. She suspected she was fully formed now—done once and for all with the constant evolution that plagued her initial metamorphosis. Her light blue chitin was polished, her elytra had darkened into a bloody red, and her legs, long like her former queen’s, had two symmetrical holes in them now, reminiscent of her—of their people’s former appearance.

She examined her face. Her first thought was that she looked about twenty years younger than Chrysalis, but she wasn’t quite sure what exactly that meant, as Chrysalis had stopped aging once she’d reached four hundred. Ocellus’s antlers were the only thing that she recognized about herself anymore; the way that they curved completely around the back and the sides of her head, coming around to mingle with each other between her brows. A crimson pseudo-tiara.

Was this who she really was?

She groaned softly. Fortunately, she was still a changeling. She stepped back and sighed and closed her eyes. What form would she take? Would she use her go-to? No. She couldn’t be recognized. Someone new, then? Or would she reach into her back pocket and pick an actual existing dragon that wouldn’t look out of place inside a cave?

Someone knocked on her chamber door.

“Enter.”

The heavy stone pushed open. “General?” It was a drone. “Sorry for interrupting, but…”

Ocellus glanced at the clock at the corner of the cave. She was going to be late if she took any longer. “I’ll be right out,” she said.

The door closed, and Ocellus plunged into a new form. She disappeared for a moment, and with a flash of light, forty pounds of muscle burst forth, sinewy flesh weaving itself together, bundling up snug against her bones as they reshaped into a bipedal form. When the muscle was done, she chose black scales to cover it, dark and ashy like volcanic rock. She gave herself icy blue eyes, two horns on her head and spikes jutting out of her square jawline. Then she felt heat. Energy crackled and roared in her chest. Inner fire. The thirst for life and its treasures. The passion needed to grab it all. An inherent, vital need to fill the hole in her soul and an anger at the frustration that came out of never being satisfied. More. More. More!

General Ocellus, the Changeling Princess of the Badlands Hive, was now a young male dragon.

He stepped towards the pool as his life came to him in flashes of inspiration. He was born in Dragontown, Central Fillydelphia, to parents he’d never met. He obtained a scholarship to the School of Friendship, and was saddened to learn that the first dragon professor had left only a year before he was accepted. He liked ice cream and was a Buckball fanatic. The pool he was approaching was where his former self would bathe. Now he was using it as a mirror.

He looked solid. He looked real. And no one in Smolder’s lair would ever recognize him. That was important.

He named himself Char.

The reek of sulfur and smoke curled around Char like an old, clingy ex-girlfriend. There was a part of him that missed the Dragonlands, and wanted to come by more often, for his heart cried for the feel of its gravelly, arid winds against his scales, but he knew that any more time spent here than necessary was a bad idea.

Ocellus’s father had been in talks with Smolder about plans for a new hive located in the Dragonlands. A few months ago, King Thorax decided that the changelings needed a second home. The series of tunnels and caves in the Badlands that his people had lived in for their entire lives was on the verge of becoming too small for their burgeoning population, with more and more drones starting families and more every year. Ember was all too happy to oblige, offering them a small chunk of unused space right on the borders of their two territories.

Ocellus disagreed with the whole thing; she could see the merit in constructing another hive, but…

Char shook his head. He wasn’t Ocellus. He shouldn’t have been thinking about her problems. He had spent so many years strutting around in her stiff blazers, trying to look professional for the world, being no one but herself. He had nearly forgotten how to be someone else.

Through miles of obsidian and brimstone he flew. He was surprised to find that he still knew his way around. Every crack and crevice in the stone, every trickle of lava and torn up boulder was a landmark; a map was carved into the Dragonlands, and he used it to navigate himself to his destination.

He could see the Snake Pit from a distance in no time. It was a unique piece of stone-cutting, definitely the most intricately planned home in the Dragonlands. The entrance to the cave was the size of a five-hundred-year-old dragon, and it was carved into the shape of a cobra’s head, maw open and fangs bared. Through it, Char could see the blazing rows of fire shooting down from the top corners of the ceiling, paralleled by rivers of lava on the floor. It was Smolder’s idea of a lighting system. Each hall in her cavernous home was lit this way. Dragon-like. Intimidating. And so overdramatic.

Char flew into the stone viper’s maw. Dragons milled about the polished stone halls, carrying everything from cleaning supplies to scrolls and sealed documents, each dragon with her own job to fulfill in the Jenga tower that was Smolder’s version of bureaucracy and policy-making. She would no doubt be in the throne room at the heart of the cave, kicking her feet in a pretty dress as she sipped cider from a crystal chalice and dictated letters to be sent to her agents across the continent.

I am Char, he thought to himself. I grew up in your brother’s dragon orphanage in Fillydelphia, and I attended the school of friendship. I’m here because I work for the Badlands Hive as a liason. It’s my first day on the job and I’d really like to be able to get back to my boss and tell her I did a good job. What is the progress on the new hive that’s being constructed on the border of the Dragonlands? Are you doing anything to sabotage it?

Because you should. The changelings are hiding things from you. I have a file in my bag that will tell you everything you need to know.

He arrived at the throne room, and was surprised to see that its great doors had been left wide open, and that the hall itself was completely empty.

He landed cautiously. The throne room was as he remembered: obsidian walls lined with the lava streams that bordered the rest of the Snake Pit, and in the middle was an ornate throne made out of the most polished, immaculately white marble that he had ever seen. Gold filigree was pressed into its sides, and at the top of the backrest lay the crest of the School of Friendship. Smolder always had a thing for school pride.

“Looking for something?” came a gravelly, simmering voice that made him shiver.

Char turned around, and was greeted by the most beautiful dragon in the world. That wasn’t an exaggeration, either. She’d been voted Clothes Horse Magazine’s most beautiful dragon in the world for four consecutive years. Age-wise, she had matured to the same point that Dragon Lord Ember had when she first took the Bloodstone Sceptre. Her features were more muscular than Ember’s, but still lithe, and her wings had grown longer and wider. The biggest change in recent years was her legs, which now stood digitigrade as most dragons did past their juvenile years.

Smolder’s scales were orange like sherbert, with warm purple fins that together made the colors of an especially garish sunset. A shimmering gold dress hung over her form, strapped at the shoulders and reaching down to her mid thighs. In the middle of her torso a six-pointed star was cut out of the fabric, revealing the light cream scales of her chest.

She didn’t look like she aged a second since the last time Char had seen her.

Which was never. He had never seen her before.

Char coughed. “Miss Smolder.”

Smolder raised an eyebrow. Her eyes gained a tense look to them. “Lady Smolder.”

“Lady! Lady Smolder,” Char corrected himself. He took a knee and bowed his head. “Please forgive me. I’m really nervous.”

“I’ve never seen you before,” Smolder said. She stepped around him and sat on her throne. Char swiveled to face her. He looked up, seeing her recline in her seat like the queen she obviously thought she was. An arrogant smile came upon her lips. “What’s your name, who are you and what do you want with me?”

“I…” Char swallowed, feeling his prepared speech abandon him. “My name is Char. I’m from the Changeling Embassy. I...have information for you.”

“Char,” said Smolder. She repeated the name, saying it slower each time. “Char...Char...Char…that’s a very special name. Couldn’t say why, though. There’s just something about it that makes it feel... familiar.”

Char’s tail lashed out, preparing to thrash around in discomfort. His eye twitched as he forced himself still.

“Ah, nevermind,” Smolder shrugged. “Alright, so you’re working with the bugs. What do they want?”

“It’s about the plans for the Dragonlands Hive,” said Char. He couldn’t keep a dash of venom from infecting the way he said the prospective hive’s name.

Smolder was silent for a second. Then she snorted. “Go on.”

“They want to know what progress is like.”

“...Don’t they already know?” Smolder asked. “I’ve been working with Celly’s da—with Carapace on the planning.”

“They want me to see if I can get any additional information out of you,” Char said. “They want to know if you’re hiding anything. They suspect you might be sabotaging things.”

“Sabotaging?” Smolder said. She snorted, then exhaled sharply through her nostrils, twin streams of fire trailing out with her breath. “That’s fucking ridiculous. I’ve been more supportive of the damn thing than Ember, and it’s her boyfriend that’s going to be a thousand miles closer because of it. It’s not my fault that every single time we’re close to concretizing the plans, something just happens to go wrong with the zoning, or the water supply, or whatever stupid beauracratic thing is gonna come up next.”

“I agree,” Char said. “They’re yanking your chain. The hive will never be completed.”

Smolder squinted at him. “Explain.”

“I have a document here,” he said, reaching into his messenger bag and pulling out a scroll, “that proves the changelings have zero interest in completing the new hive. I’m...not supposed to be giving this to you. I’m not even supposed to have it.”

