Gallus always had a thing for hooves. He stared at Sandbar’s as they walked.

Ponies—their soft, stubby marshmallows on the ends of their legs—ponies—so good at holding other creatures, creatures who might not know how to hold anyone else—ponies—kindness in their hugs—they would surely be the death of him—Sandbar—why did it have to be Sandbar?

“I used to smoke clover in this alley,” Sandbar said. He gestured around them. The rows of backyards that Gallus could see were all verdant and fresh. This place was picturesque. Sickeningly serene.

Gallus snorted. He could feel how the sun had warmed the earth beneath his feet. It was relaxing. “I feel like you could say that about any alley in this city.”

“True, true.”

Gallus stared at the short green tail before him, pretending like he wasn’t breathing more deeply, wasn’t trying to savor that toasty seaweed smell coming off of his friend. He used to crawl into Sandbar’s bed between classes, when he was the only one in their old dorm, and he’d fall asleep with his face in the pony’s pillows. He’d think about that bed, whenever he missed Ponyville.

He was supposed to be captain of the guard. He was supposed to be the lion. He was not supposed to be the prey.

Ponies were prey. That’s why they needed griffons like him. Dragons like Smolder. Changelings like Ocellus. But that was the lie, though, wasn’t it?

Ponies had sharper teeth than he thought.

He was at a café a ways away from Sugarcube Corner, kicking his feet as he waited for his best friend to show up.

He hadn’t let anyone know that he was home—for Ponyville was home—unless they absolutely needed to know. Those were his orders. He would follow them until he couldn’t. He still didn’t know if he could.

There was no one else here. The ponies who owned the place, Fine Grind and Microfoam, were clearly on a day off or something, because all that stood in their place at the front was a judgy-looking, lavender-furred teenage mare who absolutely did not want to work today.

Gallus looked at the cups of iced coffee and the half eaten sandwich in front of him and, for a moment, felt worried that he’d be kicked out. He was just sitting here, not talking, staring at his food like a freak, after all, and for all of the good work that the School of Friendship had done over the years, some ponies didn’t seem to enjoy it when odd creatures did odd things in their places of business. Part of it was justified, and part of it was not. He wouldn’t blame the mare if she did.

Or maybe he was just feeling like the entire world was his enemy right now. It might as well have been.

(We’ve gotten word about something odd going on in Bitsmouth-by-the-Sea. Don’t you have a friend from there, Gallus?)

“Weird little town…” Gallus said to himself.

Wings flapping guided his gaze to the sky. A seagull, flapping and staring at him. Her feathers were teal, with salmon pink stripes on the ends of them, and her eyes were wide with curiosity.

Gallus flipped her off.

The seagull landed in the chair and opened her mouth. “AWK!”

He tilted his head. “That’s a crow noise, Ozzie.”

“I know!” said the seagull.

Blue light flashed like lightning—a changeling drone who had filled out a little over the years sat in front of him. She was beaming.

“You look good,” said Ocellus.

“I know,” Gallus said. He leaned across the table to kiss her on the cheek. “You got fat.”

“This is all muscle,” she whispered into his ear. “Even my butt toned up. More than I can say for you.”

“You’re still a bitch,” he said.

“You’re still bitchier,” she said back. She nuzzled him, and they returned to sitting.

He looked at her. Her posture was graceful. There was a confidence to her fragility that wasn’t there before. How much had he missed, living at the academy?

“Don’t do that,” she said.

“What?”

“Get all angsty with your FOMO.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I just…” Gallus trailed off.

He clicked his tongue three times.

She clicked hers back.

They hummed at the same time—one of Fluttershy’s cleaning songs. Ah-ah, ah-ah-ahh…

Advanced changeling infiltrator code involved a series of verbal tics that one agent could make in the presence of another, while both were completely disguised. Small things, like stutters in sentences or fake sneezes, or clicks of the tongue, or songs hummed to oneself, completely innocuous to an oblivious pony, but woven with poetry and nuance to those who knew.

Gallus and Ocellus spent one of their final semesters at school retooling infiltrator code into their own secret language. It had gotten them an A++ in Communication, which was a feat, seeing as it was one of the last classes taught by a certain Princess of Friendship, and she was never an easy marker.

Three clicks of a tongue. A few notes of an old song.

I love you more than meaning. I love you forever. I love you more than words, than language.

“Excited for your trip?” Ocellus asked.

