The Writing of The Bonds of Love (Chapter Fourteen: Family, Part One)

Behold! The best chapters in the entire story! I’m not exaggerating; the Mount Aris arc is fantastic! And you have Great White Prime to thank for its existence.

As glorious as the last few chapters have been, Ch.14-15(Family) have one thing over all of them: They’re fun. I’ve discussed before how much the constant emotional drama and conflict wore on me while writing T.B.O.L., and while I certainly enjoyed writing Ch.12-13(Serenity), that too was overflowing with drama. But now? All of that—aside from Ocean Flow—has been addressed and tucked away neat and clean, so now it’s time for some fluff!

Gallus and Silverstream are together and well and truly happy. And it was time to finally write that out and let them stayhappy. And believe me, I relishedthat. I relished it so much, in fact, I ended up writing over 50k words for this particular arc alone, resulting in the second half being over 30k words long! Certainly did get that bang I wanted the story to ended with, huh?

For now, let’s discuss the first half of this amazing duology!

---

~ Onward, to Mount Aris! ~

Not wanting to waste time getting to the good stuff, I open with Gallus-Stream already on the train to Mount Aris, with All Aboard getting a send-off cameo to declare as such. Given the overall word count, we really didn’t have the time for my usual glacial pacing.

Speaking of pacing, Silverstream’s doing plenty of that herself, like Gallus in Ch.12(Serenity, Part One), and Gallus plays into the obvious narrative symmetry by saying to her almost exactly what Sandbar and Ocellus said to him.

Narrative symmetry or no, we’ve got a massive chapter to get into, so I have Silverstream immediately admit to her nerves—A clear improvement from how she was before, given she’s not even tryingto hide her worries this time.

And she’s not the only one brimming with character development! For Gallus takes a leaf out of his canon self’s book and cockily declares he’d wow Queen Novo with his irresistible, roguish charm. And while that has yet to be seen, Silver’s at least somewhat calmed by his proclamation, despite T.B.O.L. Gallus being—in her words—more cute than roguish.

On the note of Novo, however…?

I’ll get this out of the way now: Great White Prime suggested a certain scene involving Queen Novo which we’ll discuss later. But because of this, I felt obligated to include her in these chapters much more than I ultimately did. However, I was already working with a brand new locale, culture, and cast of characters on top of the leftover Ocean Flow subplot and Gallus-Stream’s relationship developments. I did nothave the time to figure out how to squeeze yet one more prominent character into this arc, especially when Novo—a character I’ve never cared for to begin with—wasn’t all that important for it.

Thus, I had to write her out of the majority of the arc; in fact, the only acknowledgment she would get was a throwaway line next chapter about her doing paperwork for the Equestria Games. But when I wrote this scene, I spotted an easy opportunity to establish she wouldn’t be around from the get-go, hence the “Novo was too busy with work to visit this week” segment.

With that matter addressed, let’s get into those aforementioned Gallus-Stream relationship developments. More specifically: Their increased physical intimacy.

We already see Gallus does indeed now use Silver’s love of his headcrest-combing against her, but it’s somuch more than that. Silver nestling into his side, Gallus giving her a kiss(And knowing her well enough to suggest drawing to help her de-stress), and of course, their make-out sessions.

I know it might have been unnecessary, giving such prominence to their constant kissing and whatnot, even for a Romance story…? But I couldn’t help myself. After all the pain I put them through, I adored letting them simply openly love each other with nothing stopping them or getting in their way, sans a certain Princess of Pouncing. But even more importantly than that, this was a brand new element to their relationship I could write about.

They had never really shied away from being lovey-dovey before—Kissing, holding talons, snuggling, and all that jazz. But they had their first major kiss last chapter which afforded me a chance to cut loose and show even more of the physical side of their relationship. Needless to say, I’m glad for that. It was fun writing those particular scenes, even if I’m not sure I wrote their make-out scenes as powerfully as I could have.

Of course, there’s yet another reason I was glad to show off their newly emphasized physical intimacy, and that was to show the negative consequences of it. Why? Because I couldn't help myself and needed to continue writing some kind of conflict into the story despite being dead-set on not writing any major conflicts between them, aside from Ocean Flow.

This particular subject, however, will be discussed later. For now, I had no intention of doing anything more than showing Gallus and Silver being happy and lovestruck, and telling a fun, much more lighthearted story than what had come prior.

Cue Silver falling asleep on Gallus’ lap, which…? I still wonder how that’s possible, considering how they normally sit in canon, what with being quadrupedal and all. But screw the logistics, it’s a cute scene! Especially with Silverstream snuggling back into his feathers.

Definitely don’t like the “And if we don’t get off soon, you’ll get an extra five hours by way of the return trip.” line though. Something about it has always stuck out as clunky and awkward. But whatever. Minor thing—Let’s move onto a major thing: Silverstream’s apparent habit of falling asleep on Gallus mid-kiss.

Once I decided to write the Mount Aris arc, I swore to not read any stories featuring Gallus traveling to Mount Aris alongside Silverstream. I probably overthought things when I made this decision, but at the time I was worried other people’s interpretations of this type of story would muddle my own.

I, however, am a human being prone to both mistakes and not upholding my own personal resolutions. Which is to say: I totally caved on this issue and read a story about Gallus meeting Silver’s family.

Now, what with all my mentions of Jack of A Few Trades, you might think their story was the one I read, but actually no. Their story was the reason I even made this decision.

No, the story I read was: Somewhere in The Between by Closer-To-The-Sun. And the reason why I broke my vow and read it? I wanted to see how someone else interpreted Ocean Flow and Sky Beak because I was uncertain if how I portrayed the pair was anything close to how other writers had.

But why do I bring this up now? Because there were elements in that story, that—if I’m to be brutally honest—I felt weren’t fully utilized despite being rather interesting. And some of those elements sneaked their way into T.B.O.L. because I guess I’m that overconfident in myself to think I could handle them better than Closer-To-The-Sun did. More specifically, there were only two of these elements; I didn’t want to do any more than that and risk straight-up plagiarizing someone else’s work—Heaven forbid I ever knowingly commit that sin!

Before we discuss what these elements were, beware, these are spoilers for their story, not just mine. So go read that story first, if you’d be so kind; it deserves some love.

Anyway, one of these elements was Gallus and Silverstream sleeping together, which was something they did in that story but was more a joke than a proper plot point. Still funny though, so I took that “Gallus and Silver have had overnight cuddles” idea and did my own thing with it.

Case in point, they didn’t mean to do it. Silverstream—Ironically, the more energetic and kiss-happy of the two—accidentally passed out during a kiss. Made for some fun teasing between the two, and goes to show they’re still working on getting their make-out sessions down pat. After all, falling asleep on your partner mid-embrace? Rookie mistake, Silver, rookie mistake. Now Gallus has teasing ammunition, and he wastes no time using it, only for her to playfully banter back.

Not for long though, as she’s quick to fly off to take in the smell of the ocean. Why? Because I wanted to give Silverstream a moment to savor her return to her homeland. But she just as quickly returns to inform Gallus of which parts of the locale are Mount Aris, Hippogriffia, and Seaquestria specifically. It also was a stupidly clunky line when I wrote it initially, but I eventually ironed that out.

Gallus, meanwhile, gives our first oh so subtle clue of his later thalassophobia before playing on Silver’s next line, bestowing upon her another charming line of his own. Of course she sees right through the obvious kiss fishing he’s doing, but this is Silverstream and she responds by immediately giving him all she’s got. As she says, she wanted another kiss too.

Some more banter later, the plot appears at the end of the boardwalk in the form of General Seaspray, awaiting their arrival so he can lead them into Sky Beak’s… “Arrangement.”

Silver’s not too pleased by this; in fact, she was going to be even angrier, but I decided to tone that down. I also decided to change Seaspray’s reaction too; he was initially far, far more terrified of Silverstream’s anger here than he—or anygriff else for that matter—ultimately was. Didn’t make sense a literal General would be that terrified of Silver of all creatures; plus, it let me show the other hippogriff’s general attitude toward Sky Beak’s latest intimidation attempt: Deep disappointment and thorough indignation. I think that helped keep the situation from feeling too serious, if the other hippogriffs’ reactions weren’t already comedic enough.

And although Gallus is befuddled by the encounter, one quick march up the staircase to Mount Aris that Silver evidently never, ever came across if the show is to be believed, affords him clarification via the entire Hippogriff Army presenting themselves as the aforementioned intimidation attempt.

So? The whole concept of a child’s parent “needing” to intimidate their significant other…? Uh, pretty outdated IRL, let’s be real. But it makes for some fun comedy when Silverstream makes it clear she’s not a fan of her dad’s stunt.

Canon Silverstream probably would NEVER do this, but this is T.B.O.L. Silverstream who’s had plenty of time and experience to understand she can feel angry and is allowed to express it, much to Sky Beak’s agony.

But continuing the trend we established with Seaspray not being remotely amused with Sky’s shenanigans either, the other hippogriffs make it clear they aren’t taking this thing seriously whatsoever, and that made it a great time to actually debut some brand new hippogriff characters! They obviously couldn’t be as plot important as the Drama Club was by sheer virtue of this being the end of the story, but that didn’t mean I had to deprive them of life!

Hasbro unfortunately didn’t seem to feel the same way; the Character Wiki for hippogriffs/seaponies is sorely lacking for actual, named canonical characters and not toy figurines. I’m not kidding when I say that the three named hippogriff/seapony characters we get—Stratus Skyranger, Haven Bay, and Salina Blue—were literally the only background hippogriff/seapony names I could find.

Compare that to the background pony characters who were so numerous and well-loved, they could dedicate an entire 100^th episode special to them, and yeah…

However difficult it may have been to imply personalities without providing names—Because I was still fervently against giving original names to these characters, like I was back when writing the Drama Club—I had an absolute blast writing them all! Be it the three who did have names, or even the duo who helped the guy repaint his sister’s home!

It bears repeating: After all the drama of T.B.O.L., I used these final chapters to go nuts and have fun with what I was writing, and that clearly bled into the story. I found such a newfound appreciation for the hippogriffs and seaponies through writing them here, through writing their combined civilization to be one of sheer compassion!

Look no further than Stratus Skyranger for an example. First thing he does when Gallus arrives is to greet him with a smile and a wave, and while that’s also to clue Gallus in on the comedy skit currently transpiring, it’s also to show off how magnificently jubilant the hippogriffs(And by extension, the seaponies) all are.

