Silverstream and her friends had been meeting at the Ponyville Café every Saturday since school ended. This wasn’t the only day they met—they also got together for random mini-meets on random weekdays in random places throughout Equestria—but the Saturday lunch was sacred. None of them had missed it since the day of their last exam, when Ocellus and Silverstream celebrated making the honor roll, Yona and Sandbar celebrated passing their exams despite minimal effort, and Smolder and Gallus celebrated Twilight Sparkle’s reluctance to hold summer school.
Not that Gallus needed it, of course, with the grades he was pulling in. But Silverstream let him keep his success to himself—a special secret just the two of them shared.
Silverstream, as always, arrived at the Ponyville Café first. She got a kick out of seeing her friends come in the door. Would they enter one-by-one? In pairs? A group of three?
The waiter greeted her at the door, bowed dramatically, and gestured to the usual round table, six waters already in place.
“Complimentary breadsticks?” the waiter said, deadpan. “And no actual meals?”
“Yes, please!” cheered Silverstream.
“Hm.”
It was a two-by-two kind of day. Smolder and Sandbar were first through the chiming door, both of them panting and walking unevenly. They bumped a hoof and a claw, slouched into their chairs and gulped down their waters before saying hello.
“Sorry we’re late,” Smolder said, wiping her mouth. “Training ran a little long.” Sandbar nodded in agreement as he drank with both hooves.
“Think you’ll be ready for the Running of the Leaves?” Silverstream asked, proud of herself for remembering what her friends were up to.
“I know I will be.” Smolder paid Sandbar a snarky look. “This guy’ll be fine so long as he doesn’t forget his water bottle on race day.”
Sandbar finished his drink, gasping for air. He cleared his throat, collected himself, and stared longingly at the other waters on the table. Silverstream slid hers in front of him and gave him a pat on the back.
“Thank you,” said Sandbar.
Silverstream considered Sandbar and Smolder for a moment—not as friends, but as candidates. Were they in need of a good deed? Possibly. Maybe they would appreciate a cheerleader the next time they trained. She was excellent at cheering, and her leading skills were nothing to scoff at, either. But no, that felt uninspired. Small potatoes. She decided to keep looking.
The door chimed again, and in stepped two Yonas. They caught everycreature’s attention—not because they were clones of each other, but because they both wore their hair in short ponytails, instead of the usual braided hair-loops.
They stomped their way to the table and sat down side-by-side, frowning at the looks they were getting.
“Are we supposed to guess which one is the real Yona?” Sandbar asked.
“What?” one of the Yonas said, but with the voice of Ocellus. “Oh!”
Ocellus flashed back into her regular form. “Sorry,” she said. Having just been three times her size, she looked even smaller than usual. “Yona wanted to know how her hair looked.”
“No mirrors in Yakyakistan,” Yona explained. “Yaks smash them by accident.”
Everycreature raised an eyebrow at her.
“…Yaks smash them on purpose.”
Silverstream giggled, along with Ocellus and Smolder. Sandbar, meanwhile, looked utterly serious.
“Yona,” he said, like a warning. “The ponytail was first worn by Saddle Arabian horses as a way to disparage ponies, whom they considered to be second-class citizens.”
The table hushed. The friends were mortified, but none more than Yona.
Sandbar elbowed her furry shoulder.
“I’m messing with you,” he said.
Everycreature laughed, but none more than Yona, and any leftover tension in the room evaporated. The breadsticks arrived, and the stories sprang forth, overlapping each other and battling for the attention of the table, like kids fighting for possession of a conch shell.
Silverstream listened as best she could, but she couldn’t help feeling distracted. She loved chatting with a group of friends, two friends, or even just one friend, but when it was every friend except one, she couldn’t relax.
“Where’s Gallus?” she finally asked, interrupting Smolder’s retelling of her greatest ever belch.
Ocellus looked relieved. “He went to Griffonstone this week,” she said. “He usually flies back. He says it’s cheaper than the train.”
“Good exercise, too,” Smolder said. “So anyways, there I was—”
“What does he do there?”
The question slipped out of Silverstream against her will. Had she even thought those words? Or had they just appeared on her tongue and fallen out?
Sandbar replied, “Probably visiting his…” He scratched his chin. “Huh.”
Smolder clapped her claws together. “Guys. This conversation’s in a weird place. Can we relax? He’ll be here soon.”
“Yona agrees with gassy dragon.”
The discussion changed again, veering back on course. Silverstream quietly munched on a garlicky breadstick, thinking.