“Yeah.” Gallus took a sip of his coffee.

“That’s gonna give you the shits.”

“Jokes on you. I already—”

“I don’t care to hear the rest of that sentence, griffon.”

“How’s Smolder?”

“Sleepy. Lots of marking to do. Why didn’t you want her to know you were home?” Ponyville was home, after all.

“Did you do the research I asked you to do?”

Ocellus frowned. “Yes. What do you already know about Bitsmouth-by-the-Sea?”

Gallus took a bite of his sandwich. Daisies and chili peppers. Good for the heart. “Well, I know Sandbar grew up there. He seems to miss it. At some point, his parents randomly moved to Ponyville. He mentioned being like, fourteen? But they kept their sweet beachside cabin and they go there every summer.”

“Anything else?” asked Ocellus.

“I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

She smiled. The look in her eyes was feline. She must have found something interesting during her studies. “That town…it’s old. Old. It’s older than the Royal Pony Sisters. Older than Ponyville. Some of the kirin students have a word—they’re all so excitable and happy—they remind me of Silverstream, when she talked us into buttchugging coffee? Do you remember that? Wait, I think that was a girls plus Sandbar trip.”

“You need to stop referring to those trips as ‘girls plus Sandbar’ trips. The girls plus Sandbar is everyone but me.”

“That just sounds like we’re excluding you.”

“Because you are!”

“No, Gallus. Listen here. Listen well. We love you. You’re my best friend.” She reached forward, taking his claw into her hoof. She looked at him sweetly. “We just sometimes need trips where it’s like a girls trip, but Sandbar is there, too.”

“That’s everyone but me.”

“That sounds meaner than it actually is.”

“Because it’s mean!”

“More mean that it actually is?”

“You’re a bitch. What’s your original point?”

Ocellus let go of his hoof and took a sip of her coffee. She made a face. “Eugh. Too much milk.”

Gallus snorted. “Because you were late.”

“Only by ten minutes!”

“That’s ten more minutes than we planned.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Sir Royal Guard, Sir.”

And Gallus winced, hard and clear enough that Ocellus stopped smiling.

“You okay?” she asked. “I’m sorry if I—”

“What were you going to say about Sandbar’s hometown?” Gallus asked.

He rubbed his chest, then tilted his head to the left. Whatever just happened, it’s okay. I’m not mad at you. Let’s keep going.

Ocellus’s shoulders relaxed. Her wings shot out of her elytra to buzz a little bit.

“Clover,” she said.

“The Clever?” asked Gallus.

“The drug. They grow it. Tons of it. Truly incomprehensible amounts of clover.”

“I guess that explains Sandbar.”

“And his family. But the fantastical part lies in how hard clover is to actually grow. It needs a certain humidity during the day, a certain amount of light even at night, it’s almost impossible to grow it without unicorn assistance, but Bitsmouth-by-the-Sea is an earthpony town. They grow it with nothing but their own innate magic and sense of the land.”

“You mentioned that it was an old town.”

“Right. Right. It’s older than the Royal Pony Sisters. There are records, mentions of Bitsmouth-by-the-Sea that are about as old, or older, than the records that we have mentioning Windigos. The kirin students at the school—they have this word for the ocean, and it’s the same word that they use for this extremely specific set of circumstances—it’s when someone who is normally happy is suddenly silent, and alert, and listening. It’s that moment of stillness from someone who usually can’t stop moving. I was surprised to see it used in one of the transcribed merchant accounts from Bitsmouth that proves how old it is.”

“What word?” Gallus asked, too quick, too tense.

And Ocellus looked at him, really looked, and any joy in her face drained, seeping out of her like a bled pig at the butcher’s. She was scared of a lot of things in their first few years of school, but after Smolder asked her out, Gallus didn’t see fear on her face very much, or since.

He was seeing it now.

Ocellus’s mouth trembled, reaching for words she could not think of, trying to think of questions that she didn’t have the knowledge to ask. Gallus watched her, and made no attempt to give her comfort, because there was none.

He watched her eyes, how they were trying to divine for any hint at what he was hiding from her, before running into walls that she couldn’t think through. He watched her settle for what she could feasibly fix, or soothe.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly. She squirmed in her seat. More questions were visibly hounding her, but she swallowed them down, waiting for him to answer.