“So why do you?” Smolder asked. She slid closer to the edge of her seat and leaned forward. “I know I’ve done a great job spreading friendship to the rest of us dragons, but the fact remains that strangers don’t usually do nice things for you unless they want something.”

Char cleared his throat. “I—I grew up in Fillydelphia. Garble’s Home for Delinquent Dragons.”

“Ah,” Smolder said. She nodded her head. “You’re an orphan.”

“An orphan who you housed with wealth from your personal hoard,” Char added. “I’ve wanted to do right by you ever since I was a kid. I even attended the School of Friendship just to meet you. But that was after you stopped teaching.”

“Ah,” said Smolder, looking away and picking at her nails. She only ever did that when she was trying extra hard to conceal her emotions. “Yeah, I couldn’t be in Ponyville anymore.”

Char’s wings fluttered. “Hurt too much?” he asked.

Smolder let out a “Hah!” and grinned at him. “Outgrew it. There were much cooler things for me to be doing than teaching whelps at my old stomping grounds. Even if it was a ton of fun. Here, let me see that scroll.”

Char handed it to her and watched as she read over it.

“A full transcription of a conversation between Carapace and Lieutenant Cornicle. Where’d you get this?” she asked, poring over the writing.

“Someone put it on the wrong desk,” said Char.

“Really now,” Smolder muttered. She tutted like she had just been told that the neighbor’s kids were misbehaving.

“Can I say something?” Char asked suddenly, leaning forward.

Smolder inched away slightly. “Sure.”

“I think you should ditch the Hive.”

“Why?” Smolder asked. “I want it to happen.”

“But there’s much better things that could be put on that land,” Char said. “A school. A tower. A—a statue to Dragonlord Ember or something. But the Hive would only complicate the Dragonlands. Can you imagine the potential incidents? Our laws are so different from theirs. Not to mention our cultural norms.”

Smolder regarded him for a long moment. Then she smiled and breathed powder-pink fire onto the scroll. It disintegrated immediately, but the ashes drifted in an orderly fashion out of the throne room and around the corner.

“Sent it to my desk,” she explained. “I need to make sure it’s real before I start spreading the news. It is real... right, Char?”

Char bit his lip and shifted his feet. But before he could answer, Smolder had already stood up and offered him a claw.

“Come on, let’s get lunch. I wanna know more about you, Char. I think we could be friends.”

Char took it without hesitation. His heart raced at the touch of her palm.

Smolder took her tea and gemstones in her bedroom, as she always did. It had always been a safe space for her. It meant a lot to be invited in here.

Char had never been in this room before, and for that matter, neither had Ocellus. It must have been new, and—ugh. Smolder’s room was huge. It was the size of a buckball field, with a ceiling as high as the throne room’s. The bed as wide as three yaks and as long as six, covered in lily white silk sheets and surrounded by a veil that was currently drawn open to allow Smolder to sit on its edge. But that wasn’t what was remarkable about the place. What caught Char’s eye the most were the open closets that walled the room, and the hundreds—no, thousands of dresses that were lined up inside of them. Each closet was filled to the brim and bursting with dresses of all different colors and materials, each guaranteed to be of the finest make. Looking into one section was like looking at a vat of rainbow sherbet at an ice cream shop. When did Smolder acquire these…?

“How do you deal with moths?” he asked.

“We don’t. All the ambient heat takes care of any fabric eating pests,” Smolder said with a laugh. “Here…” She clapped her claws, and the empty area in front of her bed came alight with the glowing of a sigil, and from the bright teal light of the sigil a table rose, with two chairs, a steaming hot tea set and a bowl of gems sitting in the middle.

“I hope you’re fine with Kirin Rose,” said Smolder as she took a seat. “Apparently it’s an acquired taste.”

The smell of the tea, like sandalwood and peanuts and perfume all at the same time, made Char sigh in delight. “I love Kirin Rose.”

“Take a seat then,” Smolder said.

Char did. He looked to the floor. The sigil was gone.

“It’s changeling magic,” said Smolder. “Carapace helped me set it up. He’s very handy.”

She poured herself some tea, then poured some for Char, who held himself back from looking surprised. Terrible etiquette. Awful posture and form. Had she forgotten?

Char took a sip of his tea immediately. Like a dragon would. “I thought it was against the rules for Carapace to use changeling magic outside of the Hive.”

Smolder smirked. “You’re right. It’s generally not cool for them to use their newly discovered magic—outside of transformation, obviously—on foreign soil. The General made sure of that. But Carapace is her father and he considers me part of their family unit. So I guess I’m an exception.”

“Family unit,” Char said. “I know you and the General went to school together, but I didn’t know you were close.”

“Oh, yeah,” Smolder snorted. “Made for each other, like couture. But it’s less because of Ocellus and more because Carapace and I have sex pretty regularly.”

“What,” Char said, less of a question and more of a statement.

“Yeah, on this bed behind me. Basically every time he comes over.”

“I...I don’t think I should be hearing about this—”

“You seem like a guy who likes to have a good time,” Smolder said. “And believe me, dude, this changeling’s dick is a good time. A very. Good. Ti—”

Char fell apart in a pillar of teal flame.

Out came the Princess General.

Ocellus stamped her hooves on the table, snorting angrily, her wings buzzing out a low, threatening hum. She glared at Smolder, ignoring the spilt tea that was spreading under her hooves.

“Hey there, bug,” Smolder said. She gave Ocellus a toothy grin. “Nice of you to make an appearance.”

“Do not talk to me that way,” Ocellus growled. “And do not talk about my father that way.”

Smolder took another sip of her tea and then rolled her eyes. “It was getting boring playing pretend with you. I had to find some way to pull you out of your stupid disguise.”

“Oh, I bet you know all about playing pretend,” Ocellus said lowly.

“Why are you here, Celly?” Smolder asked. Her voice gained an edge to it. “Did you miss me? You only had to write. I’ll always have time for my best friend for life and future wi—”

Ocellus grabbed hold of the kettle with her telekinesis, sweeping it up in a bright blue light, and then crushed it before Smolder could finish the sentence. Tea splattered across her legs and chest, and all over Smolder’s dress. Ocellus then threw the shards of porcelain at the dragon’s face.

Smolder shielded herself with a wing. Her mocking grin shrunk into a frown. She put her cup, now with a couple of shards of porcelain floating around in the tea, on the table. “Alright, alright, relax. Wanna chat about the new hive? Then let’s chat.”

“Stop building it,” said Ocellus. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Makes sense to me,” Smolder said. “You’re running out of room in the Badlands. Why not stretch out, plant some roots next to an ally?”

“Because we need to expand the hive that we already have,” Ocellus said. “Not build a vacation home to make it easier for Thorax to run away to Ember every time he comes across a problem that takes more than half an hour to fix.”

Smolder crossed her arms. “Wow. You’re still zero fun, huh?”

“I’m sorry being in charge of a population isn’t fun and games,” Ocellus snapped. “I don’t even know why you’re pushing for this so much.”

“We’re your most formidable allies,” Smolder said. “It only makes sense for you to have a location where we can protect you and where you can nurture us.”

“We don’t need protection!” Ocellus snapped. “We don’t need anyone else! That’s what I keep telling Thorax! What we need is to prove to the world that we can be more than cute, peace-loving bugs. We need to show them that we can be self-sufficient and that we are formidable allies. The Badlands Hive needs to become a cluster of many. A changeling metropolis. That’s how we solve the crowding issues.”

Smolder groaned. “Look, that sounds reasonable and all—”

“I know,” said Ocellus.

“—But—” Smolder raised a claw. “Your crowding issues aren’t that bad, which eliminates your pragmatic stance; you flip-flop constantly between ‘the ponies still don’t trust us’ and ‘the ponies need to see we’re strong’ so which is it? Because honestly acting on behalf of either one cancels out the other, and besides, you know full well it’s a false dichotomy. You can expand the Badlands Hive and build one in the Dragonlands. And you will. You wanna know what I think?”

“We can’t do both,” Ocellus said. “Smolder, we’re burning enough money as it is on this stupid—”

“I think… that changelings and dragons are at the highest our collective wealth has ever been and only growing,” Smolder cut in. “Look at the room we’re in, bug. Look at this entire cave. Don’t tell me there aren’t rooms like this back home. We’re going to be genuine peers in thirty years tops. I think that you’re being a coward.”

Ocellus grit her teeth. “Fuck you, Smolder.”

“I’d love to, buggy—I miss your kisses...but I gotta say, what you’re doing right now is a big turn-off for me. Pulling this juvenile bullshit—running away from your job to fly on over and interrupt me at mine with bogus transcripts—all because you’re scared. You’re scared because Thorax might make you the leader of the new hive, and you don’t want that much responsibility yet. Am I close?”

“Not in the slightest,” Ocellus growled.

