The elements of harmony, our professors, what’s with them? I get all the friendship stuff, but why are they like they are? What sort of pony becomes a princess of friendship? Who makes a whole school just to teach others friendship? Maybe ponies are special. They had to bring friendship to the rest of us, after all. I mean, their other princesses raise the sun and moon. There must be something with ponies. Can griffons have that same thing in them? Friendship is in my nature, sure. I got that part, but my professors are way beyond friendship. Something... drives them, and I don’t think I have that.
“Say, what do griffons like to eat?” said the raspy voice of a green teen pony. The griffon by the window sprang awake, ripped from his thoughts back into the real world. The cold blue room he was in blended with his feathers. The sunlight was the only thing that washed the blue ocean of the room with warmth. Sandbar leaned over the banister, standing on the stairs that opened into his bedroom. His hoof gently tapped the wood as he waited for Gallus’ mind to return from its daydream.
“Hm? What?” Gallus said, turning away from the sunlight. He dragged a talon over his face as if to wipe away his thoughts.
“See, my mom wanted me to ask you what griffons like. Ya know she’s never cooked for one before, so she really wants you to like her cooking. Well, she didn’t really want to ask, but I’m asking for her anyway.”
“Oh, right, yeah. Uh, we like apples, I guess. We do fruits and vegetables. No flowers. I’ve seen those clover sandwiches and I don’t know how you do it. Flowers aren't food,” he said with a dry grin.
“We’ve got the whole summer. Don’t be too sure you won’t come around about flowers,” Sandbar’s voice descended down the stairs.
“Doubt it.” Gallus took another look around the room. He’d seen Sandbar’s dorm room before, but they were all uniform, and Sandbar barely did a thing to change his. His actual room seemed so different. The dressers, the bed sheets, the walls, all various shades of blue aligned in such a way that almost looked like they waved back and forth. It barely felt like being in a room. If his feet weren’t planted to the floor, he swore he’d start floating. In the left corner laid Gallus’ sleeping bag together with a small arrangement of stuff he owned: school supplies, dice, and a pack of playing cards. Looking at how little he actually owned disgusted him. Turning his head towards the other corner of the wall drew his attention to a bookshelf. Writings on aquatic life, school subjects, and heroes of Equestria. That last subject had plenty of books on their professors. He glanced at them. Pondered them. Stared at them. His talon hung just on the cusp of grabbing them.
And then he decided that he really wasn’t in the mood to read. If a book was going to give him answers, he might as well wait till classes start again. Why waste summer reading? Why waste summer on questions you go to school for? He turned his attention to the one other living thing in the room: a turtle laid around in his tank. Mr Bumbles. Gallus leaned in close, eyeing down the turtle.
“Soooo, you’re Sandbar’s special talent, huh?” Mr. Bumbles backs away seeing nothing but the largest bird of prey he’s ever witnessed. “What’s wrong? What, you don’t like me or something? We just met.” The tapping of his claw rang echoes through the glass. A fierce and terrifying warning. Mr. Bumbles’ head sucked within his shell so fast he sank himself into the sand of his tank.
“Oh. So that's how it is.” He grumbled at the turtle before returning to the window. He let out a yawn and considered just napping till food was ready. His eyes glazed over as he stared at the horizon, laziness coming over him as his thoughts began to drift. A flash of blue light burst behind the mountains. The light fizzled as quickly as it came. “What the budgie was that?!”
Gallus hustled to the first floor into the kitchen where Sandbar and his mother were working together preparing lunch.
“Oh, Gallus great, did you try the sleeping bag I got you?” Sandbar was already a pretty mellow pony, but his parents seemed too chilled out. It was like her words dragged from her tongue.
“Nah, I just built a nest in your son’s room instead.”
She stared at Gallus at for a moment in silence. The two boys started to snicker and quickly turn to full blown laughter. A half-hearted chuckle forces its way out of the mare’s throat. “Riiight. Well, I hope you like fried apples.”