Gallus opened his mouth, wanting to say ‘yes’, but thought better of it. No, no. He’d never lie to her. She was his best friend.

He tapped the tips of his claws on the table, and he lightly dragged his claws over the wooden surface, before tapping them on the table again.

Tap. Scrape. Tap.

And Ocellus looked sick.

(His mentors were two thestrals. Twins. Gray fur, lavender hair, snaked-eyed irises colored like piss and gold. Their names were Evil Eye and Fuzzy Slipper. They grinned a lot, like they were in on some secret that he could never know. They liked to prank him. They reminded him of Ocellus and Smolder. He hoped they could show him how to be brave.)

Bitsmouth-by-the-Sea was not a crumbling shipwreck ofold ponies and weird bullshit like Gallus expected. It was actually really nice. Bitsmouth-by-the-Sea was summer heat, tourists and cozy houses, a long stretch of cabins situated just on the brink of the beach. Sandbar’s family owned a cabin that was relatively isolated from the others, and was quite a bit bigger.

The beach was serene. It was as alive as the School of Friendship was on the first day of the fall semester. It was as unruly and chaotic as Griffonstone before the Blue Moon Festival. Ponies splashed around in the water and lounged in the sand. The earthy scent of clover drifted lightly in the air.

There was a boardwalk, coming out over the water, and just before the entrance was a strip of shops selling pointless knicknacks and the most delicious smelling food that Gallus had ever smelled. Between the restaurants and the souvenirs were cafés with fuzzy pillows for backrests on fancy wicker chairs, populated with eggheads reading novels about being depressed and starving and living in Stalliongrad.

The trip lasted about four hours by train, and two hours by carriage. Gallus flew Sandbar’s family there. It was the least he could do, inviting him on this trip that none of their other friends had been on. Sandbar and his family were especially close with Gallus, though. He’d spent many Hearth’s Warmings there. He’d slept in Sandbar’s childhood bed. They fed him constantly, and asked about his well being, and sent him letters without Sandbar’s insistence. They loved him. He loved them. He loved Sandbar.

He loved Sandbar. He had for a long time.

Unpacking went quick. The inside of the cabin was perfect. He asked Sandbar’s mother, High Tide, if they paid for cleaners to come by and sort things out. She laughed and told him that their friends and neighbours insisted on keeping their temple clean.

He watched as Sandbar ran around the house, peeking out of every window, finding books he thought he had lost, smiling at the view of the beach from the dining room. His mane had grown a little longer, but not too long. He tried growing it out a bit after they had freshly graduated, but decided it wasn’t quite right. Gallus loved the middleground that he found.

Besides the mane, Sandbar was the same. He had always just been—Sandbar.

“Lunch?” Sandbar asked.

“What?” Gallus asked.

Sandbar smiled, and Gallus felt his wings fluff up. “You wanna get something to eat, Gally?”

Gallus nodded.

(“Consorting with unknown, unapproved entities in exchange for the alteration of reality is against the law. Do you understand, Corporal?")

His talk with Ocellus, and their arrival into town, and Sandbar’s back hooves occupied Gallus’s mind as they stepped out of the alley and into some square.

It was then that he smelled the food.

He saw that there were creatures eating. There were a surprising amount of kirins and hippogriffs, but it was mostly ponies, as usual. There was a house that had clearly been converted into some sort of restaurant, and tables all around them, and there were creatures eating food, and the food…

Meat.

Gallus felt his limbs stiffen.

Meat. Meat was on their plates. Fish, fried, seasoned, crispy, delicious. Squid, freshly grilled. Shellfish, freshly harvested, placed delicately on trays of crushed ice. And there was red meat—a rarity in Equestria. Taboo, even. He couldn’t place it. It was nothing like he’d ever seen, or smelled.

And it smelled so fucking good. He lurched forward, feeling his stomach turn. Had he eaten anything today? Blood rushed to his head. His face bloomed with dry, searing warmth. He didn’t—had he eaten anything? He was starving. He was starving.

“Gally…” Sandbar’s voice was a harpsichord played by a siren.

Gallus tore his gaze away from the food.

Sandbar was smiling.

“Do you like it?”

“What are they eating?”

“Doesn’t it look good?”

“It smells so good.”

“I know, babe,” Sandbar says. He leaned forward, pressing his nose to Gallus’s cheek as the griffon’s legs trembled from the hunger. Sandbar was all soft and velvet, and he nuzzled Gallus, and the comfort of it all almost made him drop to his knees. “It’s delicious,” he said. “Come on. C’mere.”