Smolder regarded her for a long moment, and as she did, her gaze turned softer. “Then why are you here, Celly? Why do you keep coming back?”

That was it. A moment of vulnerability. Tenderness. Passionate, burning emotion—even just a spark of it. Ocellus tried to get a hold of Smolder’s feelings, reaching out with her inherent changeling senses...

...And found nothing.

Ocellus realized she was still leaning on the tea table. She got off and began to walk away.

“Where are you going?”

Ocellus did not reply.

“You just tried to get a read on my feelings,” said Smolder.

Ocellus kept quiet. Get to the door. Leave. Leave and never come back.

“It hasn’t gotten any better?” Smolder asked.

Ocellus stopped walking. No. Keep going. Leave.

“It comes and it goes,” she said. “But it’s been gone for months now. Thought it might be easier to detect emotion from someone I used to be close with.”

Smolder sputtered. “Well, why didn’t you just—?”

“This is your fault,” Ocellus said.

Smolder made no response. Ocellus walked to the door, and then waited. Idiot. Why do I always let her talk? This was the rhythm of their conversations. Lie. Get angry. Lie. Tell the truth. Feel terrible. Wait around for nothing. Leave.

“At least stay the night,” Smolder muttered. “There’s a firestorm scheduled.”

“Fine,” said Ocellus. She took one last look at the extravagant room, the comically large bed, and the small dragon beside it. “But I’ll stay in my old room.”

Smolder raised a claw toward her, opened her mouth to say something, but Ocellus quickly turned the corner and flew off.

GET IN, LOSER, WE'RE GOING TO KLUGETOWN

Ocellus woke up to a firestorm. It was already noon, which meant that the storm had likely been going for a while. The roaring of the participating dragons melted into a warm, muffled sound not unlike the sound of rain on pavement. It nearly lulled her back to sleep.

Her room, along with the other four guest rooms, was located at the top of Smolder’s snake-shaped lair, inside one of the snake’s giant eyes. In it was a window that allowed her a perfect view of the center of the Dragonlands where, all around, dragons of varying sizes—but mostly those larger than the average train car—breathed fire directly up into the sky. Their flames shot up uncommonly high, formless and natural at first but getting thinner as they reached the amber clouds up top—ribbons of fire that zigged and zagged in a way that was normally impossible. Each dragon’s fire met with that of another dragon’s, and another, and another, and so on, creating a swirling pool of light and heat that burned a molten orange over the land.

At first, Ocellus was surprised that it wasn’t hot. She then remembered what a firestorm actually was.

It was fire, sure, but not just any kind of fire; the dragons scheduled their firestorms for times when the natural magical ambience in the air was at a high. A dragon’s fire was their soul. It came from a place deep within them: a sacred part of themselves that they called their Inner Fire. By combining their souls and washing the land with their heat, the magic responded by rebuilding itself, coming alive, healing cracks in the arid rock and making the occasional plant grow. It was the closest thing that dragons had to a communal practice. Since Smolder was deputized by Ember to oversee a large part of their people, it had only become more popular.

“Shows unity,” Smolder had said to her once. “Keeps us strong. A single dragon missing from a firestorm changes the whole thing.”

The actual firestorm wasn’t particularly hot, despite appearances, and while most pony tourists would be scared off by the sight, no harm would come to them.

“Looks awesome, doesn’t it?” Ember asked. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.”

Ocellus turned to see the lithe, quadrupedal dragon lounging across the room. Her eyes were as red as the Bloodstone Scepter she held in one of her claws.

“Dragon Lord,” Ocellus said, bowing her head.

“Come on, Celly. We’re family at this point. Give me a hug!”

Ocellus smiled and cantered over to wrap her legs around the dragon’s neck. It had been a while since they had seen each other.

Ember’s legs were strong and warm, and as she squeezed, Ocellus felt like she had been flying for a week and was only just now touching the ground—steady and easy and relieved. Ember was remarkably warm, like a black sweater left out in the sun. Ocellus squeezed her back. Evidently a little too hard, for Ember’s breathing cut off and Ocellus felt her shoulders quiver as she tried her best to hide the fact that she was being choked.

Ocellus blushed, but said nothing as she let go, and Ember all too eagerly walked a few feet backwards.

Ember coughed. “You been working out?”

“Lots of giant sandworms around the hive lately,” Ocellus said.

Ember nodded, looking past her. “Keep it up.”

Ocellus glanced back to the firestorm. The streams of fire had started to die down.

“Smolder’s not expecting me,” said Ember. “Wanna come surprise her with me?”

“Why not tell her beforehoof?” Ocellus asked.

“I like keeping her on her toes. Don’t want her to start slacking just because she’s a hotshot now.”

Ocellus grunted vaguely in agreement.

“Have you eaten yet?” Ember asked.

Ocellus shook her head. Suspicion flared in her like a flame. Had Thorax told Ember she was broken? He’d promised not to anyone, but...

“Want some breakfast?” Ember asked, laying a claw on Ocellus’s shoulder. Her smile grew sheepish. “My treat.”

Ocellus relaxed slightly. Ember’s face was genuine. She had no idea.

“Sure!” Ocellus chirped.

Ember sidled up to her and put a large claw on the crown of her head, just behind her antlers.

Ocellus sighed as the dragon bent her neck down and touched their foreheads together. She opened her emotion receptors up.

Nothing.

She could feel that she was draining energy, but it tasted like nothing. It felt like nothing. There was a hunger in her that slowly went away, but it was nothing, too. No cozy satisfaction came from her feeding. No feelings of love or merriment.

Ocellus ate nothing until she was full of nothing, and when she felt that she had taken enough she closed her receptors and nudged Ember away.

“Thank you,” Ocellus said. “Your love is delicious.”

“You barely took anything,” Ember said, brows furrowed. “You alright?”

“I’m a light eater,” Ocellus said.

“Right,” Ember said, raising a brow. “Well, I won’t judge.”

“Thank you,” Ocellus said. “Shall we go see Smolder? I doubt she’ll be in the throne room very long.”

Ember’s lips twitched—she wanted to say something, Ocellus figured, but she simply nodded and let Ocellus take the lead as they exited the room and went down the spiral stairs leading out of the guest apartments. Ember was usually the type to speak her mind, but she had been better about keeping her cards close to her chest as of late. Thorax probably had a hoof in that.

Ocellus couldn’t stop a small sigh from escaping her. Every time she thought about the relationship between the two, it always ended in a headache. Would they marry? Turn dragons and changelings into one nation? Would they simply be allies? How would the other countries’ leaders react? Would Twilight officiate the ceremony? Would Torch approve? Where would the wedding be held?

Who would come to ruin the wedding? An enemy of Twilight’s? Someone Ember wronged? Someone Ocellus did?

“Celly,” Ember said.

Ocellus stopped, her hoof on the doors.

“Dragon Lord, remember?” Ember said, tapping her chest. “It doesn’t really matter, but… I should go first.”

Ocellus stepped aside for Ember to push through, then followed her into the room, only a hoofstep behind.

Smolder sat alone on her throne, scratching her neck. Her wings were agitated, twitching as she kicked her legs back and forth. She seemed deep in thought.

Ocellus got wind of something sour in the air.

“Yo, Smolder!” Ember called.

Smolder didn’t move until a few seconds later, when she turned her head and realized she wasn’t alone. Her eyes widened, something cold in them warming to an anxious fire, and she stepped off of her gaudy throne.

“Hey,” Smolder said. Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “What’s up?” she asked as Ember and Ocellus approached.

“Nothing, really,” said Ember. She held out her fist, and Smolder gave a half-hearted grin as she bumped her own fist against it. Ocellus noticed Ember cared less about proper procedure when it came to Smolder. “I just wanted to see how you were doing,” she elaborated. “I was telling Celly that I like to keep you on your toes.”

Smolder laughed. But, bit by bit, her smile dropped. “Well, if you were expecting a normal conversation over gems and booze, you kinda came at the wrong time.”

“Why?” Ember asked. She sat back on her haunches and crossed her arms, looking worried. “What’s wrong?”

Smolder’s gaze drifted past Ember to Ocellus. “Got a letter this morning. Strata’s missing.”

Ocellus searched her memory for a moment, eventually coming to the image of an olive-scaled dragon with bubblegum pink eyes. “That girl that you put in charge of your correspondence with Klugetown,” Ocellus said. “She helps them keep the gangs in line and facilitates the trade of precious gems for—”

“Just about anything we need,” said Smolder. “Klugetown’s a goldmine. Twilight knows that. She’s counting on us dragons to come to an understanding with them because we’re a lot sturdier than the average pony. You never know what you’re going to find over there. Strata was a big part of us finally getting into trade talks. She’s smart. More importantly: they like her. And she hasn’t shown up to any of her scheduled meetings for the past three days.”

