//------------------------------//
// Never Let Go 
// Story: Shadows Swarmed Below 
// by Jay Bear v2 
//------------------------------//

5. 
The edge of the charybdis’s den rises past me. I sink effortlessly. On the surface I could lie on my back and keep my beak above water, but the buoyancy is different down here. Drag on my wings slows me, so I tuck them in to drop faster.
Cold shocks my skin. I hadn’t prepared for that. Summer is supposed to make seawater mild, but this pit feels like a column of freshly melted glaciers. I can’t hug myself for warmth because the necklace is in my talon and I don’t know how close it can get to my chest before it turns me back into a squid.
My ears clog from the pressure, so I plug my nostrils with my free talon and puff air into my sinuses to reopen them. Almost as soon as I finish, they clog again. I try to force them open a second time, but they stay shut no matter how hard I blow. I give up. The pinching hurts, but Grampa Gruff had done worse.
The bottom of the den wallops me when I land, shooting a jolt from my paws to my neck. Maybe I held myself too stiffly on the way down, or maybe I fell faster than I thought. I tap the ground with my paws. Hard, jagged rocks, though not sturdy. One plank wobbles when I put my weight on it, and the other rocks shift around easily. 
I can’t see anything. Looking around and blinking—it’s nice to have eyelids again—doesn’t change my view one bit. Thin trails of sparks glitter above me, but otherwise I’m surrounded by pitch blackness.
If those ghosts show up, they better glow.
For a second, I cram down every ounce of my skepticism into a tiny hole. Maybe they won’t glow, but they could reach out and touch me. My skin tingles with anticipation.
What if ghosts were real? What if these ghosts were real? Two creatures so drawn together they refused to leave each other even when certain death came for them. Bound so closely that sharing a life together wasn’t enough, they had to share an eternity as spirits linked to this place. Fueled by something so fierce it scared away an invincible monster. 
A world with monsters lurking around every corner isn’t fair. Big or small, strong or wily, teeth bared or hiding under Cozy Glow’s ice blue curls, and those are just the ones you see. What I need are ghosts to drive away all of them.
But I won’t get them. Silverstream told us a story some hippogriff made up long ago. None of it was real. Except the charybdis.
I grasp the necklace in my talon. I’m not running out of breath yet, but staring into impenetrable murk is going to get boring. Then again, if I swim back up to the others after a minute they’ll probably think I got scared. Maybe I should come up with another reason to quit early.
Apologizing to everyone, for example. I called Yona’s yak ghosts lame, didn’t I? I also crapped all over Ocellus for being smart and talked about Smolder’s dainty little princess moment.  Plus I made fun of Silverstream’s brother’s friend. That was messed up.
It’s not all my fault. I’ve been on edge since I got the first whiff of saltwater. I’ll be chill tomorrow.
I still need to apologize to them. They’ll forgive me. What I said wasn’t enough to end our friendships.
It wasn’t enough this time. Someday you’ll piss them off for good.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force the voice out of my head, but I get distracted: it’s darker now that my eyes are closed.
Opening my eyelids reveals the faintest patterns of midnight blues and blacks materializing as I slowly acclimate to the nearly lightless pit. Vague outlines of rocky shelves come together, while the floor remains too chaotic to make sense of. I look up.
Black-tipped tentacles are sliding towards me.
I swipe at them, miss—I swung too far, they’re inches away—and swipe again with my other talon. Contact, and they’re flimsy. I clamp down and rip them off—
And feel a stabbing pain in my scalp, like when Grampa Gruff used to try to tear off my ears. I let go. The pain eases. There weren’t any tentacles, I’d grabbed my crest. It didn’t look anything like my feathers, though. Where’d my yellow tips go?
Then I see my talons are solid black.
They open wide and drift to my face. They should be bright orange-yellow. I can see the blue in my arm feathers, albeit dimly, but I can’t make sense of my colorless talons. There’s something I’m forgetting… 
I remember after a second: Ocellus said everything should look blue and black down here. Something about how deep water absorbs all the colors like red and green. My talons were orange-yellow, so that must be why they look black now. Probably the same thing happened to the yellow in my crest. I pause to marvel at them, flipping them palm up, and then palm down.
A dull ache starts in my chest. It’s not enough that I have to put the necklace on right away—
Wait.
No.
Dumbass! Where’s your necklace?
It’d been in one of my talons. Why don’t I remember which one? They both clench, trying to feel for the thread, but it’s gone. I must have thrown it accidentally.
You mean you threw it away when you got scared by your own crest.
I can’t leave the necklace down here. How much harder is making up going to be if I also have to beg for help finding it? I kneel down and scrabble through the jagged pebbles on the ground. My eyes keep adjusting, but it’s never enough to look around.
Loose piles scatter under my talons. I snatch at the pebbles, feeling each one and tossing it aside when it’s unfamiliar. Little clicks go off as each lands. Which way did I toss the necklace? Even if I knew, could I find feel my way to anything useful? I can’t tell which way I’m pointed now.
Jitters pulse down my arms and into the rocks. Black puffs of silt rise and hover. It gets so cloudy with silt that even the shapes I saw earlier disappear. My heart flutters. I feel like puking.
I bet those necklaces cost a fortune.
The silt is floating down and my eyes have acclimated more, but I’m out of time. I’ve screwed up again. All I can do is hope Silverstream will forgive me for losing her necklace, after they all forgive me for being a massive jerk today.
They probably went back to camp already. They got so tired of your crap they’ll tell you to fly home tonight.
Could this smartass voice just shut up for once?
Out of frustration, I kick at one of the boulders near me. My paw throbs on impact, but I deserve that. I still regret it.
Before I can chew myself out for it any more, rumbles shake the water. A clattering sound echoes through the pit. Something lands on my other leg, hard. My paw flashes pure fire. I try to paddle up with my arms only, but each move sends more agony through my lower body.
The silt keeps falling and my eyes keep adjusting. Now I can see what’s holding me down: a massive stone wedge has pinned my leg to the floor.

