Unusual Circumstances Breed Unusual Solutions
Smolder slowly returned to consciousness. The young dragoness began to yawn and stretch, only to find both movements impeded by something warm and fluffy. With her eyes not yet quite willing to offer their services, Smolder instead chose to pat around the fluffy area with her hands and, if it came to that, legs and tail. Fluff, fluff, feathers... In her half-awake state, she decided to make a poor decision, and nuzzle into the strange fluff and lick it.
Tastes like griffon.
With her mind slowly working out an updated hypothesis, Smolder finally convinced her eyes to offer their expertise in identifying things. She was met with a sea of blue, and successfully determined that she was, for whatever reason, snuggled up to Gallus. The dragon let out a soft sigh of relief. Even if he were to wake up right now, Gallus was the only of her friends at the School of Friendship who wouldn't breathe a word of this to anycreature else.
In fact, her sleepy mind argued, Gallus was very warm, and soft, and an excellent pillow. Smolder could, if she wanted, simply remain in bed with him and pretend to wake up when he did. Nobody would ever know. With her claws full of his fluffy fur and feathers, it would be as simple as closing her eyes and holding him close, like a new dress in the style of Prench nobility, circa 800 CE (Celestial Era).
However, she also reasoned that just because her bed contained only them, that didn't mean Ocellus wouldn't wake up before the snoozing catbird. Rooster though he may be, Gallus was anything but an early riser. So, with great reluctance, Smolder threw the sheets off of her and rolled out of bed. As she landed and looked back at the griffon, who had unconsciously fluffed out his feathers from the sudden lack of sheets, lessons from Professor Fluttershy ran through her head, refusing to leave until she flipped the sheets back down over him. Unlike Professor Fluttershy probably would, though, Smolder had no intention of tucking him in. That, she had a specific technique for, and used for interrogation, to trap someone in their sheets until she learned exactly how many boxes of tea they saw fall out of her bag, and why that number was actually zero, if they knew what was good for them. So the blue birb stayed untucked, and Smolder turned her gaze to the rest of her room.
To the rest of... Gallus's room, she corrected. And Sandbar's too, but the pony was mercifully missing. The dragoness stretched again, wondering just what had happened last night that she got in the wrong bed. Probably truth or dare. That was usually what caused these things. She thought about sneaking peeks through the boys' stuff, both for hoard and blackmail reasons, and maybe friendship reasons if somecreature caught her, but then realized she didn't give two scales about what deep dark secrets Gallus and Sandbar might have. The thought of getting dressed and leaving before he noticed entered her mind, but then the rest of her mind reminded her that she spent almost all of her time naked. Another, sharper thought poked in, pressing about that "almost," but a quick scan of the room showed absolutely zero frilly, fancy dresses.
With that, there was but one thing left to do. The young dragon turned the handle of the door and pulled. If anycreature asked, she wasn't sleeping with Gallus, she was trying to prank Sandbar, but found him MIA.
Fortunately for Smolder, there was nocreature around to ask what she was doing in Gallus's room. Unfortunately for Smolder, there was a solid wall of fog. She rolled her eyes and started to call up some fire, then woke up just a bit more and remembered that fire plus buildings equals very bad. So, the slow method. The dragon stepped back, breathed a bit of fire onto her claws, and began to wave her claws easily through the thick, ground-level cloud, grumbling to herself. She would never regret the ability to fly, nor would she ever long for the days before her first molt, when she was small enough that adolescent dragons were liable to "accidentally" punt her into a lava pool, but her wings certainly came with downsides.
Just then, a wicked idea came to her. "Well, they say misery loves company," she muttered, as she walked back to the sleeping griffon. Smolder leaned over Gallus's head, cupped her claw to her muzzle, and whispered, "Sandbar's straight."
She leapt back and took flight as the blue griffon jolted awake. "Ponyfeathers!" he exclaimed, landing on all fours on his bed with his wings flared in a defensive stance. As his mind and body caught up to each other, he registered the orange dragoness flapping in place in the middle of his room. He refolded his wings and glared accusingly at Smolder. "What are you doing in my room?" he demanded.
"Whispering sweet little lies into my favorite rooster's ear," she deadpanned, "but actually, I neither know nor really care. We're fogged in here."
Gallus growled at her response, but surprise and incredulity swiftly overtook anger, and he looked to where she was pointing out the door. "We're... how are we fogged in? We're indoors!" he protested, trotting forward to press his own claws through the wall of cloud. He stuck his head in, trying to peer up and down the hallway, then pulled it back out, leaving an avian dent in the fog. "We should tell Professor Rain- wait, hold on," he said, "Professor Rainbow Dash is on the weather team, isn't she? When she's not here or on the Wonderbolts. What gives?"
Smolder shrugged. "I'd say Discord, but the fog doesn't taste like muffins or sulfur. It's just normal fog."
"Normal fog that's in the building." Gallus corrected, flatly.
Another shrug. "Maybe it's a pony thing. Now c'mon, help me dig us out. I'm gonna make for the main hall, or maybe Headmare Starlight's office. You tunnel to the other rooms; 'Cell and Silverstream should be able to help."