Ember hung her head for a moment, one of her claws curling into a quivering fist against the floor. Ocellus took a moment to notice how that would have been a subtle gesture if she had been bipedal. Then again, maybe not. Ember had always been easy to read.

“What are we going to do, then?” asked the Dragon Lord.

“I’m going to go find her.” The look in Smolder’s eyes was scalding. “Personally.”

Ember tilted her head and said, “No.”

“Why?!” Smolder yelled. The sudden increase in volume caught Ocellus by surprise. She moved back a step.

Ember, however, stayed in place, and kept her cool. “I sure came at the right time—you probably would’ve left without even sending me a message. Smolder, you run a lot more here than you do in Klugetown. The Gathering of Eternal Fire is coming up and there are still some dragons who haven’t come into contact with us. I need a team to search for Grayfyre. Or his bones. The last time he was seen was three-thousand years ago.”

The Gathering of Eternal Fire was an event in which the oldest, biggest dragons in the world met up to share stories and wisdom, as well as dictate last rites and say goodbye. The Call of the Dragon Lord was usually more than enough to bring them the message, but sometimes dragons took naps in places where magic could not go, and they needed to be woken up by manual means.

Ocellus had never witnessed a Gathering before, and she had hoped to see this one. There were only two or three every hundred years or so, and the last time one had happened, she had been comatose in a hospital.

“Not to mention the other dozen dragons that we have to find,” Ember continued, “on top of making sure that everything’s going to go okay while I’m at the Friendship Summit. And you need to help me settle a bunch of hoard disputes after the party last week. Your party, in case you forgot. You can’t just go running off like a hatchling trying to save the world.”

Smolder laughed harshly. “Are you trying to call me a child?”

“I’m saying that you act stupid when you don’t take the time to think,” Ember said, eyes narrowing. “Don’t prove me right.”

“Strata’s our friend, Ember,” Smolder spoke, her voice suddenly low and hushed. “Something’s happened to her and we need the best. And that’s me.”

“No, Smolder, that’s me.” Ember turned the Bloodstone Scepter, and it began to glow. The rest of the throne room was bathed in a sickly red glow that made the red in Ember’s eyes even brighter. “Don’t forget that I made you, Lady Smolder, and I will not let you disrespect me in front of a foreign dignitary.”

Ocellus opened her receptors to see if she could sense any of the animosity evidently in the room. She could not. She resisted the urge to sigh.

“You may have sent me to school,” said Smolder. “But there are about a dozen ponies out there who I owe a lot more to, and Klugetown on a silver platter is a good place to start. I’m going and I’m finding Strata. You can take everything else.”

The Bloodstone Scepter’s glow increased in intensity. “I’m not a desk jockey,” said Ember. “Please tell me I haven’t let you run around without a leash for so long that you’ve forgotten that I’m your boss.”

Smolder snorted. “Know what? Maybe I have. What’re you gonna do about it? Gonna make me?”

Ember opened her mouth, fire spilling from her maw like the drool of a hungry dog. Smolder’s claws curled into fists.

They took a single step towards each other before Ocellus stepped between them, an eyebrow raised.

“No fighting,” she said. “Save it for when I’m not here.”

“You better get going quick, then,” Smolder said, crossing her arms. Ocellus couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or disappointed. “Bet you haven’t even started your dress fittings for the Summit yet.”

Ocellus frowned. She should have excused herself and left Smolder to her squabbling a long time ago, but...

But I don’t want to.

She recalled the air of the hive—always just cold enough to encourage closeness but never enough to make anyone uncomfortable—and the warmth of her kin buzzing around, chatting to each other about their day to day lives and their expectations for her.

She wanted to disappear.

She wanted to be nothing. To feel like a spectator and not a player. She wanted to watch. Just for a while.

She was tired—had been tired for a long time. And being here, being with Smolder…getting sucked into her weekly fights with Ember and her impulses and her laugh and all of the things that she loved about her once...

It had always hurt her just enough to make her feel alive.

“Ember, I think that me and Smolder should go after Strata,” said Ocellus.

Smolder’s jaw dropped.

“What?” Ocellus snapped. “It makes sense. We’re geared to deal with Klugetown. No one smart is going to mess with us.”

She resisted the urge to turn to Ember. Instead, she tried her empathy again, tapping the magic deep inside her, reaching out, feeling, feeling—

Nothing. She shook her head.

“If you let us go,” she said, “I’ll personally oversee the construction of the Dragonlands Hive.”

Ember made a surprised sound. “Seriously?”

“You and Thorax have been hounding me about it for the last year.” Ocellus turned to her. “I’ll do it. If you let us go to Klugetown.”

“Why do you care so much?” Ember asked. She narrowed her eyes. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“I thought we were family,” Ocellus countered. “Doesn’t that mean your business is my business?”

“Don’t you have shit to do at home?” Ember pressed.

Ocellus laughed. “No. Not at all.”

Ember squinted at her. “I don’t know your play here, Celly, but if that’s really what you want…”

Ocellus smiled, relieved. “Cross my heart. We’ll be back in just a few days.”

The ocean’s ebb and flow looked as peaceful as ever. Gallus watched as the tide flooded in, crept out, came back again, and repeated. Some creatures felt comfort in the predictable washing sound of waves on a beach, but the endless cycle of the water had only ever made him feel anxious. He could never place a talon on why.

He turned to Silverstream, who sat beside him on a tacky beach chair that hadn’t been used in about five years. His own chair creaked every time it moved, and it was like if he was but a pound heavier it would all break underneath him.

“How many kids?” he asked.

“Dozens. All children of nobility.” Silverstream didn’t meet his gaze. Her eyes stayed fixed on the ocean. “Some of them were supposed to go to the School of Friendship next year. Poof. Gone.”

“And they vanished yesterday?” Gallus said.

“It’s been happening for about a week now.”

Gallus sighed.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” said Silverstream.

“No,” said Gallus. He rubbed his eyes. “No, me neither. At the very least they’re connected. Maybe it’s a single team. Someone got Griffonstone and handed you guys over to someone else. Or maybe it’s all one creature.”

“But either way—”

“Whoever we’re up against has enough power to mind control Gilda, make Gabby and a bunch of sea ponies disappear, summon kelpies to their aid and piss off a kraken enough to make it want to charge Mount Aris.”

“We need to tell Twilight,” said Silverstream.

“So my plans haven’t changed,” Gallus said.

“I’m just going to come with you, now,” Silverstream said.

“Fuck me…” Gallus leaned back, looked up at the vast blue of the sky.

“What’s wrong? Don’t want me to come?”

Out of reflex, he nearly said “no”. He laughed dryly. “I’m just tired.”

“Yeah, me too…” Gallus heard Silverstream sigh. “So when should we leave?”

The sky was mesmerizing. Gallus tried to turn himself away—to sit up or get off his chair or something—but he couldn’t. There was something about the blue.

It was like it was staring at him.

“Gallus?”

Gallus felt his eyes widen. He willed himself to look harder. Maybe if he stared long enough at the endlessness of that blue, he would see it. He wasn’t sure what ‘it’ was, but he knew that he had to see it. He had to—

“Gallus!”

Silverstream’s claw squeezed his shoulder, making him jolt up. He looked at her, feathers ruffled.

“Gallus?” she asked.

“I—” he swallowed, “—really don’t wanna break anything this time,” he said quietly. “My wings were enough, you know? Been there, done that.”

Silverstream’s beak quivered, and she moved to hug him, but then she paused. She put her other claw on his shoulder instead and said, “Look at me.”

Gallus wanted to tease her. He was already looking at her, after all. But his words failed.

“I’m going to protect you,” she said.

Gallus tried to shake his head. “I—”

“You don’t need me, I know, but I’m going to act like you do, and if you never need my help—then whatever.”

He nodded.

“Good,” said Silverstream. She said the word slowly. Calmly. She squeezed his shoulders. “Now what are you going to do?”

“We,” corrected Gallus. His voice was metallic, but sincere. “What are we going to do?”

Silverstream smiled at the word. “Yeah.”

Gallus closed his eyes. He steadied his breathing. After a moment, he opened his eyes and gently brushed her claws off him.

“I have an idea,” he said. “Have a spare airship lying around?”

Ocellus drummed her hooves on the tea table as Smolder paced back and forth in front of her, snorting fire with every sharp exhale out of her nose.

“Why did you do that for me?” Smolder asked. “I mean—you—why?”

“To annoy you, clearly,” Ocellus said dryly.

“Har har,” Smolder said. “You don’t even like Klugetown!”

“So?”

“So why, Celly?”

Ocellus sighed. “Hold your claw out.”

Smolder stopped her pacing, nearly tripping over herself. She turned to Ocellus, mouth agape. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“You remember?”

How could I forget? Ocellus beckoned her closer, and Smolder walked towards her, gliding like a drop of rain over glass.