He led Gallus to an empty table and sat him down. He nuzzled Gallus again, and Gallus’s stomach was so empty. Had he eaten in the last week? Had he ever eaten anything at all?

And Sandbar was gone. Gallus felt cold. He sat there, shivering, trying to think, trying to process that he couldn’t think at all.

(It was the second week at that stupid school and Gallus wanted to tear his stupid soft bed apart, and he wanted to throttle that stupid hick and watch her choke on the apples she was so stupidly obsessed with, and he was crying on his bed because he was pathetic. He was just glad his roommate wasn’t there to see it.

Until he was. Then Gallus couldn’t hide, and when he yelled at Sandbar to get out, Sandbar just smiled at him like the mushy-brained pony he was and said ‘Nah’.

Gallus turned to face the wall, and when he was sure he couldn’t cry anymore, he looked back to see Sandbar, trying to work on some homework.

Sandbar didn’t notice him staring, at first. Gallus wasn’t sure why he was. Maybe it was that look in his eyes. Like he was a seagull, or something. Or a turtle, like the ones tattooed on his butt. Whatever it was, it made Gallus sure that this stallion had absolutely nothing to hide, and he liked that.

Then Sandbar’s mouth quirked up into a smile, and he looked at Gallus and said, “Hey.”

“I wasn’t staring,” Gallus said.

“How do you spell ‘orange’?”

And that was the first time Sandbar ever made him laugh.)

“Here we are,” came the only voice he could imagine hearing right now.

Gallus looked up in time to see Sandbar place two plates of food on the table, and the sight of all that meat was nearly enough to make him cry.

Perfectly cooked fried fish, golden brown with chips on the side. Steam drifted up from the plate, turning to wisps of nothing in the air. Silverstream had taken them to a fish n’ chips place, the last time they all went to Mount Aris. She said that it was kind of the only thing that the hippogriffs didn’t tightly ration after they started living on land again, and were still trying to figure out how to farm and trade. One could find fish n’ chips all over Equestria now. Anywhere there was a city. This town was not a city, not even close. It should’ve been impossible to get something like this here.

Beside the fish, there was another plate, and what lay on it was so laughably simple and beautiful and perfect.

He could see marks from the grill on the surface of the meat. And—

Fuck. A whiff of the aroma hit him, and he was helpless.

He reached forward, grabbing the slab of meat with a claw and he tore into it, eating it like an animal would, like a starving wolf finding an old rabbit carcass on the road. He’d never tasted anything so good. Was this his new favorite food? Was there anything that he had ever eaten before that could possibly compare? A simple, grilled piece of meat on a white paper plate, cooked by—by ponies—it was delicious—he didn’t know what it was—it was the best thing he’d ever had—Sandbar had his own plate.

Gallus swallowed the food in his mouth, because not even the shock of what happened in front of him would stop him from eating, but it came close.

Sandbar was eating meat.

Sandbar was eating meat.

Luna’s moon was dour tonight. Silver light spilled across the guest room and poured over him, and he lay there on his back, thinking about Sandbar’s mouth.

Fangs. Sandbar had fangs. Had he always had fangs? They looked as sharp as Smolder’s! That had to have been something new, right?

(Evil Eye pulled him into a dark corner of the castle and sat him down, and when she was sure he was listening close, she frowned. Gallus had never seen her look so unhappy.

“Look,” she began. “I know that your loyalty to your friends is what gives you strength. It’s what gives most of us strength. You don’t have to do this.”

Gallus’s tail was tense, but hearing this, he relaxed enough for it to uncoil itself from his left thigh. “Ma’am,” he said, “I think I’m the only one who can do this.”

“But Gallus—”

“The Princess wants me to be Captain, doesn’t she? I need to get into her personal guard for that. This will help me.”

“I know you don’t want to.”

“It’s not really about wanting to, Ma’am. It’s about knowing. You told me, and now I know, and now I have to go. It’s not a question, Ma’am. It’s not even a decision.”)

Gallus sat up, his wings spreading, galvanized. He had to find out. He needed to.

He looked out at the rest of the empty room. Part of him had hoped that he and Sandbar would be sharing, like they used to, but Sandbar’s family was much more well-endowed than he expected them to be. High Tide mentioned that their neighbours felt some kind of obligation to them—what word did she use again? Temple? That was a weird thing to say. Too weird. Too specific.