But that begs the question: What inspired me to write them all this way? The answer is a fellow hippogriff, and one we’ve mentioned already: Silverquill! Calling back to his video on griffons and hippogriffs once more, he made a point when discussing the latter that the show tended to connect their entire species with themes of familial connection(I.E. Novo being swayed by her daughter to lend Twilight the Pearl, and Terramar being torn between land and sea, in part due to his parents’ dwellings). And well? This chapter is nothing if not about its namesake!

This, along with Silverquill’s later acknowledgment of the hippogriffs being colored more in line with ponies’ coloration, led me to writing the hippogriffs and seaponies in line with the degree of unending enthusiasm and community we see throughout these chapters. After all that time trapped beneath the waves, they are absolutely basking in their newfound freedom, living and celebrating life as greatly as they can, and treating everyone who visits their home with the same kindness and care they treat each other with.

Including Gallus.

The assembled soldiers waste no time clarifying they aren’t going to actually do anything; they’re just here for theatrical effect, yet they can’t help but become giddy when Gallus praises their armor and asks something I’ve always wanted to know myself: If their armor changes when they shape-shift or not. The neutral answer is both, and though Sky Beak tries fruitlessly to maintain the intimidating charade, none of his soldiers are having it, calling him out on his own idiocy, and the icing on the cake is Gallus revealing the attempt is nothing compared to what he used to endure in Griffonstone.

And what can anyone say to that particular proclamation—That being stared down by several well-trained soldiers is less terrifying than an average Tuesday in Griffonstone—except:

“Well, that’s dark!”

Along with everygriff fretting over the horrid implications of what manner of torment Gallus had to endure over there and Haven Bay acknowledging how terrifying the average Thursday must have been like as well—something even Sky Beak finds horrifying.

And to answer Dreadlight’s question as to why Thursdays are so bad? Though I initially wrote it purely for the comically exaggerated reaction of the hippogriffs, I like to think that, in-universe, the Storm King first invaded on a Thursday.

Sky Beak isn’t the only one who found Haven’s words horrifying though, and Stratus is the first to rush forward and offer the poor, confused bluebirb some therapy. Thankfully, he already has it in the forms of Starlight and Trixie back home, but the crowd still finds it gruesome he does indeed need therapy to begin with.

Once again showing off his character development, Gallus confirms Griffonstone is a far, far better place than it once was. And because of realism and comedy, some even confirm they intended to visit the place soon and try out their Griffonscones—Gruff’s recipe truly is divine, reaching the ears of even the denizens of the far-off Mount Aris; he must be proud.

Twilight must be proud too, knowing the Friendship School brochures she sent out—Because checklist and paperwork loving Twilight totally did something like that in canon; you can’t convince me otherwise—reached the talons and fins of Novo’s subjects, ten of them landing firmly in Haven Bay’s talons because she couldn’t get enough of the puzzles Twilight absolutely put on the back of ‘em.

I loathehow I didn’t have at least one more canon background hippogriff/seapony name here, because I’d have totally given it to the character who needed those brochures! But I digress. Also, I first wrote Haven’s offer to treat them for dinner way shorter than I ultimately did, but it was also way clunkier, so I opted for the longer, better version of it.

Speaking of the brochures, I couldn’t help but have both Seaspray and Sky Beak get in on those puzzles, with the latter managing to solve the infamous forty-two down—Twilight’s number in the Running of the Leaves and the answer to life, the universe, and everything. That answer being—What else? What else could I possibly have said here other than friendship?

Not one to let Sky Beak be smug about answering a question he himself couldn’t get, Seaspray swerves our focus back onto the plot by getting the crowd to belt out a great big “We told you so!” to Sky Beak—something they practiced beforehand because of course they did. Silverstream then steps forward again and breaks up the group properly, bringing this particular comedy scene to an end.

Speaking of Silverstream, I don’t have a thing to say about her hollering at her dad. How I wrote that entire sequence remained exactly how I originally wanted.

Silver’s absolutely peeved her dad did this, especially after how paranoid she was over the matter of her family meeting Gallus, and Gallus is content to let her express her frustrations, comforting and calming her once she gets it all out.

And of course, one such way she expresses how messed up it was Sky did this whole stunt is her proclamation of possibly leaving. After all, she encouraged Gallus to leave should Gruff and the others screw with him, so of course she’d follow her own advice.

In fact, I did consider having her make good on her threat to turn right around and return to Ponyville, or at least try to, if only to be stopped by Gallus. But I figured that’d be too much since the nature of this scene was predominantly comedy, so I didn’t go through with that.

Nevertheless, even after all is said and done, Silverstream still needs to go give her father a good, much more private verbal lashing for his crimes, leaving Gallus to stand there and simply soak in the beauty of Hippogriffia.

I’m actually quite satisfied with how I described the quaint forest haven of Hippogriffia. Seaquestria is a different story, but its land counterpart I described rather well. And I’m especially glad for that; I’ve always loved how Hippogriffia looked in the show.

But Gallus doesn’t have long to admire the scenery before his future brother-in-law finally enters the chapter.

Right from the get-go, I knew I would want to write Terramar as the most normal—relatively speaking—of the family, and it was surprisingly easy to write him as such. Just contrast his mellow attitude against the others’ antics.

That’s for later though; now is merely his introduction. And rather than bog it down with Gallus nonsensically going, “And who are you?” or “Ahh, you must be Terramar!” I instead opt for the realistic(And easier) approach of showing he and Terry had already met prior. Made even more sense, given Silverstream obviously would have told each of them all about the other, and do you really think Terramar never once visited his little sister at the school?

And to both further this particular idea and show off Gallus’ development, I let Terramar take one look at him and immediately compliment how much better he looks compared to how he did back at the play in Ch.4(Optimism), when he was still in the throes of his trauma.

Gallus’ physical appearance being negatively impacted by his issues was an idea I had far too late into the story to take advantage of, but I’m glad I at least sneaked this line in. It’s not much of an implication for how bedraggled our favorite bluebird appeared , but it’s something.

But of course, Gallus is finally at the end of his journey toward serenity, so he merely responds to Terramar with the line, “Thanks, I feel great.” Naturally, Terramar follows it up by teasing Gallus over his love of beats, revealing that little “Silver tells me everything” factoid, both setting up that joke next chapter and further establishing his and Silver’s sibling dynamic.

Continuing the latter point, Terramar immediately quizzes Gallus on his knowledge of Silverstream because he’s a good big li’l bro. I considered having Terry not do it, making him the only member of Silver’s family to not try messing with Gallus somehow, but I realized I was overthinking that issue. Terry wasn’t in the wrong for wanting to double-check Gallus knew Silverstream’s interests, especially when it was clearly partly in jest.

Gallus naturally passes the test, only to panic at the implication Terramar knows about a certain crazy kiss request of Silver’s which we’ll discuss later. Unfortunately, Terry didn’t know about said kiss request, and thanks to the timely return of Silverstream and Sky Beak, Gallus gets to narrowly dodge that subject.

Since Sky’s stunt was obviously played for comedy, I didn’t even bother pretending Silver or Gallus were genuinely cross with him. Thus, after a brief exchange between the siblings, Silverstream pushes her dad forward, and the humbled hippogriff wastes no time apologizing for his antics.

Only for Gallus’ canon personality to pop in for a moment to jokingly whine he is still upset over the incident, much to Silver’s annoyance. After all, she can’t hug her dad until the apology is accepted, otherwise it wouldn’t feel right.

Thankfully, Sky may have panicked about Gallus not accepting the apology—To show Sky truly was apologizing and wasn’t the insufferable “You no date my pwincess!” father archetype I think we’ve all grown to hate—but all is made well by Gallus clarifying his own jestful intent, forgiving Sky immediately. … Well, so long as he and Sky can bake those apology cakes together—Because what better way to do some Mount Aris world-building than by having apology cakes be a thing here? Would have totally had Silverstream make those for Smolder at some point if I had thought about this idea before now, but alas.

And to once more completely fly in the face of common drama tropes, Sky Beak instantly takes a shine to Gallus. Helped along by Gallus taking the generic “You’ve stolen my heart” line and subverting with a charming play on it about having earned Silver’s heart instead.

Some familial characterization with Silver and Terramar both knowing what Gallus’ line triggered and counting down till Sky takes the poor kid into his talons, squeezes the life out of him, much to Gallus’ confused terror, and celebrates his love for his future son-in-law for all to hear, even immediately planning to re-throw an even better parade than the one he canceled.

Gotta show Sky making up for that stunt more than just through a mere apology after all, and once again, what better way to world-build Mount Aris than by giving all its citizens a love of celebrations akin to Pinkie Pie. ‘Tis the reason I retroactively added Silverstream and Sky’s forces all proclaiming how seriously they take their parades earlier—Sky’s parade announcement and everygriff getting in on it came first, and I needed to establish it earlier, so why not do it during Silverstream’s rant, to further highlight how un-serious the situation truly was?

Gallus, meanwhile, is still caught up in sheer bewilderment, and he drops what is probably the darkest line he’s ever uttered concerning his orphanhood:

“So this is what it’s like to be doted on by a loving father, huh?” While Silverstream giggled at the joke, he hugged Sky Beak back and said, “Heh. Feels kinda nice.”

Sky Beak mercifully sidesteps that particular line and declares his intent to rabidly dote on Gallus, accidentally succeeding in truly intimidating the poor birb who has no idea how to react to this level of pure, unconditional fatherly love, having never experienced it prior.

Luckily, Silverstream’s there to—Wait, nevermind. She just makes it worse by pouncing on him and dragging him away from Sky Beak.

Side note: She was gonna call Gallus her “Cuddlebird” here, to play off the word “Cuddlebug.” I then changed it to “Snugglebird” since I thought that sounded cuter.

Gallus is even more scared than before, but luckily, Terramar is there to—Wait, nevermind. He just takes one look at his snuggle-crazed father and sister and high-tails it out of there—the coward.

But luckily…! Gallus’ fears were ultimately unfounded. As snuggle-crazy as his girlfriend and future father-in-law may be, being all theirs? Not that bad, actually. Especially when it includes an off-screen tour of Hippogriffia.

---

~ Family Night ~

That brief blurb we get after the scene transition was slightly different originally, focusing predominantly on the hippogriffs establishing the parade, rather than the day ending. But upon recognizing the main cast were about to have dinner, I figured it was best to instead establish the approaching night and that Sky’s new festival preparations were merely beginning.

Speaking of Sky, I wish I had shown more of his, Silver’s, and Gallus’ tour, but it honestly was best to summarize it. Obviously had to reference screeching competitions and the Harmonizing Heights—They’re literally all we got concerning what hippogriffs did for fun.