Smolder held her claw out, suddenly tense. Ocellus took it and she placed her hoof on top of it, tracing over Smolder’s palm lightly but firmly, tracing a complex diagram that only the two of them could translate.

[How-Could-I-Forget], came Ocellus’s first message.

Smolder gasped softly. She turned her palm over. Ocellus kept her hoof against it. When her hoof was the one facing the ceiling, Smolder began to graze her claw over it.

[It’s-Been-A-While], she said.

It was a silly, inefficient manner of communication, but it was undoubtedly theirs. They had gotten bored over summer vacation once and decided to not talk aloud for an entire week.

[I-Don’t-Know-What-I’m-Doing-Here], signed Ocellus.

Smolder used a free claw to guide Ocellus’s eyes to her, and traced a nonsensical pattern over her hoof again.

[I-Like-You-Here,] Smolder said. Then… [I-Still—]

Ocellus pulled her leg away. Smolder didn’t fight, didn’t try to keep signing. She took a step back, a frown on her face.

And they stared at each other, trembling.

“Look at us,” said Ocellus. “World leaders and we still act like emotionally distressed college students.”

Smolder laughed with no humor. “We really fucked each other up, huh?”

Ocellus smiled, despite herself.

Smolder grinned back. “Like I did your dad.”

Ocellus groaned aloud and walked past her, towards the door. “Can we just get flying already?”

“An airship?” Silverstream blinked. “Oh, gosh. I mean… mayyyyyybe we can ask Auntie Novo to borrow one? But she’s super busy. It could be days before we get an audien—”

A pair of shadows stretched out over them from behind, and Gallus turned to see a set of guards, looking ready to put him in chains.

“Captain Silverstream,” said one of them, eyes locked forward, “Queen Novo requests your presence on urgent business.”

Silverstream smiled, turned to Gallus. “Well, that was easy.”

“Wait,” Gallus said in a panic. “Which throne room? The one in Mt. Aris?”

“Oh, Gallus,” Silverstream said. She laid her claw on his shoulder again. “When is Auntie Novo ever in Mt. Aris?”

Gallus hung his head. He hated going to Seaquestria. The only way in, for him, was to be turned into an octopus.

As they swam towards the throne room doors, flanked by an ever increasing number of seapony guards, Silverstream whispered hurriedly in his ear. Did his octopus form have ears? Gallus heard her, somehow.

“I dunno if we can swing an entire airship, Gally. The navy is stretched thin enough as it is. Just play it by ear and if she seems generous, we can try and ask for it.”

Gallus swallowed. Did his octopus form have a throat?

Queen Novo’s throne room hadn’t changed all that much. It was still grand, and underwater, and pretty and spacious and underwater and surrounded by a thousand tons of crushing seawater. Gallus tried not to think about it too much, instead looking for things that had changed since he’d last been here. But the only change he could spot was in Novo herself. Somehow, she looked younger than he remembered. He made sure that was one of the first things he told her.

Novo laughed in response. “Ever the charmer, Captain.”

Gallus was glad he wouldn’t have to fake a smile for her. “Not in the guard anymore, Your Majesty.”

“You’ll return,” Novo said. She gave him a wink. “Just you wait, kitten.”

Silverstream took the chance to interject. “Hi, Auntie! Um. Why are we here?”

“Hey there, niece.” Novo gave her a favorable nod. “I was just getting to that. I wanted to ask what your plans are. I know that you’re planning on finding out what happened to the children, and I’ve been briefed on what happened in Griffonstone. Our only common link right now’s that Captain Gallus here has been to both Griffonstone and Mount Aris. And we know he’s not behind all of this, so something else is. You’re here so you can tell me what you know.”

Novo looked at Gallus. She sighed heavily. “That, and I wanted to apologize to you, Captain.”

Gallus raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, Your Majesty?”

“You seemed happy in Griffonstone. I should have contacted your council—checked up on you. We’re supposed to be friends, right? But it just never came to my mind. And I’m told you played a major role in saving my navy, which you shouldn’t have had to do.”

“No one knew the kelpies or the kraken would come for your fleet,” Gallus said. Suddenly he felt unbearably itchy, which was funny because he was completely submerged in soothing water. “Your Majesty, c’mon...there’s no need to make a fuss.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Novo said, “but you know I’d rather be right, so I’d advise that you accept my apology.”

Gallus laughed, despite himself. “Apology accepted, Your Highness.”

Novo smiled. “Good. Now if there’s anything I can do to repay you for your continued service to the Crown…you need only name your price. Nothing fixes friendship troubles like a bit of money and resources, am I right?

Silverstream turned to Gallus. “Wow,” she laughed. “That was really easy.”

Novo’s boon hovered above the clouds, and descended when Gallus and Silverstream made their way back to the shore behind the beach house. It was larger than any luxury yacht Gallus had ever seen, but smaller than the ones he’d seen in the Royal Guard hanger—and those battleships were old and decrepit and gathering dust, what with no wars and all. The airship that Novo had given to them was brand new, made from the finest wood and trimmed with a pale, silvery metal. Lunarite. Hard as a dragon’s scale and lightweight. Princess Luna’s favorite ore.

Gallus whistled in amazement. Silverstream was beside him on the shore, watching as the airship hovered down to land just a mile away, where a field of grass could safely hold the ship long enough for them to gather their things and board. “What do we call it?” he asked.

“Oh, let’s not name her until we get to know her,” Silverstream said.

“And who’s driving?” asked Gallus.

“Someone from the Navy, maybe?” said Silverstream.

“Or a former Royal Guard?” Gallus asked.

“Or someone from the Navy who you owe a lot of emotional reparations to?” Silverstream sang back.

“Or!” called Terramar.

Gallus and Silverstream turned to see the hippogriff standing in a thick blue coat, a red scarf with the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ crest tied tight around his neck.

“Or,” he said through a giant grin, “someone actually, you know, trained to fly an airship?”

“You know weird hippogriff magic and you know how to pilot an airship,” said Gallus.

Terramar waggled his eyebrows. “Am I boyfriend material yet?”

Silverstream groaned. “I’m shutting this conversation down.”

Terramar giggled. He set his eyes on Gallus. “I’ve packed both your bags. Where are we going? Canterlot?”

“No,” said Gallus. He and Silverstream shared a glance before he said, “We have to make a pit stop.”

“Where to?” Terramar asked.

Gallus noticed the confusion on Terramar’s face. “Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take long,” he said. “We just need to make a quick little trip to Klugetown.”

LIKE MAGNETS, WE ARE

The light in Klugetown’s underground market was hazy, as if every shady dealing at every stall that surrounded Gallus was a mirage, or some sort of ghostly image of the past. The hazy quality of the light was present in the sound of the conversations, too. Everycreature spoke in muffled, low voices, and though a thousand creatures were all talking at once, it all melded together into a formless, unspecific noise that was unnerving at best and completely panic-inducing at worst.

Gallus liked Klugetown well enough, but he could never relax within its borders. There was something in the air that kept him anxious, always moving, always looking around him. He only ever came here when he really, really needed something.

Today’s something was a Giant Turtle whistle for Sandbar’s birthday, the only surviving whistle in a set that called upon various mythical-class creatures.

“Gally,” Ocellus called. Her light, airy voice pierced through the haze of the market like an arrow. Gallus followed it to a nearby stall, where she was hunched over a table of wares and had her eyes locked with a bipedal bird—an Ornithian raven. He wore only a simple dark orange robe and a burgundy cord wrapped thrice around his neck, as well as the same glint in his eye as every other grifter Gallus had seen that day.

Like most of the salescreatures in the market, the raven’s stall was a menagerie of rare or useless things spread out on multiple tables and spinning racks. Gallus didn’t care for any of them save for the whistle he spotted sitting prettily on a shelf behind the raven.

“Ah,” he said, sidling up to his friend and laying his claws on the table, batting his eyes at the raven. “I see my friend found what we're looking for.”

“That she did,” the raven replied, voice low, dark like chocolate, “but it’s not for sale.”

“Why have it out, then?” Gallus asked. “Come on. What’s she offered you?”

“All your bits,” said the raven, eyes narrowing at him. “And I’m not taking them.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it’s not for sale.”

“A trade, then?”

“No.”

“Come on,” Gallus sighed, looking a little past him, to the whistle. He swished his tail, making sure it caught the raven’s attention. Then he batted his eyes. “Name your price,” he purred. “Promise I’ll one-up you.”

Beside him, Ocellus gagged audibly.

The raven smiled wide. Gallus matched him, albeit just a teensy bit worried. He clearly wasn’t interested in Gallus’s swishy tail or his delightfully long eyelashes. He seemed hungry for something else.

“Do you know any card games?” asked the raven.

Gambling. The only thing better than friendship. Gallus beamed. “I know them all.”