He stepped out of bed and crept to the door of the room, taking care to keep completely silent.

(His mentors were two thestrals. They weren’t dressed in armor, which made him feel like he’d gone overboard, but if they cared about matching formalities, they weren’t showing it. They gave each other a look, and then looked at him.

He suppressed a shiver. It wasn’t their eyes—there were a few thestrals back at school that he could thank for getting him used to the serpentine quality in them—but there were things that these two ponies had seen—things that would give him nightmares—those things, hiding beneath the surface of their irises, gave him pause, made him feel like the room had suddenly gone cold.

“Do you scare easily, Corporal?”

He wasn’t sure which one of them had asked. He sat up straight. “Yes, Ma’am.”

The one on the right smiled. “He’s honest.”

“And clever,” said the one on the left. “Let me ask you my real question: do you let fear control your actions, Corporal?”

“Never, Ma’am.”

“Why is that?”

“My friends would make fun of me, Ma’am.”

The thestral on the left chortled, and the smile on the other one brightened. “We’re going to have fun, us three. I’m Evil Eye. She’s Fuzzy Slipper.”

“I hope so, Ma’am. Nice to meet you both.”

“What do you know about the Arcane Investigation Unit, Gallus?”)

Those weren’t grill marks on the meat. Whatever the meat was. The black searing on it wasn’t merely trellised. There were curves in the marks, swirls that were not possible with a normal grill—whatever on the meat was a design. A sigil.

He wished he had an eidetic memory. Some large part of him had realized something as soon as he stepped foot in this sleepy beach town, but it had kept quiet until now. Maybe it knew that was the only way he’d stay sane, because he was quite sure that he was going to die here, and there were things he desperately wanted to remember.

His life, so beautiful, so lucky. Him and Smolder making their very first snowponies during their first winter at school. Silverstream’s wings around him during a storm. The way that Yona would laugh halfway into a joke that she just knew would make him laugh twice as hard. Ozzie’s lips on his cheek. The warmth of it all. His very best friends. It was unfair that he couldn’t live in every moment he’d had with them, one last time.

But—it was Sandbar. It was always going to be Sandbar, wasn’t it?

The cabin was empty. He could tell as soon as he stepped out of his room. He crept down the stairs, constricting his fear to the tense muscles at the base of his wings.

He entered the living room, and immediately noticed the bonfire in the distance.

Ponies. Hippogriffs. Magic in the air.

He left the cabin, walking down the trail toward the beach. In any other world, he’d have some kind of plan. He had a knack for those. Clever thinking always came easy to griffons. It was how they survived being surrounded by other griffons for their entire lives. But he wasn’t quite a griffon anymore, was he?

Gallus, probably the next Element of Magic, which was funny because he had no magic in him except for the most important kind, followed the sandy trail to the seashore. He was sure now that he wasn’t quite in control of his own legs anymore.

There were patches of flaxen grass on the way to the beach. They looked quite beautiful, like flattened tumbleweeds.

He stumbled down a small hill before his claws and paws touched cool sand. He could see the bonfire better from here.

It was blazing. Celestia’s sun was gentle like a hearth. This fire was as tall as Tirek at full strength—it was a miniature sun, but wild and untamed. Gallus could see High Tide and Beachcomber, Sandbar’s father, standing in front of the fire. A crowd of ponies stood in an organized grid behind them, singing a melody that sounded older than time.

Sandbar was beside him.

“Hey,” said the stallion.

“…Hey,” Gallus said.

“Beautiful night.”

“You’re beautiful.”

Sandbar’s head whipped to the side. He stared, in shock.

Gallus stared at the bonfire. The ritual.

“Consorting with unknown, unapproved entities in exchange for the alteration of reality is against the law. I think I have to put you under arrest.”

“Are you going to?” Sandbar asked.

“No.”

“Why?”

(Gallus was awake in the early morning. More insomnia. Anxiety. He was going to graduate tomorrow, and after that, everything would be different.

He stared across the room, to the bed with pale green sheets and the pony who was sleeping soundly underneath them.

Sandbar wouldn’t change. He’d never.

Gallus smiled. Maybe that was enough.)

It was hard to describe. It was too easy to.