The hot springs exist to give Mount Aris some tourist trap flair, while sneaking the hippogriffs another subtle connection to their seapony sides. Funny story though: I tricked myself into thinking what reallyinspired their inclusion was the Amagi Inn having hot springs in Persona 4…except, I didn’t get into the Persona series until afterI had finished T.B.O.L.

Either way, the off-screen tour has concluded, so it’s time our main cast regains the spotlight. I couldn’t help but show the consequences of Gallus being a rookie at the screeching competition via his scratchy throat and semi-ringing ears, but since we haven’t the time or patience for major drama, I shift it into a more lighthearted conversation about him and Silver simply being sweet with each other, much to Terramar’s exasperation and Sky’s enthusiasm.

Sky then buggers off to make dinner—Helped along by Terramar being a responsible son, already preparing most of it, despite not knowing if Gallus ate meat.

Unfortunately, while Sky rewards Terry with a blown kiss and an “I love you,” his sister decides to torture him with Gallus-Stream fluff.

Terramar as a whole is a tricky subject to discuss since his role was criminally infinitesimal at first. Yeah, he’d talk to Gallus earlier, be present here, and help Gallus transform into a seapony next chapter…? But beyond that? Ehhh? Nope, he almost got nothing else.

But as I was writing, I kept nagging myself over him. “He’s Silver’s brother; I have to show more of both him and how they treat each other as siblings.” – Was the basic gist.

Luckily for me, I looked up images of Gallus-Stream on Google Images because I couldn’t resist, and inevitably, I stumbled across this particular image by Sintakhra:

This one image inspired literally everything about how I wrote Terry and Silver’s relationship. Originally, it was pretty generic: They loved each other and were nice to each other, simple as that. Not bad, just plain. Made worse by how Silver already has such a thoroughly developed relationship with Gallus in direct contrast.

Thus, the above image came into play. So rather than merely being generically nice to each other, Silver and Terramar get on each other’s nerves nigh constantly. She can’t help but playfully annoy him, and he can’t help but be annoyed and snarky back. I was tempted to add a more competitive element to their relationship on account of the image’s joke, but…? Nah. Didn’t want to be too blatant with the inspiration, and settled for what we got. Didn’t stop me from doing the “I’m taller than you / No, you’re noooot!” joke later, but I digress.

Point is Terry absolutely loathes seeing his older sister snog her boyfriend in front of him. He is the little brother, after all. Makes sense he’d still be put off by romantic interactions, especially his sister’s. And best of all? Silverstream knows and takes full advantage of this.

And yeah. There it is; that’s the joke for this scene and…for almost all of Terramar and Silver’s scenes going forward. Someway, somehow—regardless of whatever additional depth and context their scenes have later—she always finds a way to annoy or creep him out via talking about her sweetie.

Sadly, she’s also creeping said sweetie out right now with how—Ahem!—“forward” she’s being. Well? Gallus is less crept out and more just uncomfortable in general, and it’s clear why if his acknowledgment of Terramar’s presence and apologetic glance toward him were any indication—which they were, purposefully so. But again, we’ll go over this subplot later.

For now, we interrupt it with Sky Beak being—as Rininani stated—father of the year. Though Silver might disagree with that, given Sky intrudes upon her snuggle-bird time.

From the beginning I wanted Sky Beak to be wholly supportive of Gallus-Stream, intimidation attempt notwithstanding. Why? Because we have enough of the “No daughter of mine will be kissing up to some random boy!” father tropes in media, and I wanted to do the complete opposite. Especially because of Ocean Flow’s subplot, but especially because of Silverstream’s bubbly, excitable demeanor. No way did she get that from Skystar alone, after all. Take that intention and pair it with my overall desire to amp up the comedy and fluff for this arc, and you get Sky Beak’s ultimate portrayal here.

And part of that portrayal includes Sky being positively elated to photograph Silver and Gallus’ early relationship years—any and every aspect of it he can—and in this particular instance: Them kissing. And though Silver is crept out herself by it at first, you know full-well she adores reminiscing on those pictures years later, probably alongside Glory.

Terramar, meanwhile, is doing a complete 180 with how he regularly views Gallus-Stream embracing and breaks down laughing at Silver’s embarrassment over their father’s shenanigans. And while I did worry it could be construed as OOC for Terry to be enjoying Sky encouraging Gallus-Stream to kiss when he was so uncomfortable with it moments prior, I got over that hesitation rather quickly.

Gallus, on the other hand? Ooh boy does his reaction say a lot. Immediately assuming Sky, Terry, and Silver’s brief argument would turn into a massive three-way verbal blowout, like it did for griffons—as I so bluntly put—and then trying to slink away to wait it out in another room to avoid either getting swept up in or accidentally worsen the fight? Yeah. Really shows how unfamiliar he is with a genuinely healthy family dynamic, and—again—how miserable Griffonstone was for him.

Thankfully, Silverstream’s there to pick him up, caving to her father’s request, and giving Gallus a good ole kiss, which Sky snapshots it in triplicate because that was both adorable and a subtle way to hint at his and Ocean’s living situation.

Afterward, I unceremoniously kick Silver out of the scene so I can get to the juicy conversation between Gallus and Terramar.

With the main goal of the arc being Gallus interacting with Silver’s family, I wanted him to have a chance to interact with all of said family, no duh. But while I do feel bad his interactions with Terramar are so short, this conversation was kept brief deliberately so.

Similar to what I said about Sky’s intimidation attempt earlier—That trope about a character needing the approval of their significant other’s family otherwise their relationship is somehow invalid or forbidden or whatever…? Eh, I’m rather ambivalent toward it, especially since I don’t usually see it handled well whenever it crops up in media.

But Gallus gaining Silver’s family’s approval was the whole reason they were here to begin with, so of course Gallus and Silver would make darn sure they all approve of him. Sky Beak obviously does, and Ocean Flow inevitably will, but that left Terramar.

But since I had no plans for Terry to have qualms with Gallus dating his sister, I have Gallus outright ask about it, and Terramar confirm as such, even joking that Gallus should be more concerned that Silverstream is okay with Gallus dating her. After all, what right does Terramar have to tell his sister who she should or shouldn’t date?

But of course, something similar can be said about Ocean Flow. And more importantly?

“You’re her brother. A-And your important to her, so I… I want to know if you’re okay with us being together.”

Ocean wasn’t exactly on Gallus’ mind when he said that, but she was certainly on mine. After all, she lives at the bottom of her namesake, half a world away; there is literally nothingshe can do to Gallus-Stream, and her presently unexplained disapproval shouldn’t mean much. Should it? Well, if Silver being a complete mess over that disapproval was any indication…?

So yeah. That line from Gallus is a pretty important one considering it:

#1) Shows Gallus being a caring, mature boyfriend, wanting to make 100% certain Silver’s family approves of him dating her. Thus, further enriching his and Silver’s romance.

And #2) Reinforces the validity of Ocean’s disapproval and its impact on the lovebirds’ relationship. Ocean is also important to Silver, so her approval matters by default. Simple as that.

Thankfully, Terramar isn’t qualified nor plans to give some complicated lecture on the importance of familial approval or other romance-related matters, and instead, he simply says:

“As long as my sister’s happy. And she definitely looked happy to me.”

Which Gallus is certainly relieved to hear. And after one last snarky exchange between the two, we mosey right along to Sky Beak’s bathrooms, so we can get a cool snippet of world-building, and—Wait, we skip that? We go right to the dinner scene since that’s far more important than explaining the intricacies of Mount Aris’ plumbing and how it works when they all live in giant, hollowed-out trees? Well, I mean, okay. Still would have been a nice world-building scene, but the dinner scene is admittedly much better than that would have been.

My first plan was to show the entire dinner with everygriff discussing the aquarium and Las Pegasus dates, ending with Gallus talking to Sky about the Pearl. More specifically, Gallus was gonna blindly guess at how its magic works and be completely right,utterly shocking Sky and Terry—To show off both Gallus’ nerdy side to Silver’s family and that he finally got over his earlier “I can’t be a sorcerer with no horn” nonsenseand is now proud of his magical know-how.

And also to discuss overly complicated magical jargon because I love doing that.

This didn’t happen since it was ultimately unnecessary. More importantly, this was yet another—and the final one, thank goodness—chapter to suffer a split. The word count of each chapter makes it clear why it had to be split, but that didn’t stop me from trying to stubbornly keep them together for some glorified “Big finish.”

And by “Keep them together,” I mean I triedshrinking scenes down ruinously in hopes I could sandwich the two 25k+ word long behemoths into a 35k or less strangled mess. Thank goodness Great White Prime talked me out of that before I got too far along; though it helped I was struggling to figure outhow to condense this chapter anyway.

The train scene earlier actually came out better thanks to this shrinking, as did Gallus and Silver’s meetup with Seaspray. The entire intimidation attempt though? Eugh. I had to go and add back what I had initially taken out so it’d regain its true luster. Same thing happened with almost every scene involving Terramar; dude nearly got even less than what I had first intended for him because of my crazy chapter sandwiching attempt.

The dinner scene itself didn’t suffer, thankfully; in fact, this shrinking process helped me realize how completely superfluous it was to legitimately show the trio having dinner together, especially considering I had already done the same thing back in the Griffonstone chapters.

That said? I obviously couldn’t time-skip past it, so we turn it into another brief scene to further display Gallus’ unfamiliarity with wholesome family dynamics. And yeah, it’s adorable.

Having Sky Beak and Silverstream tag-team him up some of those stuffed celery sticks was a superb move since it shows Silver knowing it’s one of his favorites and how to cook it, calls back to the restaurant scene, and displays how doting Sky Beak is. And it even brings Gallus to joyous tears for a moment which Silver even notices, asking if he’s okay! D’aww!

But now isn’t the time for drama; Gallus is just really, really happy, and he says as such, thanking Sky Beak for the meal despite instinctively protesting out of embarrassment, and the trio dig into it.

Now is time for the time-skip.

I wanted one last major scene with Sky Beak before we began shifting focus to the seapony side of Silver’s family. Plus? Remember that “Gallus and Silver slept together” joke I blatantly ripped off? Yeah, I wanted to finally capitalize on that, by which I mean I wondered how the same joke would play out if it happened between my version of the characters, and the end result was too funny to not include.

Sadly, there also isn’t much to say about this sequence; how I wrote it was exactly how I envisioned it.