Gallus, laid back in his hammock, let out a sigh. A firm yet comfortable breeze brushed over him constantly as the ship sailed towards Klugetown. It had been a while since he’d been on an airship for anything but guard duty. He had forgotten that they could actually be relaxing.

“You always liked airship decks,” said Silverstream. She was leaning against a post near Gallus’s head, where the top of the hammock was tied.

“Did I?” Gallus asked.

“No closed spaces, no sea constantly shaking you…”

“Huh,” he said. “Yeah. I guess.”

“You guess?” Silverstream repeated. “I was quoting you! You told me about how much you loved airships like…twelve years ago.”

“That’s a long time, Silly,” Gallus said.

There was a small quiet. Gallus knew that Silverstream was smiling at the mention of her old nickname. He tried not to think about it, lest he start blushing, or worse, acknowledge it out loud.

“We were on our way to Canterlot,” she continued. “I remember you running over to a railing and leaning over it so deep that I was worried you were gonna fall off. At first I thought you were puking. That’s when you looked up and smiled at me and said, ‘I love airships.’”

Gallus searched his mind, but came up with nothing. He repressed a sigh. “Yeah, I’m not remembering any of that.”

Silverstream wrapped her talons on the group. “Well, it’s been a long time, like you said.”

“A long time,” Gallus said. “It’s too bad I don’t have a better memory. Not like I was doing anything important in the last ten years.”

“Don’t say that, Gally,” Silverstream said. “You’ve done more than enough!”

“How would you know?”

“I kept track of you. Gabby wrote me a letter every month letting me know how you were doing.”

“She—” Gallus turned to look at her. “What?”

“How you were feeling, what you were doing, what new thing was making you yell your lungs out the second you got home. If you were happy…” Silverstream said. Quiet nostalgia shimmered in her eyes. “I just wanted to know.”

Gallus swallowed. “Why?”

“Because we’re BFFs, Gallus,” Silverstream said. “And I take the ‘forever’ part of that acronym very seriously.”

Gallus rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky. “I was happy.”

“You’ll be happy again,” said Silverstream.

Gallus didn’t want to say it out loud, but he hoped so. A familiar pang of guilt hit him, twisting around his stomach like a python. “You know, I never really looked for you. Not in newspapers or anything. Things would just…slip by the cracks sometimes. ‘Oh, Silverstream’s in the Navy now.’ ‘Oh, Yona defeated an entire horde of skeletons by herself.’ ‘Did you hear that the changeling hive might host the next Friendship Games?’ And I would ignore all of it. Closest I came to reacting to something was when Sandbar was promoted to the Crystal Empire’s Royal Advisor. But I never sent that letter. I didn’t give any of you a second thought.”

“You didn’t have to,” Silverstream said quietly.

“I know,” said Gallus. “I just feel bad that you did.”

“I enjoyed it,” she said. “It was like reading Daring Do after you met her. You went from my friend to a character that was a real griffon that I used to know. And when I heard that Griffonia had finally let go of Griffonstone, I was happy for you. For all of you.”

“That happened, didn’t it,” said Gallus.

“It did. Thanks to you.”

Gallus spotted an eye-shaped cloud in the sky. “I left all of the politics stuff to the council. The papers just like to mention me because ponies vaguely know who I am.”

“Were you ever lonely?” Silverstream asked.

Gallus answered in a heartbeat. “No. I had Gabby and Gilda.”

When Silverstream didn’t respond, he glanced over to see her staring down at her talons. “Were you?” he asked.

“I wasn’t alone,” said Silverstream. “Terramar and Brine are my friends, and I love my crew. But they weren’t…”

She looked like she was fading, then. Something about the angle of the sunlight made her feathers look washed out, unreal, like Gallus was looking at the first glimpse of a mirage in the distance.

But then she turned, and she fixed her eyes on him, and the pink shade of her feathers was vivid again. Her beak quivered. “They weren’t you,” she said, “and they could never be any of you.”

Dinner at Silverstream’s beach house came to Gallus’s mind. The entire gang plus Terramar. A full banquet on the table. Good cider and fine wine.

Any nausea remaining in Gallus froze over. He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Silverstream.

Gallus could see all of them smiling, could hear them laughing. He frowned.

“Gally?” Silverstream said.

“Yeah.”

“We’re friends again, right?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think maybe…”

Silverstream trailed off, but Gallus knew the rest.

If you could forgive me, could you forgive the others?

“Don’t get carried away,” he said.

He stepped off the hammock and walked across the deck. Below him was the rocky orange terrain of the desert outside Klugetown. He stared down at it and rehearsed what he would say to Silverstream if she followed, but she didn’t.

He heard the door to the captain’s deck open, and close, and he knew he was alone.

Smolder downed her Horse Island Iced Tea in one gulp, pulling away from the glass with an overly ecstatic sigh. Ocellus could see little sparks of flame rising in the air around Smolder’s maw, a reaction between her firebreath and the alcoholic vapors in the air.

“Smolder,” Ocellus said. “That was your fourth drink.”

“The fourth in a series of many,” Smolder said. “Hotel Inferni is mine, which means free drinks.”

Ocellus looked out from the mini bar where they were sitting. The casino floor was washed in saturated lights—mostly a stale yellow, but there was a spattering of pink here, an icy blue over there, bloody red coming in from under the doors of the VIP suites. Slot machines, roulette wheels, craps…all accompanied by every manner of creature that she could name. There were Abyssinians and diamond dogs and Ornithians. There were ponies and changelings, darting between the crowds of two legged creatures, so small in comparison but just as hungry for a lucky win as the rest. There were even Atlanteans, an elusive species of amphibious creatures—some crab-like, some octopus-like, and not one looking the same as any other—that Equestrian academia had only dubbed ‘Atlanteans’ because nopony could pin down a definition due to their wildly varying biology, and the fact that they only ever referred to themselves by their close families and tribes.

“I thought we came to look for your missing friend,” Ocellus said. “If you wanted me to watch you get wasted you could have invited me to the Feast of Fire.”

Smolder snorted. “You wouldn’t come to the Feast, anyway.”

“Smolder,” Ocellus warned.

“Celly. Relax. I’m just getting fired up for our meeting with the faction leaders.”

“We could be out on the streets asking people if they’ve seen her.”

“Or we could be in here, having fun, and waiting for those fellas across the room to come over here and tell me.”

Smolder gestured to a spot behind her with her lips. Ocellus turned and looked closely past the crowd, spotting a group of Atlanteans—these ones like giant bipedal fish—whispering to each other as they stared.

Ocellus felt suddenly conspicuous, like she should be in disguise. “How did you…” She cleared her throat. “You don’t know what they’re going to say.”

“Don’t I?” Smolder asked. She turned to the bartender. “Two more Horse Island Iced Tea.”

“Don’t you think four drinks is enough?” Ocellus asked.

“I think five is the sweet spot,” said Smolder.

“And the other one?”

“Is for you.”

Ocellus glared. “I’m sober.”

“Sob—” Smolder blinked. “What?”

“I had a problem a few years back,” said Ocellus.

“First I’m hearing of it,” Smolder said.

“Oh, Celestia, I know that tone of voice.”

“The pissed off one that’s rightfully angry because you didn’t even think about telling your—”

“My what.”

Smolder opened her mouth. Then she closed it. A moment passed.

“You’re such a dick,” she muttered.

“You should talk to the ponies I meet with every week,” Ocellus said. “They can add you to the support group.”

“Was that supposed to be clever?” Smolder asked. Her eyes drifted to the side. “Shit. Alright, incoming.”

Ocellus stole a glance at the Atlanteans. They were slowly getting up, stretching, and gathering their things as if to leave. There were six of them.

“What do we do?” Ocellus asked.

“I don’t know. Hope that they weren’t the ones who kidnapped Strata?”

“Wouldn’t that be ideal?”

“They’re like three feet taller than us.”

Ocellus raised an eyebrow. “So?”

“So I’d have to use my fire, Celly, and I don’t want to accidentally burn down my casino.”

“I could lure them outside,” said Ocellus.

“Underdone carrot cake with a drizzle of truffle oil,” said Smolder. “If things go south.”

Memories flashed through Ocellus’s head. Professor Pinkie’s Military Tactics and Strategic Baking, 101. Spring semester. Incidentally the last semester that class was taught.

Underdone carrot cake with a drizzle of truffle oil. Feign weakness, lure the enemy somewhere advantageous for you and overwhelm with a large burst of power at the very last second. If things went south, which they probably would, Ocellus would take up the brunt of the fighting, throw the Atlanteans out of the hotel and let Smolder unleash Tartarus.

“Sounds good to me,” said Ocellus. “I can’t believe you remember the Code.”

“If it weren’t for you and G—” Smolder stopped. “You. You drilled it into my head.”