“Fried food is super unhealthy for you,” Sandbar said, “and you really shouldn’t eat it, but I feel pretty confident you’re a fried kind of guy.”
Gallus glanced at the strange grease trap with a look of utter befuddlement. “I don’t know what frying is, but thanks. I kinda need to borrow Sandbar though.”
“I was just peeling apples anyway. What’s up?”
Gallus clutched Sandbar’s hoof and pulled him out the backdoor. “We’ll be back for dinner, Mrs. High Tide” He shouted as the door slammed behind them. He gripped Sandbar’s other hoof and ascended into the air. “We’ve gotta check something out. I saw something at the mountains at the edge of town.”
“An adventure already? It’s only the first week of summer!”
“Then we’ve got a pretty awesome summer ahead of us!” They soared through the air. Sandbar waved to anypony he recognized below while ponies on the ground stared in awe. Despite being in Ponyville for a whole school year, being the only griffon most of these ponies ever see regularly still made Gallus something of a spectacle. It wasn’t something he was too sure if he liked. He did his best to be polite regardless, and cautiously waved a wing at gawking ponies close enough the catch the gesture. Along the journey to the edge of Ponyville, they flew by Sweet Apple Acres. Gallus could spot Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash together. They seemed to be talking about something. Rainbow’s forelegs and wings went all over the place like she wasy trying to convey some grand story. They became little more then specs before Gallus had long to think about it.
They touched ground on a cliff-side west of Ponyville’s outskirts. Gallus set Sandbar down before landing into a stretch. The mountain side was dry but still sustained grass and dirt instead of just rock. Not a pony in sight for a mile, besides the distant specks in the sky that could be birds just as easily as they could be pegasi. A spider web of jagged crevices split dirt beneath them. The weaving of cracks reached all the way from the cliff’s edge to the steep mountain side. At their origin, blue rays of light shined through the cracks like rays of sun in the forest. The glow was limited to the center of the cracks, like a beacon marking a sacred treasure.
“Whoa! You saw that tiny glow all the way from my house? I gotta hand it to you, Gallus. Your eyesight sure is something”
“Ugh!” Gallus moaned, “No, I didn’t see this! There was a whole pillar of light like FWOOSH!” he said, raising his forelegs in his best efforts to mimic it. “And then it was gone like ffshh. There one moment, gone the next. And now whatever it is, is under the dirt, I guess. So, let’s dig it up.”
Sandbar put a hoof to his chin. He squinted at the cracks and their eerie glow. The cracks had on odd look to them, as if the ground beneath was hollow. It was as if something caused a cave in. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to mess with something that makes a huge flash like that? I think those are usually associated with something we don’t want to mess with.”
The mystic eyes of a griffon could see much more. The magic rising from the cracks like heat off a grill. Tendrils of magic that danced in the air and faded away. The flashing deep in side the cracks. All the simple eyes of a pony could see is a mere glow. For all the lights, weaves, and movements of magic he could see his knowledge was limited, but he figured this much energy meant something. Namely sweet enchanted treasure.
“It’s fiiine. Look, there's a handful of possibilities here. A: We get superpowers that’ll be great till they lead to our inevitable downfall. B: We get a cool ancient artifact and we can be kings before our inevitable downfall. C: We discover something incredible and we become famous then the fame gets to our heads causing our inevitable downfalls. Or D: It’s just a bunch of really shiny gems and we can sell them to Rarity or something.”
“Why do so many of those end in our inevitable downfall? Like, that’s three out of four. I don’t like those odds.”
Gallus shrugged. “That’s just how most griffon stories end. Now are you gonna help dig me this up so we can live like kings together until our demise or not?”
“I’ll do it, but only because I can’t let you have a downfall on your own,” Sandbar said, giving Gallus a light shoulder jab. “Though I’d rather we don’t fall down at all.”