Before we get to that awkward conversation, however, we first show Sky Beak giving Gallus the attic for the night. In-universe, this is done for two reasons:

#1) Sky knows, courtesy of his kids, Gallus is claustrophobic and the attic is the largest room he has to offer which would only be polite and courteous. And that, naturally, provides further characterization for how kind “Best Dad Ever!” is.

And #2) Sky is also trying to keep his daughter’s boyfriend as far away from her room as possible. Not out of malice, just more as comically overplayed over-protective parenting. And hey, at least Silver calls him out on it.

But what of the authorial reason? Firstly, I needed to show where Gallus was staying during this arc which, minus the upcoming overnight cuddles joke, is the main reason why this scene exists at all. But the reason it’s the attic? Er, that’d be because I didn’t think there’d be that many rooms in Sky’s house.

Again, they live in giant, hollowed-out trees, and I’ve already established Sky’s house has a living room, kitchen/dining room, bathroom, Terry’s room, Silver’s room, and obviously Sky would have his own room too. Plus any additional storerooms or hallways the house might also have. And given the rather stony ground Hippogriffia seems to have, plus the possibility of leftover tree roots, I didn’t think they’d have a basement to offer—Not that Sky would make Gallus sleep in a basement. What I had left was the very top of the tree itself, and what room would go there, save the attic? Thus, the attic.

Also for some bizarre reason, I always imagined the attic looks identical to the attic from Home Alone, only less cluttered since I also had Sky clean it up to further demonstrate his niceness—Even if he does make the half-hearted excuse he already needed to tidy it up anyway.

Gallus and Silver then wish each other goodnight, though they lament not being able to do their usual goodnight knocking routine. And if you think about it for more than two minutes, you’ll probably remember that in T.B.O.L. Gallus and Silver’s rooms aren’t next to each other; they’re across from each other.

Technically, I kept it vague enough back in Ch.1(Transition) and Ch.3(Expression) when Gallus was approaching her room that it could be reasonably believed they are next to each other, but…? Yeah. Whoopsie. I thought of the joke first and how adorable it was they’d wish each other goodnight through the walls, implemented it and Sky’s reaction into the scene, then got halfway through the next scene before realizing my blunder. And while I considered removing the issue, I decided not to worry over it. After 250k+ words and half a year of constantly fretting over the slightest of mistakes and fallacies, I put my foot down and chose cuteness over consistency for once.

Hopefully, no one is too bothered by it, but if you are, just assume one of them asked to switch rooms so they could do their goodnight knocking. That’s equally as adorable, honestly.

That, or you can presume they simply knock on each other’s doors, wish goodnight, then go to their own room for bed.

With that taken care of, they share a goodnight kiss, and while Sky noticeably looks away when Gallus nervously glances at him like he did Terramar earlier, Sky also breaks them up, funnily enough, once Gallus starts holding Silver’s cheek. Why? Because as much as he loves Gallus, he’s still a father in charge of preenting his daughter from getting toorambunctious, much to her annoyance. Thankfully, they vow to make up for it later, afterbrushing of course. Because as happy as they are snogging all the time, they’re still new to it, and realistically, not all their kisses will be positively heavenly as they discovered one unfortunate morning.

From there, the hippogriffs depart—with Sky sneaking Gallus one last doting smile before wishing him goodnight too—and have that little “Slept…together?” spat. Before that, however, I take the opportunity to do something else cool.

The time-skip from the near-break-up left a gap in how Gallus-Stream’s relationship has developed since then. And while they’re totally together from now till the end of time, that doesn’t mean everything is perfect; we’ve already hinted at that with Gallus’ nervousness over snogging Silver in front of her family, but now I was presented a terrific chance for Silverstream to vent about his less than favorable tendencies.

But considering Gallus’ character development, those tendencies are kept rather minimal. Even after the 2^nd Date, he’s still against her paying for their nights out, though he does let her do it, and even worse, he won’t take her to karaoke! Thankfully, they’re both mature enough to discuss the issues rather than bottle ‘em up, so Silver confirms they’re gonna hash out a more concrete “Who’s paying for dinner tonight?” plan once they return home.

As for karaoke? Well, I luckily remembered I had Gallus compare his singing to a cheese grater back in Ch.10(Home) and opted to callback to it here, but as for whether Silver fixed that issue? Eh, I’ll leave that up to your interpretation. But I guarantee you, it took a lot to get his cerulean rump up on that stage, mic in talon.

Now, how about that tail brushing thing, ey? What spawned that joke? Remember how I browsed Gallus-Stream fanart? Well, here’s another one I stumbled across:

Needless to say, that was too funny an idea not to incorporate into the story. Even if Sky doesn’t find it all that funny for a multitude of reasons—Remember all you parents and parents-to-be out there: Children are information sponges, so be careful what you do or say, lest they imitate you in ways you really don’t want them too, as Silver proves.

Following that comes the overnight snuggles joke and explanation, and I just hadto let Sky laugh at Silver’s mid-kiss naptime, even if he swears not to tell Terramar—He knows what fresh Tartarus Terry would put Silver through were he to learn of the incident. And while I did consider having Sky be more suspicious about Gallus staying in the bed after Silver passed out, I swiftly swept it under the rug with Silver explaining she wouldn’t let him leave, clinging to him in her sleep—something Sky reveals she did a lot as a kid when sleeping with him and Ocean.

Some light teasing about Silver being indignant her dad would suspect she and Gallus would do that, and Sky clapping back with a reminder she’s a wannabe arsonist later, and we see Silverstream openly confess she loved waking up next to Gallus! On that note, remember her “Feeling him holding my talon and hugging me with his wing” specification for later.

Sky then decides we’ve stretched the scene out long enough, so he tucks Silver into bed because he doesn’t get to do it anymore now that his baby girl is all grown up, warns her Skystar will cameo soon, confirms he genuinely does love Gallus, and comforts her over Ocean’s attitude. Afterward, he leaves Silver to her rest and does a little dance over his daughter officially having a sweetie.

Man, I loved writing Sky Beak!

Anyway, I considered ending the chapter here, given it’s a fairly good endpoint. And I probably would have done that, had I split the Mount Aris arc into three chapters. But, although I feared it would happen, I thankfully avoided having to do that, if only by the skin of my teeth.

Splitting this arc into three parts might have worked regardless, to be fair; this chapter could have been devoted to Sky Beak, the next to Terramar and Skystar, and the third to Ocean Flow…? But if I had done that, it would have thrown off the pacing significantly, and I’d have to rearrange several scenes for each chapter to have similar word counts.

Which is to say: The port scene isn’t nearly long enough to warrant being its own chapter. So I had to settle for focusing this chapter on Hippogriffia with the next on Seaquestria.

Either way, none of this was much of an issue. So how about we move right along to those aforementioned port scenes, and to both Terramar and Silver’s best scene together and the arrival of a certain Princess of Pouncing.

---

~ Brotherly Woes and Cousin Chaos ~

It goes without saying that Ocean’s arrival was why I had the port scene happen at, well, the port. Thus, I had to provide an explanation why they traveled down there, and the answer came rather easily: Have Sky “recruit” Gallus into their Guard for a day. Not gonna lie, that idea might have been subtly influenced by the cover art for Set Sail, but I digress.

But with Gallus out there, the burden of opening the scenefell upon Silverstream, and much to her sorrow, part of that burden is not getting to kiss her sweetie awake. Thankfully, it comes with the boon of affording us a chance to see her interact with Terramar more.

Terramar was only reading Daring Do because he was reading a random book when the others came home earlier—Realistically, he’d be doing something to pass the time while waiting for ‘em—and I figured he’d be reading the same book here. And of course, I couldn’t resist having the little brother cheer Daring on as he was reading.

Some two-way sibling squabbling later, Silver returns the chapter’s focus to her concerns for Ocean Flow. And while Terramar tries appeasing her, it’s not nearly enough, so Silver drags his flank down to the port with her so they can talk some sense into their father.

And despite his protests, he can’t say no when his sister asks him for a favor. But before they journey onward, he makes sure to get his own digs in by acknowledging her teddy bear pajamas—which she only wore for the purposes of the joke—and that she hasn’t yet eaten—a fact her stomach also acknowledges. Thus, Silver concedes defeat, making sure to remind him he’s the little brother, despite being taller than her. Allegedly, anyway.

Moving on, when I was still hoping to combine the Mount Aris chapters, I considered completely doing away with this pier scene between Silver and Terry, but even back then, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. While it initially existed to show Silver and Terry approaching the boat, in actuality, it’s predominantly because of Terramar. His near loss on all story prominence extended to this scene too. Originally, all that happened here was their initial banter, him comforting her over Ocean, and the two flying up to meet with Sky and Gallus.

But while writing this scene, I once more kept nagging myself to give more content to Terramar. This was the only opportunity Terry would have for any alone time with Silverstream, so I added inTerramar revealing Gallus asked if he approved of him dating her, and Silver teasing him over his lack of a significant other.

However, the main thing I gave Terramar was his own fears regarding Silverstream’s state of mind. But after I gave him that moment asking how she was too, I had to justify why he’d be so worried, henceboth the letter setup and the Smolder subplotcallback.

For Silver’s lack of letters, that issue naturally would have affected allof her family, not just Ocean Flow. Gallus did specifically note how awful it was she had stopped reading even Terramar’sletters, if you’ll recall—I certainly did. Shame I couldn’t show the same with Sky and Starry, but I think Ocean and Terramar expressing grievances over the issue was enough.

And as for the Smolder debacle, obviously Silver would have told them about that—Gotta set up that “Silver tells Terramar everything” aspect up even more for later—but it’s also to give one last stroke of resolution to that particular subplot.

Either way, Silver does acknowledge that—even if she needed a break from her mom—it was not good to spontaneously cut off her family, and since Terramar isn’t an oblivious jerk, he makes it clear he understands why she made that choice and doesn’t hold it against her. He merely wants her to never do that again. Sibling teasing aside, he’ll be there for her however he can be, just as she will be for him.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to worry. It’s the end of the story, so even if Silver wanted to stop mailing him again, she doesn’t have the chance. Not that she would whenshe missed mailing him so much. And he certainly missed both her letters and the doodles that came with ‘em. Why did I include that detail? Because Silver’s an extremely excitable artist, so doodling on her letters to her family made way too much sense and was way too adorable to not add.

It also let me joke about Silver promising her every letter to Terry will have a doodle on it and through that joke steer the conversation(And their approach to the port) forward.

The Ocean Flow matter then rears its ugly head and is just as swiftly put on pause again. Partly because Terry has no idea why Ocean hates Gallus either—Though he does confirm she’s still meeting Prince Guy—but mostly because Silver accidentally drops a “Grover’s Treasure!”

