Gallus walks in on Yona showering. She's crying and he smells bad.

Young Nictis had one dream: to serve his hive by becoming an Infiltrator, the most vital and vaunted role a changeling could aspire to. To hide in plain sight among the other species, blending in, while gathering the vital emotional energies that fueled his people. Few were deemed worthy of the dangerous job. He was one of the few nymphs selected for training, in the hopes that one of them would develop the skills needed to be entrusted with such a treacherous task.

But when a training expedition ends in tragedy, Nictis finds himself thrust into the role not to serve his hive and people, but to preserve his own life. Separated from the hive, alone, he must put what little training he has to the test. He must blend in with the hive's greatest source of food, and its most dangerous enemy: the ponies of Equestria.

(This story takes place in the same continuity as Fragments, but stands on its own. Reading that story isn't necessary for this one.)

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Book cover art by viwrastupr

What’s the perfect gift to get the girl of your dreams? Is it a necklace? A mixtape of her favorite songs? A used pull-out couch that gobbles you up the moment you try and pull it out?

No? It isn’t the couch? Well, too bad, because that’s what Gallus got for Silverstream this Hearth’s Warming.

Nice one, Gallus.

<sub>Merry jinglemas, Darkblaze15!

Cover Art by Shydale. I did the hat though.</sub>

It is winter in Equestria, but for Second Lieutenant Gallus, he's instead of going to spend the holidays in Equestria or even Griffonstone. He and his loving hippogriff Silverstream are off to her home in Mount Aris to enjoy the Three Days of Freedom Celebration with her extended family.

Hippogriffs give each other gifts on the third day, and for their first holiday as a couple, Gallus wants to get the perfect gift for Silverstream. There is just one problem, that's easier said than done.

One is that Silverstream has a tendency to love everything in sight, what would be the perfect gift for some creature like that? Second, how can a simple griffon compete against Silverstream's Hippogriff Royal Family?

Written for Jack of a Few Trades for Jinglemas 2021.

Cover art by Little Tigress.

“We need like, magically entwined rings. Six of them. Forged together. Enchanted together. Together forever. Like we’re going to be. And I don’t think that there’s anything like that that we know about. So no marriage for now.”

Smolder scratched the back of her neck. “Actually...maybe...I know a spot?”

“You’re kidding,” Gallus said.

“I was holding off on talking about him until it was time to propose,” said Smolder. “He’s an old fart who lives in a cave on the borders of the Dragonlands. His place is kinda camouflaged to non-dragons so the professors don’t really know about it and neither do your species’ governments.”

“Well, I know what we’re doing today,” Ocellus said. "Committing crime for the sake of my five fiancees. You know, this is one of the few things that I think both Chrysalis and Thorax would be proud of me for."

Commissioned by Ice

Silverstream’s breath kinda smells like fish right now and that’s the only flaw I can pin on her. Her beak and claws are polished. Her mane has that wild...windswept...thing going on.

“What’s up?” she asks.

“You’re literally perfect,” I tell her. I put a little growl into my voice to make it clear that I’m seething in rage.

Everygriff in Griffonstone knows that ponies are the most gullible little creatures under the sun, and the citizens of Ponyville might just be the dumbest of them all. On Gallus's first ever visit to the quaint little town, two weeks before school starts, he's eager to see just how much money he can make off of them.

But the ponies of Ponyville may not be as defenseless as they seem.

_{Cover Art by Kam}

Sandbar and Ocellus contemplate the nature of the changelings' main form of sustenance inside of a ring of magical fire. It's a nice bonding experience.

Smolder’s going to the Dragon Lands for the Feast of Fire.

I really don’t want her to.

Ocellus wakes Gallus up, claiming to have solved the secret to painful Hearth's Warming Eve get-togethers through a reinvented version of old changeling tradition. He just needs to follow her back to the hive, and drink a goblet of bug magic mixed with his own blood, and relive his worst memory of the holidays.

This was written for GapJaxie as a part of Jinglemas 2020! For more information about Jinglemas, checkout our group!