She’s still sore… Ocellus thought. But she hadn’t expected that to change.

The six Atlanteans began to walk. Sure enough, they headed toward Smolder and Ocellus. The opposite direction of the exit.

“I don’t know how these conversations work around here,” said Ocellus. It was a lie. She knew a decent amount. But she didn’t want to be in charge right now.

If Smolder caught on to her bullshit, she didn’t care to show it. “I’ll do the talking.”

As the Atlanteans pretended to be interested in everything in the casino except for the two of them at the bar, Ocellus repaid the favor, scanning the creatures around them. The Atlanteans’ movement seemed to put the guests on edge. From the looks on their faces, these guys had to be regulars, and they were, at the very least, to be treated with some form of respect.

Three of them sat on the chairs next to Smolder. Two stood further away. One—the shortest one, who looked a little bit like a shark—stepped forward to speak.

“Orange dragon,” they said. Their voice was rough, salt-crusted. A little bit like Smolder’s. “Are you Lady Smolder?”

“Who’s asking?” Smolder replied. Her wings were visibly tense.

“I’m no one,” said the Atlantean. “But you can call me Aline.”

“Aline,” Smolder said. “You’re right. I don’t recognize you.”

“No one important would,” said Aline. “But I certainly know you. Strata liked to talk about you.”

Smolder reached for her drink, took a sip. “You knew Strata?”

“Know,” corrected Aline.

“So you know that she’s missing, yet you think she’s alive.”

Aline blinked, clearly taken aback. “You’re accusing me of taking her.”

“Never said that,” said Smolder.

“You didn’t have to.”

“Look,” Smolder raised an open claw. “Sorry. I’m just kind of—”

“Drunk,” Ocellus said.

“—On edge right now. So why don’t you say what you came here to say?”

“I thought you’d be in a dress,” said Aline shortly.

“I—” Smolder looked down at herself. “I didn’t have time to get changed.”

“You care about her, then.”

“She’s one of mine, of course I do!” Smolder snapped. “Now what do you want?”

Aline shrugged, raised his fins in a peacekeeping gesture. “We all like Strata.” Some of his fellows nodded. “But we haven’t been able to find her. We wanted to share what we know. Tell you where she was last seen.”

“How did you know her?” Smolder asked.

“Everyone knew her,” said Aline. “That girl was made for Klugetown. It was like she’d been born here, even though no one is born here. She knew how we did things from the very first day. She was smart, and she made all of us feel like we lived somewhere worthwhile. There was no one who didn’t like Strata. She kicked ass, and she was our friend. She always told people she’d buy you a pint of dragonfire ale next she saw you. As thanks.”

Smolder’s tensed wings went lax. Ocellus watched her grimace, only for a second, before her eyes hardened.

“Alright. Where was she seen last?”

“A few of us saw her walk into the ramen bar at the edge of town. We were drinking on a roof nearby, saw her walk in. We were talking about her, actually. Saying she was doing good things for Klugetown. It always surprised us how our incomes never went down, even if a few of us went straight and started selling legal wares. She went to the ramen bar, her favorite place to go in the evenings. Came out with someone on her arm.”

“Who?” Smolder asked.

“Abyssinian. Maroon coat.”

“What, like Capper’s?”

“Capper Dapperpaws, from the town square statue? No. Darker than that old cat’s coat. Brown, almost. Like old wine. Like old blood.”

“Fur markings?” Ocellus asked.

“Calico.”

“And where’d they go?” said Smolder.

“Away,” said Aline. “Not towards Strata’s place, but away from it, towards the northeast edges of Klugetown. ‘S’where all the diamond dogs and the jewelers and the miners live. Don’t know what they were doing going over there. Maybe Strata’s date wanted to buy her some dessert. But that’s the last anyone’s seen of her. We’ve all been through that part of town, asking after her, but no one’s seen her. It was like they walked out of our sight and stopped existing.”

Smolder sighed. She looked to Ocellus. “What do you think?”

“I…” Ocellus began to speak, but her train of thought was interrupted.

Something was nearby. She wasn’t sure what it was. If it was. She didn’t know how to describe it. Her body was on the verge of shivering, but not quite, like she was bracing for the impact of being thrown into the ocean. She still couldn’t sense emotions, but she knew that if she could, she would feel sick to her stomach. She felt sick to her stomach anyway.

Ocellus hopped off her chair, peering around the casino. The crowd remained the same. Bright, loud, dazzling.

Smolder, seeing something in her eyes, stood up as well. “Celly. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” said Ocellus. “I don’t know.”

Think, Ocellus. There was something, something visceral that she couldn’t put her hoof on. She didn’t know how to put it into words. She could be paranoid at times, but she hadn’t felt this kind of dread in years. Was she delusional? Had she been drugged or…

No, there was a spell on her. Either she wasn’t the intended target, or she was only lucid because whoever was casting the spell was inexperienced with cursing changelings. But why?

This was Klugetown, for one. She was a known political figure, and no doubt someone out here wanted her dead, but how would someone have known that she would be here, on this day, at this moment? Or maybe they were stupid, and they saw who she was and decided on a whim that her dead body would earn them at least a little bit of profit.

But they were in a casino, Ocellus remembered. “Smolder, are there anti-magic wards placed around here?”

“You’re freaking me out, Celly.”

“Yes or no.”

“Obviously!” Smolder said. She gestured to the ceiling. “There’s a whole grid I commissioned from Headmare Starlight grafted into the ceiling!”

Starlight Glimmer’s magic was the kind that both dragons and changelings had secret contingencies for, buried deep in their war rooms. If there was something here that could escape its notice…

Ocellus realized that she wasn’t the only one in danger. If whoever this was wanted to deal with her directly, and did not care about the public, then everyone here was in trouble..

“Smolder,” Ocellus said. “I have a bad feeling. Stay here. Remember the plan.” She brushed past an alert-looking Aline and began to walk towards the casino doors.

“What plan?” Smolder called.

“Underdone carrot cake with a drizzle of truffle oil!”

Ocellus took to the air and flew to the doors. Klugetown greeted her on the other side, with its zig-zagging towers, and its alleys—so many alleys all leading to a thousand different places. A cartographer would need years, at least, to map down the ins and outs of the city, and by then, the map would be completely outdated. There were so many places for Ocellus to hide. But the same went for her pursuer.

Ocellus stayed close to the side streets as she flew. She hadn’t been here in years, and she didn’t know where she was going, but she flew hard, zipping over all manners of creatures, seeing several species that she didn’t recognize. It reminded her of parades back at the Hive, where all the changelings would shapeshift into different forms. But everyone here was real, and much less happy.

She found an alley that looked abandoned. She treaded lightly, keeping her eyes on the roofs until she hit a dead end, and then she turned around and waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. A griffon entered at the mouth of the alley. Something glowed in its talons.

Gallus took a swig of coffee and leaned over the edge of the railing, and when he saw Klugetown on the horizon, something about the bitter flavor overwhelmed him.

He spat the coffee out into the breeze. It turned into a spray, coating the side of the airship. He watched as it clung to the enchanted wood and steel, spreading itself into a thin layer that caught the light in a way that made his eyes hurt.

“That’s gonna get sticky and catch flies.” Silverstream leaned over beside him. He hadn’t noticed her come back outside.

Her beak twisted into a sort of half-smile. “How are you?”

“Better,” he said. He gave her a glance.

Sorry, he thought.

I know, said her eyes.

“When was the last time you were in Klugetown?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Had to have been…a long time ago,” he finished lamely. The last time he’d been here was with Ocellus. It was a better time, then. He cleared his throat, asked, “What about you?”

“I came last year. Shopped around a bit.”

“How’d that go?”

“I got scammed out of my necklace by an Abyssinian.”

Gallus raised a brow.

“Oh…” Silverstream waved a claw. “I didn’t need that old thing, anyway. Traded it for an old School of Friendship textbook that he was claiming taught ‘dark magic’. This was back when everyone outside of Equestria was rediscovering all of their different magic systems and finding ancient artifacts and stuff.”

“The Quest for Magic,” said Gallus. “Those were the times. Changelings trying to draw weird stuff with their blood in Canterlot alleys, yaks realizing that they could understand what snow was saying. Do you remember that time that hippogriffs accidentally summoned three rainstorms over Appleoosa in a row?”

Silverstream wheezed. “Of course! Terramar conjured the third one.”

“What? That was the worst one!” Gallus said. “I thought you guys were declaring war for a second!”

“My little brother is very talented,” Silverstream said, holding a fist to her chest and standing straight as she grinned proudly.

“Sure he is,” said Gallus, smiling back at her. “What did the book say?”

“Book?”

“The textbook. The haunted one.”

She scoffed. “It was hardly haunted. The actual textbook was Honesty 205.”

Gallus stared at her.