———

I didn’t regret a second of roosting with Sandbar.
Really.
I thought dancing meant a big group hopping around, like the six of us did in that play with Princess Celestia, but swing dancing was totally different. We had to stand on our hindlegs and hold each other up. Then, a band would start playing music, and we’d push each other around the floor to the beat. Swing dancing has all these different moves, and no one told us which ones to do, so I had to pick and get Sandbar to follow. Like he said, I could swing him away whenever I wanted, but there’s also a lot of moves about bringing your partner in closer. The more we danced, the more I liked those pull-him-closer moves.
Also, Sandbar started surfing every few weeks. We’d take these long train rides out to the coast on a Saturday morning, and he’d spend the day riding his dusty blue surfboard. I flew around him and teased him since he stuck to waves that didn’t rise above his haunches. I bet he’d have been incredible on one of those monster waves. Staying in a hotel wasn’t an option, so we’d take midnight trains back to Ponyville and fall asleep leaning against each other. The smell of saltwater still makes me think of those trips.
Then there was Cozy Glow’s whole plan. I don’t want to talk about that except to say that our teachers threw a huge party for the six of us in the common room.
Professor Pinkie Pie went all out with it. Balloons coated the ceiling, a smorgasbord of treats and punch were spread out, and a DJ blasted tunes. Silverstream loved it and Yona went nuts of course, but Smolder, Ocellus, and Sandbar also had fun. When she calmed down a little, Silverstream told us about her idea for a summer trip with just the six of us. I suppose that turned into our expedition to Arbor Isle.
The party spirit eluded me all night. I couldn’t figure out why. Sure, all the excitement of the past few days had worn me out, and the approach of finals week filled me with dread, but there was something more than that. For a long time, I coasted around the edges of the room.
Sandbar caught my eye from across the room. We hadn’t spoken much since Cozy Glow had been captured. He looked lost for a moment, but then his adorable smile showed up. I expected him to charge towards me, but instead he trotted to the DJ.
Which was when Grampa Gruff’s voice clued me in to was bothering me.
Remember last time you were in here?
Memories of purple goo splattered across Hearth’s Warming decorations flooded to mind. I hadn’t realized I’d been avoiding the place, but right then I almost felt trapped in that enormous room. I’d clung to the walls the whole night, which made it easy to slide out the door without anyone noticing. Swing dancing music began to play as I walked down the hallway.
Most of the rest of the school was closed off, so I wound up in my dorm room. Posters of airshows I’d been to hung from each wall. Textbooks towered from one corner. A rug I’d bought on the Las Pegasus trip with Sandbar lay on the floor, one corner already torn off. A painted wooden crab we’d gotten in Baltimare, which had lost a leg when he showed it to Yona, leaned against my desk’s backboard. Photos dangled from tacks pinning them to a cork board. 
My talons gravitated to the photos. I brushed aside the snapshots of us hamming it up for the camera and dug to the one picture I’d kept from our big Hearth’s Warming dinner. The six of us were sitting around a table before we’d been served. Folded napkins, pristine plates, and orderly silverware lay in front of each of our smiling faces. I looked relieved in the photo, maybe a little timid, but that didn’t bother me as much as the trickle of purple goo hiding on the edge of the frame. Trying to wipe the smudge out of the photo didn’t do any good.
Tapping came from the door. “Gallus?”
The sound of his voice still made me breathe easy back then.
I opened the door. He stood at the threshold, a shadow against the illuminated hallway, his only movements a tremor in his fetlocks.
“I want to apologize,” he said.
“Why?” I wrapped an arm around him and led him inside. The door closed, and his rump dropped to the stone floor.
“Everything I said to Chancellor Neighsay. I didn’t mean any of it—”
“Dude, I know. You were just making him think you were on his side.” I sat across from Sandbar and ran my claws through his mane, teasing the ends of his messy strands.
“Did you know then?”
My talon slipped out of his hair. The truth was, I’d sort of believed him then. Even after all the time we’d spent together, I really could believe that he’d turn on us. That he’d leave me in a heartbeat.
Because that would have been the smart thing to do.
“I wasn’t sure what to believe,” I said.
He must have known what I really meant because he folded into me. He fit so perfectly into the curves of my body. I scooted back to give him room on the rug and clutched him to me, even though it was too hot to be that close. I didn’t care. He’d been so brave to rescue us. He didn’t deserve these doubts, so I’d hold him close until every one of them went away. For a long time, we laid in silence.
Then he asked, “Have you ever told anyone you love them?”
Of course I hadn’t. Griffons don’t say that kind of thing without drowning in sarcasm.
“No,” I said.
He tensed.
No pony asks a question like that because they want to hear about the words griffons don’t say. I remembered him trotting away with Chancellor Neighsay, saying he didn’t want anything to do with creatures like me. And I remembered the fear that he was never coming back.
Panic seized me. It didn’t matter what I felt. If I hurt him, he’d leave me forever.
Remember when I said I didn’t regret a second of roosting with Sandbar? That was a lie. This is the part I regret.
I leaned into his ear and whispered, “But I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he whispered back.