“If anyone will prevent the tragic end caused by my own greed, it’d probably be you, but you don’t get an epic legend about you without a tragic end. So don’t try too hard to stop it. Now come on, let’s dig this up before some other creature gets here. That light was practically a flare for every treasure hunter in Equestria.” Just as Gallus was about to strike the earth with his talons, a flash of magenta light flared in his peripheral vision. He growled and snapped towards the light. With a sharp talon pointed out, he shouted, “We came here first! So you might as w-” His aggression deflated into confusion. “Professors?” His talon drooped as he saw Twilight, Starlight, Spike, and the rest of their friends.
“Headma— I mean. Queen Twilight, what are you doing here?” Sandbar said with a stammer in in his voice.
Withought her regalia it was easy to forget their former headmare has had a severe upgrade in position. Twilight sported a soft smile and opened her mouth to speak, before Rainbow Dash jumped in front of her.
“What are we doing here? What are you doing here?” Rainbow Dash yelled, tapping a hoof against Sandbar’s chest. Her tone shifted to one of flat confusion. “No. Seriously. What are you doing here? This place barely counts as being in Ponyville.”
“And why are you here, Gallus? Everyone else went home last week,” Fluttershy asked.
Starlight walked past the Pegasi and young boys straight to the epicenter of the glowing cracks, various scientific and magical apparatus levitating out of her bags as she walked. “Alright, alright, we both have a lot of questions. Obviously they’re here cause they saw the light like Rainbow did, and if we take too long, we’ll have plenty more curious flyers showing up.” Just as she finished the sentence, she raised a barrier around the cliff.
Twilight approached the two boys with a smile. “We’re just here to study what the light is all. Big pillars of energy are rarely a good sign anything good is happening.” A smug look grew on Sandbar’s face.
“Unless we made it!” Pinkie interjected before passing Twilight to stare at the lights.
Twilight gave a soft chuckle. “I guess that's true. Basically, Rainbow and Pinkie pie saw a big light and decided to round everyone up. I happened to be visiting Starlight today and she figured we should check if it’s a problem. That’s all. Now what about you two?”
“We came to get treasure before anyone else could.” Gallus grumbled, craning his neck to keep an eye on what Starlight was doing with the crack without completely turning away from Principal Twilight. She seemed to be watching the glow in the cracks, a glow that seemed to be reaching further from the center than it was a few seconds ago. The tendrils of magic seemed to be moving faster. Whatever is buried under here must be some really good treasure, and great high authrority of the queen was about to push him out of getting whats his.
“And he’s staying with me for the summer,” Sandbar added.
A twinkle shined in Twilight’s eye. A smile stretched ear to ear on her face. “You two are staying for together for the whole summer?” Twilight squealed. “I knew you’ve become good friends, but I had no idea your friendship was already this close. This is fantastic. Imagine if you kept a journal of your whole summer. Then we could read it and we’d have so much to learn about griffin and pony friendship!” Gallus and Sandbar both shimmied away from twilight’s gushing before being met with a bump.
The two turned to see applejack blocking their retreat.“That's great and all, but you two still shouldn’t be here. Whatever this is might be dangerous and no creature should be around. I don’t even want to be this close.”
Rarity dusted off the two boys. “Applejack’s absolutely right. You two should scoot back home before anything bad can happen. Even if it’s a slim chance, I’d just hate to a single head or feather on your precious little heads get hurt,” she says, trying to nudge them away from the now glowing cracks beneath their feet.
“Fine, we’ll go. But promise that if it’s treasure that we get to have it. We still got here first. Sharing, maybe a virtue, but we still want our treasure if there is any,” Gallus huffs, folding his talons.
Twilight gives a simple smile before saying, “We promise. Now you two get home. If we’re lucky, we’ll have this handled quick. It shouldn't be anything too dangerous.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to say that!” Starlight shouted, placing some sort of magical measurement device into the ground. Bronze rods stuck between the crevices with gauges on their opposite ends. The devices trembled ever so slightly, and the gauges pointed towards the yellow. Whatever yellow means.