I thought it’d be a nice detail to show Gallus and Silver had started picking up each other’s swears as they dated, especially since the species-specific swear was so well-liked. Made sense given how many times they cursed around each other. Definitely wanted to do more with it—Show not only had they started imitating the other’s word choices but also their mannerisms or something—except there wasn’t enough time for me to, not only determine what else I could do this with, but also meaningfully implement it into the story.

The joke’s still funny though, especially Terry’s reaction. Unfortunately for him, while he thought he managed to get a one-up on his sister, Silver goes right for the kill, threatening to set him up with either avid wing-enthusiast Soaring Virtue, Callbacks Two and Three: Berry Bliss and Citrine Sparks, and the worst one of ‘em all: Strawberry Scoop, the mad shipper herself.

Yada-yada, sibling squabbling, yada-yada. And onto the ship we go…!

But before that, one more thing to mention about this scene:

“Silverstream?” Terramar spoke up softly. “What are you going to do when she shows up?”

Huffing furiously, she answered, “Remind myself it’s not right to smack one’s own mother upside the head. After that?” Silver shrugged despondently, continuing, “Talk to her. Explain to her that I love Gallus and not this guy she wants me to meet. And also apologize for not writing her back,” she finished, flinching.

“You’re really scary when you’re angry, you know that?”

“Sorry, Terry,” she murmured, taking a quiet, calming breath. “I just… I really didn’t like what Mom was saying about Gallus,” she said, pawing at the dock.

This exchange is here to—as is likely obvious—show Silver’s current feelings toward her mother. But more importantly, we see her character development kick in with her calming down, recognizing she needs to apologize for the letter thing, and accepting the best thing she should do is simply explain she loves Gallus. And while I was tempted to have her react jokingly to Terramar noting how scary she is when angry, she instead apologizes and continues soothing herself while acknowledging yet again how much Ocean’s comments hurt her.

A much better display of Silver’s character and the story’s complexity than if I had had Silverstream feeling unapologetically angry at Ocean with no other emotions at all and just called it a day.

I couldn’t resist having Silverstream and Terramar sneak up on Sky Beak, so that’s what they do, with Stratus—Who’s here since, thanks to being one of the only named hippogriffs, I figured he’d be Sky’s second-in-command—awkwardly shuffling about until Sky catches on to his children’s presence. Before he does though, Sky takes the chance to foreshadow the dancing stadium—Including a nod to Haven Bay setting it up, showing there’s more than just Sky and Stratus preparing the parade—and reference how singing, dancing, etc. was outlawed in Griffonstone but the Restoration Project has since abolished it—Both a nice callback to the R.P. and a subtle nod to Sky and Gallus’ some off-screen bonding.

Stratus then buggers off to leave his captain to his fate, and Sky calls up Gallus from below deck—Had to show Gallus helping out somehow without also catching sight of Silverstream showing up.

So, the pouncing thing? That was inspired by Catty Griffon by Scyphi. I read it around the time I wrote the 2^nd Date chapters and thoroughly enjoyed it, especiallythemassive Calvin and Hobbes energy it embodied. One such way it did so was with Gallus being a rather pouncy kitty toward good ole Sandy. It was hilarious and adorable and not something T.B.O.L. Gallus would be caught dead doing. Silverstream, however…?

Thus, she does exactly that to him, much to his amusement and melodramatic cry for Sky’s aid. But to show off how happy the two of them are, they merely snuggle each other more. And though he does stop when Sky gets in on the teasing, he can’t quite bring himself to deny he adored being pounced by his future wife, despite admitting as such right to her father’s face. And defying the overplayed father tropes once more, Sky breaks down laughing alongside Silver at Gallus’ embarrassment, as opposed to getting all stern faced and mean.

This entire sequence is probably the funniest bit of comedy in all of T.B.O.L. And even if it weren’t, it’s still incredibly sweet and such a relief from the soul-crushing doom and gloom of all previous chapters.

Terramar probably thinks otherwise, considering he can only roll his eyes and foreshadow Skystar’s pounce-obsessed personality.

Some conversation fluff later and we speedrun past the easy conflict bait of Sky getting Gallus to do his chores before I can take the bait and have Silver rail into her father again—which would have felt repetitive and lazy after last time.

Gallus then explains he’s doing everything he can to repay Sky for the “massive gesture of generosity and kindness” of letting him stay for the week. Why? Because he’s an absolute sweetheart—as Sky himself proclaims—with tons of character development.

Silver still doesn’t like how her dad indulged Gallus, thereby robbing her of kissing Gallus awake, preventing her from stopping him from attempting to intimidate Gallus again, and worst of all: Making her lose out on wearing one of the cute sailor outfits to match her sweetie. But she nevertheless appreciates Gallus’ noble motives, even if both she and Sky are adamant Gallus not do anything more than what he’s already done. He’s their guest, after all.

Speaking of which, Dreadlight actually drew a parallel between how Sky treated Gallus in this scene versus how Gruff made Gallus clean his house for him back in Ch.11(Closure). That parallel wasn’t initially intended, but I’ll gladly take it.

Yet more conversation fluff later, Terry tries to escape seeing his sister and her boyfriend snog and his father go goo-goo over it. Emphasis on tries since that’s when she arrives…

Skystar.

I had no fing clue how to write Skystar.

I’ve said it before, but I struggle when writing perpetually upbeat characters like Starry. As such, I defaulted her to being a pounce-obsessed, volcano-exploring, hyperactive dancer and…little else sadly. I certainly like how I wrote her; I’m just not sure how well I succeeded at writing her in accordance to her canon portrayal, especially considering everygriff else’s attitude of “If she wants to pounce you, she will” concerning her. Though that was definitely done in service of both hyping her inevitable appearance up and comedy.

It’s funny I say “inevitable appearance,” however, given I strongly considered cutting Skystar from the story, even after deciding to split the chapters. However, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not solely because I still wanted a character to interrupt Gallus-Stream’s kiss and plunge Silver into the water for later. But rather, because of the seapony side of Mount Aris.

Due to Sky Beak’s intimidation attempt, I needed at least him, Terry, and a few other hippogriffs to interact with Gallus-Stream upon entering Hippogriffia; however, I didn’t have the same plan for the seaponies of Seaquestria. This meant the hippogriffs got drastically greater representation than their aquatic counterparts which was not fair whatsoever.

To fix this, a few things happened.

For one, Seaspray disappeared from the story. I didn’t have any major story roles for him past the escort part, but more importantly, I wanted Stratus Skyranger to fulfill the role of Sky’s second-in-command(Also, he has the cooler name). Then we have Terramar who’d obviously greet the lovebirds upon their arrival to Hippogriffia, so that was three main hippogriffs there.

For the seaponies, I obviously had Ocean Flow, and I chose to keep Salina there. Unfortunately, since I had nixed Novo, that meant I was lacking one additional prominent seapony character. Originally, that was going to be Haven Bay for reasons related to Salina. However, that would mean the only named hippogriffs during Sky’s intimidation attempt would be Sky himself, Seaspray, and Stratus. Given there were dozens of hippogriffs there, and I already accepted I’d need to leave some nameless for that scene, having only three named hippogriffs seemed rather lacking. Thus, I included Haven Bay there.

However, I still intended to have her reappear during the Seaquestria segment, showcasing off another hippogriff/seapony who was completely comfortable switching between forms. I figured Haven would technically be enlisted as a Hippogriffia Guard, but predominantly live as a seapony in Seaquestria.

That idea didn’t last long, considering the exposition it’d require to explain this story beat, and I already had to unleash an exposition mountain when introducing Salina Blue. Thus, Haven stayed above the sea, and Skystar quickly plunged beneath it.

But while that whole mess cemented the need for Skystar, what truly made the decision for me was a simple fact: Skystar was Silverstream’s family. Even if I had found another solution to this representation imbalance, it wouldn’t have felt right to hand-wave Skystar away as “Being stuck practicing for the synchronized swimming competition.” Especially when the entire purpose of this arc was for Gallus to meet Silver’s family—All of her family.

And no way would Skystar have sat on her backfins and done nothing when her favorite cousin showed up with a boy! If anything, I was tempted to write Skystar as an even crazier shipper than Scoop was, and the only reason I didn’t was the chapter lengths made it impossible to do more with Starry than what I ultimately did.

And what she does here is keep the story moving briskly, at the cost of some water to the face by Silverstream, angry at having another kiss be interrupted. Thankfully, after all the development she’s had, Silver doesn’t hesitate to forgive Starry and wrap her in a hug.

As an aside before I continue, Skystar’s nickname was “Starry” because I couldn’t call her “Sky” or else I’d risk confusing everyone—myself included—on who was speaking, her or Sky Beak. It’s for that reason, I went back and wrote Sky Beak’s name in full whenever he spoke previously, rather than leave his dialogue tags as simply “Sky” like I had done initially.

What you see is what you get with this next sequence: Some light, casual banter between all the characters with Terry getting booted below deck so Skystar can get a chance to be properly introduced to Gallus, who was going to be even more terrified of her. He was decidedly calmer in the final draf because of both his character development and Starry being toned down.

Fun fact: This ship scene was the reason Gallus had a camera. The first portion of it I had planned was when he photographed Silver in the water with Ocean Flow appearing afterward.

As for introducing the camera as a story element, I first considered having Sky bring it—Taking photos of him and Gallus goofing off would make for some nice father-daughter’s boyfriend bonding time, no? And he was already established to own one earlier.

But I still needed Terramar to get shafted briefly for Skystar to get the spotlight uninterrupted by him, so I moved the camera below deck and sent him to go fetch it, resulting in Gallus technically being the one to bring the camera due to it being in his bags.

With that fact in mind, I like to think the camera is technically Silverstream’s since she was the one of the Student Six shown to own/use a camera, and Gallus simply borrowed it.

After introducing Skystar to Gallus, I allow Terramar to return to break up the “Whose turn to hug Silver’s snuggle-bird” situation—something I expected more people to comment on, honestly. Ah well, Terry certainly gets his own indignant comment in on what he just witnessed, countered swiftly by Skystar’s…Skystar-ness.

Some more dialogue to show off Terramar, once again, being the most…we’ll go with “mature” of the hippogriffs present, preemptively saving Gallus from getting the classic Skystar-style sucker-pounce.

Gallus, meanwhile, can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of everything. As he says, Silver’s family is awesome! Crazy. But awesome.