She tried to picture Gallus back home among the other griffons, laughing, snacking on nachos, all of them patting each other on the back. But she couldn’t see it. How long had it been since he confessed to growing up without a family? Over half a year now, at least. And yet he was still going back to Griffonstone, that miserable place, to that curmudgeonly Grandpa Gruff, to the bickering and the rough edges and the hardships of being a griffon.
She came back to the room. She was miles behind the conversation now, but she spoke like she was miles ahead.
“Hey, guys?”
Her friends went quiet, looked at her.
“Is Gallus… okay?”
Her friends looked at each other, and then back to her.
“Like, have any of you asked him?”
Nocreature seemed to be able to come up with an answer. Luckily, they were saved by the door chime.
“Yo.”
Gallus.
With a lazy walk and a sigh, he came around to his side of the table, stretched out his wings and plopped into the last empty chair, right next to Silverstream. He eyed his water but didn’t take a drink. He looked the same as he always did—poor-postured, blue feathers a little brown with dirt—but one part of him was decidedly different. His eyes were swollen. Bleary.
“Everything alright, dude?” Smolder asked.
Gallus frowned. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”
Yona gave Ocellus a nudge. She transformed into the griffon, red eyes and all, and struggled to maintain eye contact.
“Huh.” Gallus studied the face across the table. “I look like crap.” He threw on a big smile and leaned back in his chair. “So, I flew through too many clouds. Big deal.”
Silverstream held a strong gaze on him. She placed a talon on his shoulder.
Gallus screwed up his beak. He picked up her talon and placed it back on the table, patting it twice.
Sandbar cut in. “How was… Griffonstone?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Gallus’s posture suddenly improved. “Hey, I’ve got a skill-testing question for you guys.”
He placed his talons together in front of his beak. Then he moved them forward like a karate chop.
He asked, “Are the Wonderbolts cool?”
The party made a few noncommittal noises. Mostly grunts and winces, but a few replies started to form.
Smolder: “I’ve never seen ‘em.”
Ocellus: “Me neither.”
Yona: “No shows in Yakyakistan.”
Sandbar: “I have seen them a thousand times.”
The table looked to Sandbar for guidance. An expert’s opinion.
He shrugged. “They’re okay.”
Silverstream noticed Gallus’s eyes were back to normal now, big and blue and white. Something clicked in her brain, and she gasped. “Why do you ask?” she said.
“Yeah,” Smolder added. “Did a flyer smack you in the face on the way here or something?”
Gallus snorted. “Nah. I just thought it was one of those things, you know, that everycreature should see at least once.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s a show tonight, and—”
Silverstream leapt into the air, threw up a fist and exclaimed, “OHMIGOSH YES! We should all go!”
“Did you buy tickets?” Ocellus asked.
Gallus blinked. “It costs money?”
Ocellus smiled at him. “Come on, Gallus. The Wonderbolts haven’t been subsidized by Canterlot ever since they stopped acting as a military outfit.”
Everycreature stared at her. Silverstream landed back in her seat. Sandbar coughed.
“Don’t give me that look,” Ocellus said. “It was in Professor Rainbow Dash’s lectures.”
Silverstream chewed on a talon. She didn’t have the money for six Wonderbolts tickets, let alone one, and Gallus had just flown across Equestria to avoid buying a train ticket. If there was any hope, it would have to come from the other four.
“Can we buy some?” she asked the table, trying not to sound too panicked.
The party murmured, muttered, looked away and sighed. Silverstream had heard these sounds a lot this summer. She called it the chorus of broke college students.
Sandbar cleared his throat. “They’ll be sold out tonight anyways,” he said. “Last show until the fall, too.”
Gallus’s posture faltered. “Oh,” he said, prodding his water glass. “Bummer.”
Slowly, but not surely, the conversation changed again. Silverstream couldn’t help noticing Gallus struggle to pick his chin up and join in. Didn’t he have any stories from Griffonstone? Maybe he did. They just weren’t any fun.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, so only he could hear.
“What? Yeah, I’m…” He wiped his eyes and put on a smile. “Just tired.”
“Because if you ever want to talk…”
Gallus darkened. “Drop it,” he warned. There was a hint of a tremble in his voice—barely noticeable, but still strong enough to break Silverstream’s heart. In an instant, though, her heart mended. It grew, or at least it felt that way, and it raced with excitement.
She’d found her candidate.
She perked up, stood from her chair, and grinned.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” Gallus asked.
“I gotta go!” she yelled at his face, and before he could respond, she sped out the door.