It was starvation,

sated by the sight of hooves

and forgotten plans in favor of getting carried

away by board games or hypotheticals,

it was cider,

sparkling and dry, liquid gold

sunsets and the crystal treehouse

and all the long nights, early mornings,

every day, everyday,

it was every thing

all of it

it was nothing if it wasn’t with Sandbar,

there was no reason if Sandbar wasn’t the reason

there was just himself, alone.

Gallus, despite the crook in his brow,

and the chip on his shoulder,

and the broken heart in him that was beating,

still,

Gallus

did not want to be alone.

“What did I eat?” asked Gallus. “At lunch.”

Sandbar looked away from him, finally, and watched the bonfire. His parents were holding a struggling chicken, now. There was a knife in High Tide’s mouth.

“You ate Her,” he said.

“Who?”

“Tsaiga.”

“That’s the word.”

“What word?”

“A kirin word. I don’t remember what it means. Who is she?”

“She’s the Sea. She’s the hardest thing to leave. She gives and takes. She gives, mostly. Drifts in, and out, and swallows you up if you’re brave.”

“Is she nice?”

“She needs to be remembered. We remember. It’s our duty to. It’s her duty to take care of us.”

“She tastes good.”

“She’s poisonous to those who wouldn’t understand.”

“What happens now?”

“I show you how to understand.”

“Do you hurt ponies?”

And now Sandbar was looking at him again, and Gallus felt brave enough to meet his eyes.

He wished he didn’t.

His friend’s eyes were wet with hurt. “You think we’d do that?”

“I…” Gallus trailed off. “I don’t know, anymore.”

“Do you think we’re going to hurt you?”

“I think, if you wanted to, then you could.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d let you.”

“Why?”

“Because I think I’ve been in love with you for a while.”

“Well I love you too!” Sandbar cried. “Don’t you know that you’re everything to me?”

The ground should have fallen out from underneath him. The world should have changed. The words he had been yearning after for years should have lifted his heart from the slumber it’d been in before Sandbar’s love, but the beach remained the same, and the fear in Gallus kept the fire in his chest from immolation.

His beak, and some lizard fraction of his mind, still had questions. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sandbar’s eyes shone. “I wanted you to know me. All of me. And She is a part of me.”

“Who is she?”

“I told you as much as I could have without just…showing you. She needs more than words. Will you come with me? Meet Her?”

“Sandbar…”

“You’ll be okay.”

“Sandbar!” Gallus whimpered.

Sandbar’s ears perked up. He stared at Gallus, breathing heavy, face wild, feral.

Gallus raised a claw, and tapped it on the sand. He dragged his claws over the surface, towards him. He tapped the sand again.

Tap. Scrape. Tap.

Sandbar inhaled sharply.

Gallus was crying now. His cheeks were wet, but drying quickly, getting sticky and matted.

Sandbar approached, steps awkward, until they were nose to nose, and then he planted a kiss on Gallus’s beak.

Gallus was quivering. He made the gesture again.

Tap. Scrape. Tap.

I’m scared.

“There’s no need to be,” said Sandbar, leaning forward, pressing the side of his snout to Gallus’s cheek. “Don’t be scared of me, Gally.”

A hoof took his shaking claw and squeezed.

“I won’t ever hurt you,” Sandbar said. “I love you. Do you love me?”

He leaned back, to get a good look at the pony’s face.

Sandbar was beautiful. Orange light cradled his face. He looked tender. Sweet. He looked warm.

Gallus felt a hurried tremble in his chest, urging him to answer the stallion before that warmth grew cold, so he leaned forward, beak parted ever so slightly.

They kissed. A griffon beak on pony lips. Awkward. Cozy. There was a fire blazing in the distance. He felt Sandbar’s tongue, soft and pink, and he imagined Sandbar tearing his heart out of his chest and eating it, kissing it as his blood ran down those beautiful hooves, but then Sandbar pulled away, and the only thing connecting them was a string of saliva between their mouths.

Sandbar began to walk towards the fire, and Gallus followed, tugged by an invisible leash and collar that he helped fasten around his neck.

The chicken was dead. Burning in the fire. Gallus could see the carcass, once they were close enough. He wondered if he’d go the same way.

The crowd was watching them now. So were Sandbar’s parents. They were smiling, proud.

Then Sandbar turned, and walked toward the ocean.

She’s beautiful.

The water is cold.