Just before Smolder could blow more flame on her claws, Gallus cut in. "Hold up. You woke me up, from quite possibly one of the best dreams a griff of my tastes could have at my age, by lying about Sandbar's sexuality, after YOU found yourself in MY room, all because you wanted me to dig through some clouds?"
Smolder fluttered her eyes at him, though the wicked smirk just below gave away her true intentions. "But Gallus, friendship is about helping others. Isn't it so nice of you to help me, your friend, dig our way out of here?"
Gallus stepped back up to the fog and began clawing through. "You're lucky you're cute."
"I've kicked ponies' flanks for less than that," Smolder shot back as she lit up her claws again, using the heat to cut wider swathes of fog.
The griffon grinned, cocky. "By the scales in my sheets, maybe my flanks are destined for other thi- CAW!" Gallus's taunt was cut short when a burning-hot claw made itself known to his furry, blue hindquarters. He looked back to see the dragoness smirking at him while she idly waved her claws through the fog.
"There's another thing, catbird."
Gallus sat back on his haunches and brought his forelegs up in a T shape. "Alright, time out here. Before we get too far along in our respective paths, is this the sort of thing that's building enough sexual tension to resolve in a passionate makeout or more, or should we put it on the backburner until we're alone and away from the others again?" He points down each direction. "Because I'm not about to shout playful mockery down an entire hall."
Smolder regarded her friend in front of her, and wondered to herself whether he knew he had started fluffing himself up again. "It's way too early in the morning for that stuff," she eventually replied. "See you further along. Or in the main hall if you're a slowpoke."
"Love to hear it," Gallus called back as he started to carve an entrance around the first door. Smolder reapplied her fire and watched the fog melt before her claws, wishing that she could just skip the middlemare and blaze a trail right through.
"Oh, hey Yona," she heard the griffon say, muffled through fog and a door, "I have a favor to ask..."
"CHAAAAARGE!!" Gallus yelled from further back. Smolder hung on tight to Yona's back as the yak galloped through the fog, her flightless body passing through it like Smolder could pass through lava. Sticking out of her thick, insulating coat were a number of burning wooden remains of Yona's first bed. One of the ones that wasn't yak-proof. With Gallus calling directions and Smolder making sure the wood was on fire and Yona was not, the yak punched through the low-lying cloud easier than Professor Rarity could poke a needle through fabric. Smolder braced herself as Gallus called "Left!" and then they could see their goal: having cleared a path through the dormitories and the main hall, they were finally in sight of Headmare Starlight's office.
Smolder crawled forward on her friend's back and snuffed out each torch, relying on the residual heat to not knock her off until they were all out. "Alright, Yona, you're good!" the dragon called just before a thicker bit of fog swept her off of the yak and slowed her fall as she made a dragon-shaped hole in the condensation. Yona managed to stop before crashing into the door, and Smolder got up, brushed herself off, and helped Gallus dig the rest of the way. As they approached the door, they heard muffled voices. Headmare Starlight sounded frantic and defensive, and Professor Rainbow Dash sounded beyond miffed.
Yona knocked, and to the testament of the school's construction, the door remained on its hinges. The two mares inside went quiet, until Starlight called out, "come in!"
The three of them walked in. Yona greeted both the ponies, and they waved back, though Rainbow soon resumed glaring at Starlight. In almost unison, Gallus and Smolder asked, "so what's up with the fog?"
Starlight smiled a bit too wide. "Would you believe it's a friendship exercise?"
"Yona sooner believe Sandbar can fly."
Rainbow Dash pointed a hoof at the headmare. "Starlight, here," she said, emphasizing her friend's name, "thought she'd lighten my load for teaching you kids about stratus clouds and sticking together. So she made a spell that created a bunch of stratus clouds." Her hoof fell. "At ground level." She blinked and tilted her head at the trio. "Say, it took me nearly two hours to get here, and I used to be captain of the weather team. How did you get here so early?"
The three friends smiled at each other.
"Yak smash!"
"Dragonfire..."
"And good old griffon cleverness."
"So yeah," Smolder said through her mouthful of emeralds, "that's why Professor Dash didn't give the three of us homework today."
Sandbar groaned. "I'm happy for you two, but that's so lucky. If I'd woken up at the door instead of Yona..."
"Hey, the early dragon gets the homework exemption."
"Don't worry, Sandbar," Ocellus added, "you can study with Silverstream and I."
"Yona help, too," Yona added, "yaks good at smashing clouds, not at knowing different kinds of clouds."
Silverstream smiled brightly at the dragon and griffon. "Ooh, do you think you'll come too?"
Gallus shook his head. "Maybe another time, but we'll be taking our reprieve and chilling like the winners we are."
As the conversation drifted to other things, Gallus caught Smolder's eye. There was a brief, silent conversation, before the griffon mouthed, "your room or mine?"
Smolder smiled.
Author's Note
hey look it's not vore for once
My favorite part about writing the Student Six is that my characterizations of them come 100% from fanworks. I keep forgetting to watch the episodes around them.