No one besides Twilight and Starlight probably even knows how to read those, Gallus thought, trying to puzzle out what she was doing. Once they made it to the edge of the force field, Twilight opened a hole for them go through. With Sandbar in Gallus’ grip they exchanged their goodbyes, though at least one of those goodbyes was pretty unhappy.
“Consider the journal idea!” Twilight shouts as she waves the two farewell. Gallus mockingly mouths her words they fly away. The forcefield dome steadily becomes just a blue ball in the distance, but the image of the crack and its glow stay close in Gallus’ mind. Though right next to the glow in his head was the image of Twightlight’s friends. Why did he even go? Cause it would be fun, cause there’d be treasure. Those things are fine sure, but they came because they wanted to people to be safe. They’re so them! He turned to look back one more time and, oh. There's one of them right there.
“Hey.” Gallus tugged on a hoof,“ I got a plan, but it’s really dangerous for you, so I want see if you’re cool with it first.”
“Shoot.”
“You notice they sent Rainbow Dash to keep an eye on us?”
“I noticed.”
“So here’s the deal. I’m gonna slow down and talk to her, then pretend to drop you. She’ll go down to catch you, and we both know she will catch you. Then I make a break for it to see what’s going on back there.”
“That does sound really dangerous, but I do get to be caught by Rainbow Dash. I’m down.”
“When you say it like that, I feel like I’m manipulating you,” Gallus said with a grimace.
“No, no, it’s cool,” Sandbar said in is normal chill voice despite what he was agreeing to, “I like this plan. Besides. you’ll be near the elements. That’s the safest place any creature could be.”
“Your hero worship has somehow given me second thoughts on my own idea, but we’re going with it!” Their speed slowed to crawl. Gallus turned around, looking towards the sky above. Rainbow Dash flew high overhead. She was so close to blending in with the sky if it weren't for all the wild colors in her tail. He hailed her down with a wave of a wing. He couldn’t see her face, but the way she whipped her head gave him enough smug satisfaction. In a few seconds Rainbow had swooped down and was flying right beside him.
She let out a heavy sigh. “So you saw me, huh? Listen, before you start talking about how professors should trust their students, you should know almost every time somecreature is told to stay away from something, they don’t. I should know, I’ve done it dozens of times. So it’s not the we don’t trust you, but-”
“Actually, Professor Dash, I’m the one that noticed you,” Sandbar interrupted, “I was just telling Gallus about competitions you’ve won, and he didn’t believe me. So, I thought you’d want to tell him some stories yourself.”
“Uh, yeah. Right. If I heard it straight from your mouth, it’d hold a lot more weight on my opinion,” Gallus said, straining to feign interest.
“Oh, well if that's the case, let me tell you about the time I-”
“Whoa! Sandbar, when did your hooves get so slippery?!” Gallus’ talons danced to try to maintain a grip on Sandbar’s hooves, but each attempt slips just short of grabbing. A scream rang through the air as Sandbar plummeted to the woods below.
“Hold on! I’ve got you!” Just as predicted, Rainbow dash darted straight down towards the trees. Wasting no time, Gallus bolted back towards the cliff. Even if he couldn’t get back through the force field, he could at least watch from a higher cliff.
SWOOSH
Just before Sandbar hit the tree tops, he was blitzing above the trees, held in Rainbow’s hooves. His heart fluttered, opening his eyes to Rainbow’s confident, heroic smile. Their blazing speed over the trees slowed to a hover as Rainbow descended to the ground. “You okay?”
“Yeah, thanks to you, Rainbow Dash!” Sandbar said. His face flush with red.
“Aww, it’s nothing. I save ponies from falling all the time. Now that I think of it, a bit too much, actually,” she stops to think. Looks left. Right. All around. “Hey! Wheres Gallus?”