“Making amends,” said Silverstream. “You really don’t remember? The one about apologizing. The “dark magic” the abyssinian was about turning someone you hate into an ally against a mutual enemy.”

“Huh,” he said. “Imagine that.”

Gallus stared at Klugetown, its buildings resolving now as they drew closer. It seemed to rumble and flash brightly in greeting, and a sudden breeze fell over the two of them. No, not a breeze. A wall of air. It took Gallus a moment to realize what had just happened.

“Is it just me, or did Klugetown just explode?” asked Silverstream.

The griffon was tall in stature, almost Ocellus’s height. He had white feathers that were tinged with a faded yellow hue. He was graying, Ocellus noticed, and as he sauntered closer to her she saw that his face was weathered, age lines creased into his eyes and beak. He held a pair of golden scissors, its handles crusted with glowing purple jewels.

“You’re not what I was expecting,” said Ocellus.

“I’m not used to being noticed.” The griffon’s voice was low and humming, entirely unused to projecting itself. His accent was funny.

“You probably won’t tell me who you are, or who you work for,” Ocellus said.

“Correct on both counts.”

“Griffonia?” she asked.

He slowed his stride, stopped in the middle of the alley. “It’s where I’m from, yes, I’ll tell you that much.”

Someone working for the Empire would have pretended to be from Griffonstone. He was telling the truth, which was good because that would mean that Griffonia wasn’t trying to start a war or anything. Ocellus’s mind raced. Who was this griffon, then? He was a sea’s away from his home, confronting royalty with what was likely violent intent. She stood straighter, trying to make herself look more regal. “And are you the one behind Strata’s disappearance?”

“No.”

“But you know who is.”

“Yes.”

“Why follow me here?”

“You and the dragon are loose ends.”

Ocellus narrowed her gaze. That emotionless tone of voice… She couldn’t sense emotions anymore, but she could still hear it when someone’s heart wasn’t in what they were saying. You and the dragon are loose ends. He’d heard someone else say that, and was only repeating it.

Ocellus raised a hoof. “Hey—”

The fireball was a blur. It whistled as it soared through the air, and Ocellus could only catch an orange streak, a stray beam of light that blinked towards the griffon before it suddenly stopped, roiling and building in strength and growing to almost twice the griffon’s size. Ocellus’s eyes hurt looking at it, but she kept watching, for right in front of the fireball were the scissors the griffon was holding. He kept his composure, snapped the scissors shut. The fire turned to sparks in an instant.

Smolder landed at the entrance of the alley, smoke pluming from her nostrils. “So, you’re dangerous.”

“I am,” said the griffon.

Ocellus looked past him to glare at her. “How dare you?” she seethed. “He could have been someone giving me information!”

“I’m not,” said the griffon.

“I know that now!” Ocellus snapped. “Smolder, I don’t know how you do things in the Dragonlands, but—”

“You know exactly how we do things,” Smolder said. “And he just admitted that I was right.”

Ocellus rolled her eyes. “And what is this?” she asked, gesturing to Smolder’s get-up. She was wearing a hoodie, bright red like her brother’s scales, while around her waist swayed a pleated, hot pink skirt. “I might have been in danger, and you were playing dress-up?”

“Oh, come on, Celly, I just wanted to look nice. And I know you can handle yourself.”

“And if I couldn’t?” Ocellus asked.

Smolder raised a brow. “Are we starting this now?”

“Starting what now?” asked the griffon. He’d backed up against the wall as Ocellus and Smolder approached each other. The talons holding the scissors tensed. Slowly, shakily, they opened.

“Now,” said Smolder, turning his attention to him, “We pummel you senseless, make your acquaintance, and then maybe we become friends in the end.” Smolder lowered herself, crouching into an athletic position.

“I don’t need any more friends,” said the griffon.

“One step at a time, then,” said Smolder.

Ocellus leapt into the air, towards the alley wall, changing into a leopard. She twisted and landed on the wall with all four feet, and made two strides before the griffon was within biting distance. In this form she could crush his skull, but that was never an option. She saw the glint of his magic scissors begin to make their way towards her, so she opted to jump again, this time changing into an eagle so his scissors met empty air. She flapped her wings once to get some air, and descended on him, talons aiming for his eyes, but the griffon was spry, and he rolled under her and ran a few feet towards the alley’s dead end.

Ocellus shifted out of her hawk form, into her original form.

Smolder came to her side not a moment after, arms spread, wings flared. “How lenient do you think Klugetown is on property damage?”

Ocellus opted not to respond. She stared at the griffon on the other side of the alley. His eyes darted from wall, to wall, to sky, to over their shoulders. He wasn’t sure about what was going to happen next. Good.

“Griffon,” said Ocellus. “I’ll assume you’re not a noble from Griffonia, because none of them would ever step foot in a place like this.”

“Correct,” said the griffon. “The Houses are cowards.”

“But you seem to be used to fighting.”

“Correct, again.”

“You seem like you think you can defeat me and Smolder.”

The griffon frowned. “I had to try.”

Ocellus tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

The griffon paused. “No. I must not give you information. I will kill you or I will die.”

“We don’t want either of those things, pal,” Smolder called.

“I don’t care what you want,” said the griffon. He raised his scissors. “Come.”

“The scissors,” Ocellus whispered to Smolder. “I think they negate magic.”

“I gathered that,” said Smolder.

“We need to disarm him.”

“Or…we can overload the scissors. Nothing can just cut magic forever. And look at him. He’s worried about something.”

“Or we can disarm him like the diplomats we are.”

“Or I can overload it and you can disarm him afterwards.”

“Smolder, wait—!” But Smolder was already walking forward, inhaling slowly, deeply, until she could inhale no more.

“Griffon,” Ocellus called, eyes wide. “Last chance.”

The griffon laughed. “Hit me.”

Smolder did. She roared, and out of her mouth came a pillar of fire, blazing and crackling like lightning, not fanning out like a normal fire breath but keeping itself in a tight column that shot through the air, towards the griffon.

The griffon reached into the pocket of his coat.

“Smolder!” Ocellus cried.

But it was too late. The griffon pulled out a metal disc, flicked it towards the oncoming fire.

The damage was bad. Two low-rise buildings—both full of shops—were completely destroyed. Smoke billowed out from the ruins. Gallus could see creatures running from the scene, but in the middle of it all, he could see that there was a fight going on. Or maybe it had just ended.

“Gally,” Silverstream called. “Give me an update!”

“There’s been a fight!” Gallus called back. “I thought that Klugetown was supposed to be getting better?”

“Anyone hurt?”

“I’d be surprised if no one was,” said Gallus.

“No time to ask for permission to moor to a tower then,” Silverstream said, flying over to him. “We need to get down there.”

Gallus nodded. “I’ll run over to you once Terramar drops me off somewhere.”

Silverstream looked away, then fixed him with an unsure stare.

“I’ll be alright,” said Gallus. “You go ahead.”

“I need you, Gallus.”

“Well…” He emphatically spread his wings. His very, very broken wings, just in case she forgot. “I don’t know how that’s going to be possible.”

Silverstream smiled, half-heartedly. She adjusted her long, red and black checkered coat, which Gallus still had no idea why she was wearing. Gallus turned around, ready to watch her fly overhead and sail off to the rescue. But the next thing he felt was her arms wrapping around his barrel.

“What are you—?”

Gallus felt himself lifted off the deck. Silverstream grunted as she flapped her wings hard, holding him close to her chest like he was a housecat.

Gallus’s wings stretched in the breeze, and shame flooded him. What else could he do but hang limply in the air?

They built up speed as they descended, but Gallus still had ample opportunity to observe the surroundings. Whatever had happened, there were now groups of creatures crowded a block or so away, watching the site of the explosion, surrounding a group of creatures. No, three creatures. And two of them were…

No.

Silverstream landed in the middle of the smoldering ruins.

There was simply no way.

She didn’t plan it like this, did she?

She couldn’t have.

He wriggled himself out of Silverstream’s grip once they were low enough. He landed hard, nearly falling flat on his face. But he kept his eyes on the two creatures. He felt a breeze coming from behind him as Silverstream landed. She said something, in a shocked voice, but Gallus couldn’t hear.

Ocellus. He hadn’t seen her recent pictures, but he knew she had gotten taller and sprouted antlers, and there was that same look in her eyes, like she could see right through you and what she saw excited her beyond belief.

In Ocellus’s legs, lying on her back and breathing hard, was a dragon in a red hoodie that had been half burnt, exposing her bare scales on her navel. A gauche, hot pink skirt hugged her waist. She’d gotten a lot sharper looking since the last time he’d seen her, screaming his voice out about how she was a piece of shit.

Smolder’s name echoed in his mind, and with it came a tender rage that clawed at his chest.

She met his eyes and groaned aloud. “You have to be fucking kidding me.”