As for Skystar intending to quiz Gallus here too? I did indeed intend her to do that, but since I already did so with Terry, I thought it best not to repeat myself. Thus, Terry stops Starry dead in her tracks and has a laugh at having gotten to quiz Gallus without her, much to her fury.

That then leads into Skystar asking Sky Beak why she wasn’t allowed to be there for the intimidation attempt. The authorial answer is the scene was bloated enough without needing to introduce her on top of everything else, but the in-universe reason was Silver had him do that so Starry wouldn’t get a chance to scare Gallus away from Mount Aris with her Skystar-ness.

And with that revelation, Silver bluntly pivots the scene away from casual banter and character introductions by dragging Starry back into the water for another hug, affording me an opportunity to unceremoniously kick Sky Beak and Terramar both out of the scene, allowing for more breathing room for characterizing Skystar and the upcoming introduction to Ocean Flow.

Said characterization boils down to Skystar geeking out over how sweet Gallus is, yet utterly seethingwith jealousy over her cousin finding such a great boyfriend while Novo—who you can bet goes all-in on the “intimidating parent” routine—keeps her stuck on Mount Aris.

Luckily, since she already threatened Terramar with it earlier, Silverstream happily offers Skystar up to the students at school, and of course, Starry immediately takes her up on that offer, resulting in another series of callbacks to all the available background bachelors throughout T.B.O.L.with Silver letting slip she thinks November is cute. Why? Because I wanted to throw him a bone. But also because I thought it might be funny if she did so in front of Gallus.

Even more luckily, Gallus isn’t some stereotypical, insecure whine-fest who’s afraid Silver actually likes November more than him. Nope, he’s chock full of enough character development to not fall victim to that overused trope and instead remains confident both in his relationship with Silver and that I won’t sink to that bottom-of-the-barrel cheap drama. But of course he gets at least a little teasing in, only for Silver to compliment him back with “You know you’re cuter.” Which he is.

This single exchange was the main drive for the entire “Skystar wants a boyfriend” conversation and plot point, by the way. In fact, it was supposed to be the end to this sequence too, with Ocean popping up as soon as Gallus made to take another photo of Silver after the “Yeah, I am.”/“Yeah, you are.” snippet. But when writing the line, realism and remembrance that Skystar was there both kicked in, so I had Skystar compliment their relationship once again before the girls whisked themselves away into a “So, how’s life?” conversation.

Istruggled to determine what Silver and Starry would be talking about when Ocean appeared, but thankfully, a completely unrelated problem existed that helped me solve both.

Since this was the last chapter and I wanted it to focus purely on Gallus-Stream’s Mount Aris shenanigans, that meant something unfortunate: Their friends couldn’t come with ‘em.

I never considered including the other Student Six here; it’d have been way too much work to explain why they tagged along, as well as showing their reactions to everything that happened. However, cutting them out of the story so bluntly didn’t feel right either—Not after how important they were to everything which came before, and to Gallus and Silver themselves. So, while they couldn’t physically be there, I wanted to at least include some references to them.

Ocellus being the one to rat out Silver sleeping with Gallus to Starlight was already in there because of the joke in question. But after some thought and referencing Smolder in Silver and Terry’s conversation, it only felt right to similarly acknowledge Sandbar and Yona too. That way, in the then-considered-epilogue to T.B.O.L., all the other Student Six got at least some final send-off, much like the Drama Club before them.

I thankfully already made a reference of sorts to Yona with Gallus’ snarky callback to Silver thinking she was a better pillow than him, but unfortunately, that would leave Sandbar as the only one of the group who I had no clue how to reference somewhere in this chapter.

Days passed before I got to this moment during a re-edit where inspiration finally struck, and I realized I could include that Gallus-Stream/Yona-Bar double date plan after all! We may not have seen it on-screen, but I at least could confirm it did happen and hint at what transpired.

“A Trivial Pursuit” is another episode I haven’t watched because one brief clip of it and an image of Twilight manically pushing away Pinkie was all I needed to know, but I digress.

I took the chance to do as much with the subject as I could, opting to poke fun at how Sandy and Gallus totally butted heads during the competition since it tied into how competitive Trivia Trot can apparently get—something even Skystar concurs with—and helped show Gallus’ own competitive nature is still a thing, if kept in check by his character development.

More importantly, it told the entire story of the double date through implication alone: Sandbar and Gallus got thoroughly heated with each other in their race for the championship, and Silver and Yona had to sit back and chill, watching their boyfriends be stupid for a while.

I’ll leave what else happened up to your interpretation, but I will say Yona was far less amused by her boyfriend’s antics than Silver was by hers. Speaking of, remember that discussion last chapter about Gallus’ numerous “I love you because”s in stark contrast to Silver’s fewer generic ones? That issue is what inspired this particular line:

“Hee-hee, it was pretty cute seeing Gallus get all fired up though,” she reminisced, fanning herself with a talon. “He’s always so hot whenever he nerds out over something.”

Because, although the temptation was there, I was not about to have Silver be even remotely mad at Gallus for nerding out against Sandbar. If she were, that’d have been one of the things she told her dad about earlier. So the next best thing was to go the complete opposite route and have Silver…? Well, I’ll let the “fanning herself with a talon.” part speak for itself.

And since Gallus was listening in on Silver admitting that, I had to plan his reaction. And while I’ll also leave it up to your interpretation whether Silver planned for her admission to cause him to “collapse into a giggling, blushing heap,” it’s unfortunately not what he does on account of their audience.

Yep, she’s finally here! Ocean Flow! And we’re still not talking about her!

Okay-okay, I’m partly kidding. Most of what I have to say about her would be best discussed when we finally get to her and Gallus’ confrontation next chapter, but that doesn’t mean I have nothing to say about Ocean now.

Like Smolder before her, Ocean’s characterization was a balancing act: Depicting her not as some unholy monster, but making it clear there was a deeper motivation behind her behavior. Which is why the first thing she does upon finally being introduced is dart straight for her daughter and hold her as closely as she could, rejoicing in Silver being “Safe and sound.” And obviously, I wasn’t subtle enough to forgo putting those words in italics, in case it wasn’t obvious enough what Ocean’s issues were.

Now, Skystarwas going to disappear before Ocean appeared, but I couldn’t think of an appropriate way to do that without it seeming off. It’s already convenient enough Ocean just happened to show up now of all times without making my revolving-door approach to the characters any more obvious than it already was.

Plus, I couldn’t think of a better reason why Ocean conveniently appeared here either sinceit required too much exposition to say Novo told Ocean Silver was back off-screen. Thus, I combined the issues and had Ocean appear to send Starry back down.

And with the seaponies switching spots, it was time for that revolving-door to revolve once more because no way was I going to have the exes in the same vicinity and not interact at least a little. Although, “little” might be too generous because as nice as it is to see the two greet each other kindly enough, Sky Beak doesn’t get himself involved in the Silver/Ocean/Gallus interaction at all. And while that’s mostly because I didn’t want him stepping in and muddling our introduction to Ocean Flow, I also didn’t think Sky would actively involve himself here when the issue is very clearly between Ocean and Silverstream—Wouldn’t want to overstep and make the situation worse, after all.

Back to Ocean, the greatest challenge when writing her here came from deciding how exaggerated her actions should be. Should she really be that anxious of Gallus that she can’t even bring herself to shake his talon and even tries to pull Silver away from him…? Her paranoia would naturally have tainted her view of him, but would she really act that horrendously?

Given I did indeed have her act that way is a dead giveaway the answer was yes. However, letting her treat Gallus that way wouldn’t exactly be entirely right either.

Characterization was key, and I couldn’t merely settle for making her a diet Gruff and call it a day. Plus, she’s an adult, so paranoia or no, she’s mature enough to recognize Gallus isn’t some abomination coming to steal her daughter away. And furthermore, she’s a seapony/hippogriff, and with how I portrayed the general behavior and attitude of the hippogriffs so far, it wouldn’t fit to have Ocean be oh so conveniently the one single bad apple among them.

As a result, she doesn’t openly belittle Gallus. The most she does is the aforementioned actions of not immediately shaking his talon and trying to keep Silver from swimming toward him, both of which swiftly earn Silverstream’s ire. And while it’s easy to call her line here:

“Ah. So, you— You two are still together then?” she mumbled, biting her lip and refusing to meet his gaze. “That’s…lovely.”

—Passive aggressive; upon knowing the full context, this is likely the closest Ocean could bring herself to being supportive. Doesn’t exactly help matters now, though.

Case in point, Silverstream is the true aggressive one here, for obvious reasons. After all the letter drama, of course Silver would be hyper-vigilant and more than a little reactive toward even the most microscopic hint of dislike for Gallus from her mother.

And while that aggression almost causes Silverstream to blow up at Ocean one chapter early, Gallus is there to help soothe her.

This was another aspect influenced by Silver’s abundant lack of definitive core reasons for why she loved Gallus last chapter. Well, partly. This idea of Gallus helping her feel safe and relaxed to the point merely being near him is enough to quell her outrage toward her mother? It started as a relationship element for another story I was concocting at the time.

But with Ocean’s true motivations in mind, it made perfect sense to sneak this element into this story as well, providing—as mentioned—another core reason why Silver loved Gallus as a bonus. She helps him feel loved and confident, and he helps her feel happy and safe.

On this note, however, this particular “Talk? Talk.” idea first appeared next chapter, but I soon realized it was a great idea to have it appear here too. That way, it could be seen as a fully fledged relationship dynamic Gallus and Silverstream adopted: That whenever they notice the other having problems, they both willingly step to the side and discuss the problem.

It shows they’ve taken the lessons they’ve learned to heart, help keep each other applying those lessons as often as possible, and further highlights how healthy their relationship is. Notice how both times this sequence happens, Silver and Gallus respectively acquiesce to the talk rather than trying to postpone it for later? You know full-well Silver didn’t want to have a talk when she could keep yelling at her mother, but she conceded anyway, both because she knew it was the right thing to do and because Gallus asked her to.

Not much to say about the talk itself, sadly, but I do want to spotlight these two moments:

“You mean something I have to deal with…”

“No.” Gallus gave her cheek a soft nuzzle, correcting, “It’s something we have to deal with. You’re not facing this alone, Silver.”

With Silver trying to shoulder the responsibility of dealing with Ocean all upon herself, but Gallus just straight-up saying nuts to that and reminding her that, now that they’re a couple, they work through their problems together. He really is the sweetest creature ever, huh?

And also:

“No, stop! Please!” Ocean Flow begged, voice cracking. “Silverstream honey, I— I missed you so much… Pl-Please don’t go yet.”