She’s as tall as Princess Celestia, maybe taller. Her frame is more slender. Her fur is black, is blue. Her mane sways—kelp in the current. Her eyes are fathomless. Her mark glows, and he recognizes it. He ate her ass.

She laughs. She has a sense of humor.

His body is freezing and he is running out of air.

She turns him over. She pores over every inch of him. She pries his beak open to take a look inside. She paws at his neck, his belly. She nuzzles his sheathe, caresses his balls, and with a whine, he gets her to stop. She turns him over. She lifts his tail, looks at his rear paws, massages them until his claws come out, and tests them against her hooves.

She bleeds. She smiles.

He’s struggling now. He tries to remember—there was something about his friends that he wanted to remember. Something about each of them.

She kisses him, and she breathes life.

Smolder’s shoulder against his, watching a buckball game. Silverstream’s hugs on his birthday. Yona splashing water on him in the showers. Ocellus humming to herself as she studies, while he closed his eyes, belly facing the ceiling, napping on the fuzzy book shaped carpet that Thorax sent her for her birthday.

Sandbar, Sandbar, Sandbar.

And I gave him to you, and what do you say?

“I’m thankful,” he says.

And I think I like you.

“So what now?”

I think you’re going to live an extraordinary life.

“I’m sensing a ‘but’.”

Remember what you did, when you thought you would die. Remember who you thought of. Remember how brave you were, how you would have let love tear you apart.

“Don’t you have your own responsibilities?”

I don’t let them stop me from doing what I need to.

“What do you need to do?”

I need to be eaten.

I need to be digested.

I need to die, over and over, and over, and that is what you need, too.

Now

drown.

Gallus opened his eyes. There was a fire somewhere near. Sandbar was holding him.

“Am I…” Gallus couldn’t finish the sentence.

“You’re okay,” Sandbar said, nipping at his crest feathers. “You’re alright.”

“What now?”

“Well, the only way that this could’ve ended…”

Gallus tried to ask if that meant that he was going to get eaten or sacrificed, but instead he felt lips on his beak. He melted into the kiss.

Sandbar’s tongue, soft and pink.

Dear Princess Twilight,

You may be pleased to know that our mutual friend has managed to contain the source of the Bitsmouth Report. You’ll surely be receiving a letter from him explaining all the details soon enough, but to summarize:

Corporal Gallus T. Griffon has spent the last two months in Bitsmouth-by-the-Sea on our orders. His mission was to find the truth behind the allegations that a family of earth ponies were in charge of some kind of cult whose purpose was to venerate an unknown entity in exchange for various favors. The family in question were ponies familiar to you and him both: High Tide, Beachcomber, and Sandbar, a candidate for the bearer of the Element of Kindness.

Due to the conflict of interest involved, I made it known to both you and to my superior, Evil Eye, that sending Gallus would be a bad idea. It appears that this was not the case.

During his time in Bitsmouth, Gallus reports that there were indeed illegal arcane rituals performed with the intent of consorting with an unknown entity, but that Sandbar and his parents were not involved. Coral Currents, the young daughter of the family, was found to be guilty of participating in the alleged rituals, motivated by a desire to fit in with the actual cult: a group of older fillies in the neighbourhood. Gallus suppressed the entity through disrupting the ritual elements and invoking the Element of Magic, and informed the parents of those involved of the exact nature of the crimes, and the potential punishments that the Crown could inflict if it so desired. Naturally, due to the age of the perpetrators, nopony was arrested and nopony will be taken to trial, so long as the aforementioned rituals are not repeated.

Additionally, it seems that the source of the Bitsmouth Report, an elder stallion by the name of Blueberry Mash, has left the country, and was not able to assist Gallus in his investigations, nor was he able to verify his claims.

Troubling, is the word that I would pin on this, Princess. My sister insists that Gallus’s report is satisfactory, and I would agree, but I have to say that it feels a little too satisfactory. When was the last time we travelled out to some small village and found that the monster wasn’t real?

Strange. Strange might be a better word. Evil Eye and Gallus are acting strange. It would not be the first time Evil Eye has overlooked something glaringly wrong in exchange for peace of mind. It would not be the first time that Gallus has lied to us.

But we have discussed this before, Princess, and I know what you’re going to say. There’s no need to be afraid of the dark.

I fear you may be right.

Yours,

Assistant Director Fuzzy Slipper

Author's Note

For my dear friend Parker. Thank you for the commission