It took Gallus and Sandbar a while to explain the situation to the couple. At first, Troy and Canvas were put off with the fact that these two minors were planning to get married with Twilight’s blessing. However, after giving them the real reason why they not only understood but they were sympathetic to the young griffon’s plight.
“Wow…” Canvas, wide-eyed and hooves over his muzzle shook his head. “Just… wow…”
“I’ll say,” Troy commented. “I can see another reason to be glad for moving to Equestria.” He patted Sandbar’s back. “Kid, I’m not gonna lie, what you’re doing for your friend here is amazing. If you were our colt, we’d be incredibly proud of your selflessness. Not to mention figuring out a loophole that, to be fair, I don’t we would have come up with.”
“Agreed.” Twilight nodded. “And I’m proud of having them as my students.”
“I can see why.” Canvas said, “I mean, doing this to free an orphan out of a caste system… It almost sounds something out of a romantic novel.”
The older griffon shrugged. “I dunno, I can easily see this as a musical. That, or an opera.”
“Let me guess, you wanna take up the starring role?” His husband smirked.
“Of course not!” Troy laughed, “I’d look terrible being died blue. Eh, no offense.”
“None taken.” Gallus deadpanned. “So yeah… After I do the coming of age ritual, we get a divorce, I can finally move out of Griffonstone to Equestria and I can finally get on with my life.”
Troy and Canvas gave one another a look. It was the knowing kind like seeing blueprints of a bridge that was bound to collapse or a recipe that was bound to lead to disaster. Within that look, it also conveyed the question of: ‘Do you wanna tell him or should I?’ After a beat, Troy shook his head.
“Regardless,” the gray griffon said turning to Sandbar, “you kid, have earned my undying respect. So, I’ll tell you what, if you at some point feel like you wanna talk to me about something, I’ll be willing to listen.”
“Actually,” Canvas stood up from his seat, “Gallus, would you mind if I talked to you for a minute?”
The younger griffon looked around the table, each of them sharing the same confused look as he does. “I guess so?” Gallus got up to follow the stallion out into his studio. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Huh?” Canvas blinked. “Oh, no. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just wanna talk is all.”
“About what?”
“Well…” The pony went over to one of the tables, picking up a brush in his hoof. “I know none of this is of any of my business, but if you don’t mind, can I ask you a very personal question?”
Gallus shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
“Do you…” He paused for long while, his mind trying to think of the right words to say without tapdancing on a nerve that might be too sensitive. “Do you remember… what your family was like?”
The young griffon didn’t respond. He looked away out a window with eyes staring out at the frozen landscape. “Why do you want to know?”
“Sorry.”
“No. I mean… Why are you asking?”
Canvas sat down on his haunches, looking at the brush in his hoof. “I don’t know… Empathy I guess?”
This got Gallus’s attention. “I’m guessing you lost your family too?”
“More or less…”
The young griffon nodded. “To answer your question, yeah, I remember them. Mom especially. She and dad were the only decent griffs in Griffonstone. Growing up, they cared about me more than bits – and that’s saying something, ya know. In a place where ‘kingdom’ is a joke, where next to nothing grows, and Griffons would do pretty much anything for an extra coin, my folks were… different. Before they died, I knew what happiness was. That we weren’t ashamed of being poor, just as long as we have each other, what else mattered. But when they were gone…” He paused, letting the whispers of the wind outside fill in the silence. “For a long time, I thought that happiness was dead when they didn’t wake up.”
Canvas went over, wrapping a foreleg around him. “I’m sorry.”
He snorted, waving a dismissive claw. “You had nothing to do with it.”
“At least your memories of them were happy I take it.”
This perked up the blue griffon’s ears. “Well yeah… aren’t yours?”
He shook his head. “Not really… Unlike you, my dad wasn’t what you call a… happy stallion. He was a drunk and a brutal rat bastard – and that’s me being too nice!”
“Oh…” Gallus rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s rough dude.”
“I haven’t seen him in years, and frankly, I’d like it to keep it that way. He was a poisons influence on my life, and my life has improved without him.”
“Okay, I can see that. But is that the reason why you wanna talk to me?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I wanna ask, that after you’re able to move, what exactly are you going to do?”
Gallus blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, that once you become an adult and are able to move to Equestria, where are you going to go? What will you do?”
“Well… still go to Twilight’s school, I guess.”
“Yeah, but then what? Where are you going to live? What job are you going to have? I know that I shouldn’t be the one telling you how to do, but have you actually thought of it?”
“I…” Gallus pulled away. “I would have figured something out?”
“That’s what concerns me. When you’re taking your first steps towards independence, you have to think of these things through. Being free is fine, but everyone, including you, needs to figure out what you’re gonna do with that freedom. I suggest that you should figure out what exactly you want, and why.”
The young griffon folded his arms. “Anything else you wanna lecture me about?”
“Nah.” Canvas shook his head. “I just wanna let you know that when the time comes that you get married, you can always turn to us for guidance. Troy and I have been down this road before and we have some experience. That if you need a friend, we’re here to listen.”
Gallus said that he would think about that.