Feeling her heart sink at how despondent her mother appeared, Silver turned back to Gallus. “I really don’t know if I can do this,” she quietly admitted, beak quivering.

“You’re just talking to your mother, Silver,” Gallus comforted. “She’s not a super-villain. Remember?”

“I know she’s not, but… But… I just don’t think I’m ready yet.”

“Ready to apologize to her? Or ready to forgive her?”

“Both.”

“You can forgive somecreature but still be mad at them, you know,” he stated solemnly.

“Mom isn’t Gruff, Gallus,” Silverstream growled, hanging her head. “Besides. You know I don’t like being angry. At anycreature.”

He raised her chin back up, insisting, “All the more reason to talk to her and make amends.”

“Fair point,” she conceded, appearing rather morose herself.

While Silver’s anger might be justified, that didn’t mean I was safe from accidentally overplaying it. And the last thing I wanted was for people to feel more sympathetic toward Ocean than Silver at this point; thus, I showed that, as angry as Silver is, she does genuinely love Ocean Flow and would prefer this whole thing be resolved, even if she really doesn’t want to slog through her mother’s anti-Gallus/pro-Prince Guy attitude to get to that resolution.

Funny story: This part where Gallus and Silverstream kiss and the latter tries dragging the former into the water? I wrote it before I even started working on the scene introducing Skystar, so I ended up having to write a lot of what came before so it ultimately led to the make-out sequence. Because no way was I going to not include the make-out sequence.

Not that much to say about the sequence itself either, unfortunately; it’s almost exactly the same as how I initially wrote it, just with a few minor tweaks. One such tweak was this line:

“Yeah, yeah! I know,” she groused, frowning apologetically—though not too apologetically. “But come on! Don’t tease me like that; I want a long one,” Silver mewled pleadingly.

“—though not too apologetically.” wasn’t originally here, but I added it in to sell Silverstream’s anger was still there, despite the slight guilt she felt at being angry to begin with.

One other line I want to draw attention to is:

He frowned worriedly and pleaded, “Then tell me what I can do that will help.”

Just because I love it so much. Instead of trying to guess what would work or continue making arbitrary suggestions, thinking they’d work, Gallus—after an arbitrary callback to the Smolder subplot—concedes defeat and simply asks Silver what shewould like him to do to help. And while the answer ends in a comically exaggerated make-out scene, it’s still adorable.

Also, I’m 95% certain that particular line was influenced by some relationship advice

Cinema Therapy gave in their Kristoff video.

On the subject of relationship advice, I wish I had known what Love Language was at the beginning of writing T.B.O.L.; I would have done far more with the concept if I had.

As it stands, it’s obvious Silver’s is Physical Touch—If all the make-out scenes weren’t evidence enough, then kindly direct your attention to how Gallus holding her talon was the main spark for her choosing to stay together during the 2^nd Date. Gallus’ is maybe Words of Affirmation…? But yeah. Another missed opportunity, it seems.

But with the make-out scene now over and done with, the time has come to show the ramifications of it. … Or, it would, if the scene weren’t played more for comedy and romantic fluff than anything I seriously intended to result in additional conflict. So while Ocean may have that “expression that managed to convey both overwhelming confusion and absolute terror” nothing truly comes of it.

If anything, the make-out scene dragged on too long, now that I think about it. Still, can you blame me for wanting to make a showcase of the lovebirds simply enjoying each other’s affection, unbogged by plot-mandated drama?

That aside, it’s time for the chapter to end; it really is getting too long. So Silver drags her mother into the ocean’s depths to chat while Gallus returns to the ship to get teased by his future father-in-law. And while I was tempted to have Sky be put off by the make-out scene as well…? I couldn’t bring myself to do that and settled for the teasing.

What I was definitely tempted to change was the divorce issue. I know plenty of people got the impression Sky and Ocean were amicably divorced or separated from “Surf and/or Turf,” but to be honest, I never inferred that myself. I always simply took it that they were indeed still married but were simply living in their respective forms/domains.

So when it came time to finally discuss Sky and Ocean’s relationship here, I was torn. On one hand, I didn’t want to accidentally go against the canon by divorcing them, despite such not being explicitly confirmed. Furthermore, I preferred the idea they did manage to make it work since that could thematically enrich Gallus-Stream by showing Silver’s parents made their different species choices work too—Especially when Gallus’ own griffon-hood concerns were such a problem for him prior.

I suppose I could have left it ambiguous, but really? That would been the cowards way to handle it, am I right?

Ultimately, I went with the divorce angle. Partly because of the overall perception the two aren’t officially together anymore, but mostly for the heartbreak. Admit it—It hurt to read Sky Beak clarifying he and Ocean weren’t together. I know it did because it hurt me to write that, and—not for the first time this story—I knew if what I wrote could incite an emotional reaction from myself then it was good. Thus, I trusted my instincts and kept the divorce in.

It certainly helped when I later realized the divorce did enrich the Gallus-Stream romance. The lovebirds manage to push through and survive all the turmoil they endured, so to know that, of all creatures, Silver’s parents couldn’t…? Yep. Nice thematic parallel there.

Also nice that, in the midst of this discussion, we get more info on what Sky-Flow was like when they were together; you can bet Sky was serious when he said Ocean had no grounds to judge Gallus-Stream for their make-out scene. The fact that line also helped explain why Ocean didn’t freak out over her daughter trying to drag her boyfriend into the water to “play” was merely a bonus.

But, while the Sky/Gallus scene has been fun, it’s just dragging the chapter on even longer. … So let’s drag it out some more by bringing up the almost break-up!

Although, we only do that because it naturally came about when writing the scene. I figured, after Sky Beak’s “Your relationship is so new, so fresh!” spiel, Gallus would prefer being honest about that particular ordeal, rather than keep his beak shut and risk Sky continuing to feel crappy for mentioning the divorce.

But this scene really has gone on for far too long. The chapter should have ended back when Silver and Ocean left and was going to, but the Sky/Gallus scene couldn’t fit with the pacing of next chapter’s intro. Thus, I kept it brief and, after affording Sky a chance to feel the same fury everyone else felt toward Gruff, the two skedaddle to go bond some more off-screen.

Shout-out to Sky for both figuring out he could get Gallus to contain his sweetness by way of going full Guard Captain in his tone and letting Gallus keep the sailor garb for when Silver returned. She did indeed enjoy that nice, little surprise.

And that was but the first half of this arc, and yet it’s still the best chapter of the entire story! Out of all of T.B.O.L., this was the chapter I had the most fun actually writing, as if it weren’t already obvious on the lighter tone and constant overflow of romantic fluff—To say nothing of my constant gushing throughout this discussion.

Sky Beak was definitely the highlight, being the absolute “Best Dad Ever!” he is, but Terramar and his snarky attitude was certainly a treat as well, to say nothing of how amazingly I depicted the hippogriffs as a whole. And though she feels somewhat tacked on toward the end, Skystar too is yet another ray of sunshine to this already jubilant chapter, and we’ve at last begun properly introducing Ocean Flow and the mystery behind her attitude.

Heck! The word count is as gargantuan as it always has been, but with how great the story is, how happy the characters(Mostly) are, and how swift the pacing is, it really doesn’t feel as long as it ultimately is, and I call that a success.

In truth, I think we all needed this vacation from the emotional drama of the story as a whole. I know I certainly did.

If I may get personal here for a moment…?

Midway through writing this chapter I got sick. Really sick. It wasn’t Covid, thankfully, but it completely knocked me out of commission, only worsened when I had a panic attack on top of it.

I had just finished wrapping up the intimidation scene, so I took a break to read, relax, and take some medicine. But well? When you’re already not feeling well and dealing with some pent-up stress, it’s probably not a good idea to read a horror story.

That may sound a little silly that that was what triggered the attack, but…? Yeah. Only got one chapter in before I had to rush for the nearest trashcan, sick to my stomach, barely able to catch my breath, and about ready to scream at the top of my lungs. Didn’t help when I banged my foot right into the wall as I was fleeing from my computer.

About an hour later I managed to feel better enough to actually stand again and stumble my way back to the computer to close out of that particular story and my writing. Another hour and I managed to properly regain control of my breathing. But for the rest of the day, I still had to deal with background stress and chills regardless.

Thank goodness Hilda Season Two had come out a few months prior; I just ended up binging that for the rest of the day, and that was a tremendous help in calming me down.

Unfortunately, after all of this, I couldn’t get back into the mood for writing and ended up losing an entire week’s worth of time to make progress which certainly didn’t help my stress levels. But, as is evident, I managed to get back into the swing of things relatively well enough, finishing the chapter in time despite my fears otherwise.

Sooo…? Yeah. Stress sucks, and panic attacks more so.

On a brighter note, next week we shall be discussing the second half of the Mount Aris arc. Or? More accurately, the first portion of that chapter. Yep, Family, Part Two's discussion ran on long enough to require splitting up for these Blog Posts. In fact, it required being split into three individual parts! So yeah, hope you're all looking forward to that.

Obligatory Google Doc Link.

Comments

[Summer Script]

~ Additional Tidbits ~

— 1) For the line:

“Next stop: Mount Aris!” All Aboard declared as he passed through each of the cars. “Home to the proud hippogriffs of Hippogriffia! And the noble seaponies of Seaquestria!”

I wrote “Proud hippogriffs” first, but even though I obviously needed a good adjective for seaponies too, it took me a while to settle on one. I could have simply had “Proud” serve as an adjective for both, but I eventually went with “Noble” for seaponies in light of the issues surrounding Prince Guy and Silverstream’s own nobility status.

— 2) I don’t know how Silverstream never saw stairs before in the show’s canon—The writers probably just forgot there were stairs leading to Hippogriffia in the movie—but there is a reason why T.B.O.L. Silver forgot about ‘em. She lived underwater for so long, she legitimately forgot they were there. As for why she never encountered them when they returned to the surface? I’ll presume there wasn’t enough time for Silver to explore around enough to find those stairs again, what with immediately coming to Ponyville for the Friendship School only a few weeks or so after they returned to the surface.

So yeah. There’s your explanation. Huh? What do you mean I’m putting too much thought into a completely irrelevant detail that no one in their right mind cares about?

— 3) Something interesting I noticed when researching images of Griffonstone and Hippogriffia was both have an archway marking the entrance into their cities. Thought that was funny and figured Gallus would notice that too, so I had him point it out. Again. Little details. They’re the life and soul of a story.

— 4) Something that inspired Sky Beak’s stunt was a similar scene in ABC’s Castle where the titular character intends to terrify his daughter’s newest boyfriend by dressing up like a serial killer, complete with a fake severed head, and though said daughter puts an immediate stop to it, I remember busting a gut laughing at that scene whenever I watched it. Needless to say, it stuck with me ever since.

— 5) Remember this line:

Gallus blinked, struggling to comprehend how a random hippogriff he didn’t know could so readily care about his well-being. Ultimately, he decided he didn’t need to figure it out and said, “Yes, well? Thank you again. It was… Really nice of you to ask,” he ended, smiling.

I tried having Gallus be even more flabbergasted by Stratus’ concern…? Only to give up halfway through and poke fun at how I didn’t need to go through the trouble and that I could just have Gallus decide he didn’t need to understand it either.

— 6)You might have noticed one of the hippogriffs mentions wanting to send their chicks to Twilight’s school. They originally said “fledglings” as a way to relate hippogriffs and griffons together via them having the same name for children. Ended up stumbling across this image) after finding the one with Silver and Terramar and opted to blatantly rip that series off even more.

— 7) This is the music I listened to while writing the description of Hippogriffia(And the Gallus/Terramar conversation), and it fits surprisingly well.

— 8) Both these lines:

“You and me both. I don’t…do so well in cluttered spaces,” he timidly confessed.

And:

“We were pretty cool, weren’t we?” Gallus bragged, arrogantly rubbing his chest with a talon.

Were meant to once more display Gallus’ growth. The first to show he’s comfortable enough that he can openly admit to his claustrophobia without feeling insecure about it. And the latter to show his canon version’s cockiness and pride returning in more healthier doses.

— 9) Since Twilight participated in one during “Surf and/or Turf,” I was tempted to have her be the reigning screeching champion. Why? Because it’d be funny. Decided against it because as funny as it was, there was no way Twilight—a pony—would be able to out-screech creatures who’ve made an entire sport around the activity.

I then considered having Novo be considered the champion, but I figured that’d be too much hassle to explain—How would they know Gallus could truly out-screech her if she weren’t directly competing against him?—so I settled for having Gallus out-screech Seaspray, congratulating him for the victory regardless.

That said? There’s no way Gallus can truly out-screech Queen Novo. No one can. No one. It’s why she’s the Queen.

— 10) When Silver, Sky, and Gallus all returned home, I had Silver hug Terramar as she was regaling him with what they did; however, I was tempted to not do that. I figured, after spending the hot springtime day roaming all over with her sweetie, she’d be kinda… Ya know. In need of a shower. But I realized I was overthinking things and had her hug Terry regardless, not bothering to address the issue.

— 11)

“Heh-heh. I, uh, guess we hippogriffs are pretty tall.”

“‘Pretty tall’? Not counting her horn, you’re all as tall as Princess Celestia.”

And they are! That’s why I acknowledged it in-universe; I couldn’t resist. But boy do I adore the rest of this particular romantic exchange! I really handled it well.

— 12) For this line:

“Siblings,” she groaned, shaking her head. “So lovable, but so annoying too.”

“You shouldn’t talk about yourself that way, Sis. It ain’t healthy.”

Silver was originally going to say “Brothers,” but I realized Terry’s response wouldn’t make sense then. He obviously knew she was talking about him, regardless of which word she had said, but her saying “Siblings” instead allowed for a degree of ambiguity. If she had said “Brothers,” Terry’s response would have just been indignation, whereas with “Siblings” he could turn the snark right back on her.

— 13)

“Is my sister happy with you?”

“Yes.”

“And are you happy with her?”

“Definitely.”

“And you love each other?”

“Absolutely!”

I spy with my little eye a Gravity Falls reference. Another fun fact: “Yes” and “Definitely” were going to end with exclamation points, but I was still trying be more sparing with how often I used ‘em, so I compromised by having “Absolutely” end with one instead, to hammer in how enthusiastic Gallus was to reaffirm he loved Silverstream.

— 14)

“No worries, dear, I understand. And once again: You’re welcome. Oh? And do please call me ‘Sky,’” he requested. “You’ve more than charmed me enough to warrant it.”

“Absolutely not!” Gallus protested, shaking his head emphatically. “‘Mr. Sky Beak’ is far more respectful,” he asserted adamantly.

“Silverstream, is he determined to make everything he says sound as sweet as possible?” Sky wondered as the group climbed yet another flight of stairs.

“Uh-huh! It’s yet another thing I love about him,” Silver blissfully extolled, happy to see her boyfriend blush in response.

Sky Beak smiled even more upon hearing her words.

Don’t mind me, I’m just letting Gallus continue being the awesome boyfriend he is and having Sky Beak immediately approve of him, contrary to the usual over-protective father tropes—Even going so far as to ask Gallus to call him “Sky” rather than “Sir” or something.

Also, you know full-well the reason for Sky’s word choice of “sweet” there was to tie into Silver’s later “Sweetie” shenanigans. I keep saying it, but I really am not subtle at all.

— 15) I’ve always disliked how I wrote this line:

“Hey, I know I’m a great kisser,” he bragged, smiling when she immediately nodded in agreement.

Mainly the “smiling when she immediately nodded in agreement.” part. It’s a little clunky; I should have merely allowed Silverstream to verbally attest to his great kissability, but alas. Just one of those minor things that bother me and probably no one else.

[Summer Script]

— 16) Remember how Gallus promised there’d be no more fights between him and Silverstream, only hugs, snuggles, and kisses? And just what is her response to Sky asking if they do anything else physical? Oh that’s right!

“We hug, snuggle, and kiss,” Silver answered happily.

— 17) That brief snippet between Sky and Silver over how Trixie is now officially the Caring and Compassionate Guidance Counselor—with Starlight helping sometimes—exists purely to confirm Trixie finally became the Guidance Counselor off-screen. Last chance I had to confirm that, so I did.

— 18) After all the drama I put her through and how sullen she was throughout the story, it was only appropriate that, now that everything had settled down, Silverstream would have a genuinely pleasant dream for once. Something that really suited her, and what better than a random dream about swimming in an ocean of assorted ice creamy goodness?

— 19) Silverstream’s back-to-back “Why!?”s when Terramar told her about the port was directly lifted from how TeamFourStar had Gohan react the exact same way to Krillin “almost” killing Vegeta. Why, you ask? Well, to that I say, “Why not?”

— 20)

“Augh!” Terramar grunted, holding a talon to his forehead dramatically. “And here I thought you went to Equestria to learn the ‘Art of Friendship.’ But no! Instead? You’ve returned and learned only the dreaded ‘Art of the Double Standard,’” he concluded, unable to hide a smirk.

“No. I also learned the ‘Art of Kissing My Sweetie.’”

Every time I remember I wrote this “joke,” I cringe a little. Every time.

— 21) Fun fact about this line:

“I don’t care what his name is,” she whispered venomously. “He’s not my Gallus.”

Silver originally said “He’s not my sweetie” since, at the time, I felt her saying “Gallus” there accidentally gave off rather…unfortunate vibes: That she considered Gallus as an object she possessed.

Needless to say, I got over that issue, realizing it’d feel more impactful to say “my Gallus” instead—Made her seem more protective of and committed to her relationship with him, you know? Plus, you know she’d have no qualms with Gallus calling her “His Silverstream.”

— 22) Gallus’ “Oh Captain, my Captain!” is a reference to a poem whose title I can’t remember and only vaguely recall existing because the show had Spike make a similar joke with the students.

— 23) I hesitated for a while to include this line:

“Even when you could have spent the morning with me?”

Due to it both possibly being too risque—ironic, given what happens later—and feeling too much like Silver guilt-tripping Gallus here. Ultimately decided to stop worrying about it and included the line.

— 24)

Before she could answer, Gallus nonchalantly decreed, “Sorry, sir, but that’s impossible. I absolutely refuse to stop being as kind as I can to everycreature around me, especially you and your daughter.”

As much as I love this line as-is, I still feel like I wrote it too long. I probably could have trimmed down this particular response a tad.

— 25) Regarding this segment:

“Heh-heh, sorry,” she apologized meekly. “I just couldn’t help myself. It’s been so long since I last saw you, so when I saw an opportunity to hug you again…? Well, it’s not like I was gonna pass it up,” Skystar explained, smiling shyly. “I really missed you, you know.”

I didn’t want to retread the same conversation Terramar and Silver had earlier with Skystar here, even though, realistically, she would have been as worried as Terry about her favorite cousin’s letters stopping out of nowhere. As such, I decided not to have Skystar say anything about the subject and instead opted for vagueness here. Yeah, you could brush it off as Skystar being a pounce obsessed oddball. But in the last words she says, you can tell there’s an underlying worry for Silver there too, and we know exactly why that’s the case.

Sadly—or thankfully, rather—I just had Silverstream brush past it and hug Skystar back, bluntly preventing me from milking the letter drama again. I already do that plenty with Ocean later.

— 26) Terramar was gonna call Skystar the pride and joy of Sequestria and Hippogriffia at first; however, I felt that made the line feel too long, so I shortened it to just Seaquestria—on account of the seapony/hippogriff representation balance thing I mentioned earlier—with Sky Beak jokingly correcting him on the matter.

— 27) Originally, this line:

Silverstream merely smiled widely, saying nothing for fear of freaking her father out again.

Did not have that ending “Saying nothing for fear…” part and was instead just the “Silverstream merely smiled widely” part. Upon a re-edit, I opted to add that second half to the line for frankly obvious reasons.

— 28) Skystar wasn’t going to comment on Silver’s drawings of Gallus not doing the real deal justice. Why? Because Silver wasn’t going to have doodled drawings of Gallus on any of her letters. But when re-editing the chapter later, I felt unsatisfied with only Terramar commenting on the letter doodles.

Thus, since I had Skystar already voice her agreement with Silverstream that Gallus was cute, I saw a perfect opportunity to sneak in the doodle part.

— 29) Since I already planned to have Silverstream be in the water when Gallus photographed her, that meant I had to keep her down in the water after being pounced into it the first time; otherwise, I’d need to explain she came back onto the ship, only to get pounced right back off of it later.

Because of this, I opted to make fun of myself by giving Terry this line:

“I was wondering why Silver stayed floating down there in the water,” Terramar said neutrally. “Should have known she was just waiting for another hug.”

— 30) Just wanted to take a second to point out how Skystar calls Ocean her “Auntie” like Silverstream calls Novo hers. A neat touch to show the cousin’s similarities.

[Stellar Shine]

More than the half of the whole story has been covered and only now I am ready to check it all.
And, oh, I will!
Those are going to be hours spent pleasantly.
Thank you once again for the story itself
and, of course, its 'writing of' too!