After Canvas had asked Gallus to have a word with him, Twilight, Sandbar and Troy were left alone in the kitchen. The older griffon was washing up his plate when he asked, “So when’s the big day?”
“After the first day of spring.” Sandbar told him. “Truthfully, I was hoping that we would get it done sooner but my parents insisted that if it’s gonna happen, they need time to prepare. Ya know, send out invitations and all that.”
“In that case, I hope things go along smoothly. Trust me, I know that there’s a lot of stuff that can go wrong before you can reach the altar, so to speak.”
“You got that right.” Twilight agreed. “I should know, I was the one that officiated your guys' wedding. But with their case, however, I think it will go a good deal smoothly.”
Troy raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything as he picked up a cloth to dray his plate.
“To be honest Professor,” Sandbar said, “I’m hoping that my parents don’t go completely overboard with the wedding. Like I get how excited they are for us, but at the same time, I hope they do keep in mind that we’re still… ya know, minors. It probably would be really awkward if they booked someplace to spend our uh… honeymoon.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t,” Twilight assured him. “Your parents, as far as I can tell, maybe open to a lot of things, but do have standards.”
“Mind if I ask something?” Troy inquired. “What does your friend think about this whole arrangement thing?”
Sandbar thought about it for a moment, picking up his glass of orange juice to stare at its wonky reflection. “Gallus told me that I’m pretty much his ticket way out. This morning he said that he’s lucky to have me as a friend as no one has ever done anything like what I’m doing. At the same time, he told me that he feels that he’s more than grateful for this… along with something else.”
This caught the griffon’s attention. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Not entirely sure. It’s something that even he doesn’t know how to describe it. But… I have my thoughts.”
Troy approached the young stallion, kneeling down to his eye-level. “Are you saying that your friend might have feelings for you?”
“I don’t exactly know. I mean, he doesn’t know what orientation he is because of being isolated and all that. But lately, I’ve been thinking of what if he does then… then what?”
“Can’t say.” The grey griffon pointed a claw at him. “What do you feel?” Sandbar went quiet for a long minute. Troy sighed and told him, “Look kid, I actually get it that this stuff is something you’ll have to figure out on your own. I should know, it took me quite a while to figure things out myself. All I can offer to say to you at this point is to follow your own happiness. If you can’t see yourself being more than just a friend to him, that’s fine. If you think that you can, great. But if you do develop something for him but are completely lost of what to do, just talk to me. Got it?”
Sandbar told him that he understood.
Soon enough, Gallus and Canvas returned from the studio, with the young griffon saying that he and his friend should get going to picking up that jar of apple jam. Once the two of them left, Troy and Canvas exchanged a knowing look.
“Did you tell him?” Troy asked.
“Nah,” his husband shook his head, “they’ll figure out sooner or later. Now then Twilight, let me show you what I got for the charity auction.”
Even after getting that jar from Professor Applejack, Gallus’s mind kept returning to the barn next door. In his claw, he carried the gelatinous sustenance back towards the school with Sandbar next to him. Once again, he noticed that they both have fallen into silence again on the way back from the other side of town.
“Something wrong?”
“Huh?” The question came about so unexpectedly that Gallus had to stop for a moment to process what was being asked of him. Sandbar repeated his question to him. “Oh, nothing really. That Canvas guy just got me thinking is all.”
“Yeah?” Sandbar tilted his head. “What about?”
He shrugged. “Something along the lines of what to do with my life. I mean, once I officially move here and graduate from the school.”
“That makes sense.” His friend nodded. “So, what do you want to do?”
“…. No idea.”
Sandbar blinked. “You haven’t thought about it?”
“Well… up until now I had no future to look forward to. But with you marrying me to have me turn into an adult… suddenly, all sorts of possibilities are opening up that I’ve never considered before but have no clue where to start.”
“Okay…” The two of them continue onward towards the school, with the young stallion humming in thought. “What do you like to do?”
Gallus thought about this for several minutes. “I dunno… I like stories, I guess. Especially if it’s a good one. I like to read interesting stories that aren’t confusing or don’t put me to sleep as our textbooks do. And I don’t want to read the kind of books that the author shows off their use of big, fancy, unpronounceable words than getting the point across. Sadly, I haven’t read many stories that are like that.”
A thought came to the pony. “Then why not write?”
“Huh?”
“Then why not become a writer?”
Gallus raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know dude, I already have trouble coming up with essays in class.”
“No, I mean, why not do some creative writing? Ya know, write the kind of stories that you wanted to read? If there aren’t that many books that you enjoy, who’s to say that you can’t just pick up a pen or a typewriter and make up your own.”
“But how would that get me a job?”
“You could become an author, or a reporter, a playwright, or maybe write for movies. If you practice long enough to develop that skill and get your stuff published, I’d bet that you’d get ponies to pay you to read your work.”
“And what’s the success rate for authors in Equestria.”
“Hey, I’m saying that it’s a start.”
When they reached the gates of the school to walk down its warm hallways, a thought came to Gallus’s mind. “Ya know, apart of doing some homework, I got nothing to do for the rest of the day. So, you think that you could hang out for a bit? Maybe go do something like bowling or a movie after we get done.”
Sandbar smiled. “Yeah, I would like that.”