A small flock of Pegasi had formed by the cliff side, just enough to be considered a crowd. They fluttered just above the force field, and between them and it was Fluttershy and Spike. It sounded like they were in some sort of argument. Perfect. Gallus dipped down, flying below the crowd and the cliff’s edge. Flying alongside the mountain base, he arced upward to reach a plateau above the cracked cliff while staying out of his professor's line of sight. Sure, if they looked up, they could see him watching over the edge, but he can blend in with the sky far better than Rainbow.
“Everypony, please go back to your homes. You could all get hurt. We still don’t know what this glow is and it’s only gotten bigger.” Fluttershy buzzed between ponies giving with a pleading worried look.
“Well yeah, but we want to see what it is!”
“You don’t see a giant pillar of blue light every day, don’t ya know?”
“The princess can’t just lay claim to any treasure that shows up just ‘cause she’s the princess!”
“This is an abuse of power! Let us dig!”
The crowd combated Fluttershy’s pleas with indignant shouting, shovels and pickaxes raised as if they had any hope of excavating their way through the force field.
“Pleeeeease go home,” she begged. “I’d really rather not shout. This really is for everypony’s safety. Think about your family and friends. Who knows what’s under there?”
“Yeah, for all you guys know, it’s a deranged pony eater who’d gobble you all up!” Spike said raising his arms to imitate the hypothetical pony eater. The back and forth was pretty funny in its own right, but the real show was whatever was underneath that crack. This was an opportunity to watch the elements in action. No class, no lesson they’re trying to teach, just them handling a problem naturally. What makes the elements special enough to be the elements isn’t something he was ever going to learn in a classroom or book. Direct experience was the only way. Whether they’re solving a friendship problem or not, at least this was something. Even if he only learns a very very small something.
“Twilight, Starlight. I have something you absolutely must take a look at.” Rarity beckoned the two to a large sheet of paper. On it was an illustration of scrawling paths in blue and black.
“What exactly are we looking at?” Starlight said, squinting at the sheet.
“It’s the cracks. I’m sure you’ve noticed that dazzling blue glow’s only spread since we’ve arrived.”
“I’ve noticed,” Twilight chimed, “the whole cliff is lit up now. But that still doesn’t explain exactly what this is”
“Not the whole cliff,” she said with a ring of satisfaction to her voice. “Not every crack is glowing, see?” Rarity lifted her hooves. Every single crack near her was as dull as a cave. “And as soon as I noticed I knew it just had to mean something! So, I took the liberty of making an illustration. The black lines are everything dark and the blue lines are every sparkling crevice. Now, I may not be an expert on magic, but this certainly doesn't look natural to me.”
Starlight and Twilight’s jaws drop. “Those are runes! These are runes! We’re standing on some sort of magic circle, or sigil, or enchantment!” Starlight said putting a hoof on her head and trotting in circles.
Rarity lifted the graph. “Well it certainly isn’t a circle, darling. These are parallelograms.”
Starlight snatches the graph for herself. “But they’re aligned almost like they’re at the perimeter of an invisible circle. Which wou-”
“Parallelogram.”
“Which would explain your readings,” Twilight picked back up. “The magic concentration has been reading higher and higher since the we started. It’s because the magic circle-”
“Parallelogram!”
“It’s been drawing itself! The closer it is to being done, the more magic it’s building. Based on this chart the last part is to finish the ring-”
“Edges.”
“Of the spell!” Twilight and Starlight shouted in unison.
“So let me get this straight.” Applejack steped in, giving the graph a look herself. “Are y’all tellin me we’re standin’ on a tickin’ time bomb of a spell and we’ve got who knows when before it goes off, and we still don’t even know what the dang thing does?!”
“Yes,” Twilight chimed. “Wait... that's exactly what that means. Oh no. We have to get those ponies out of here now!”
“I’m on it!” Pinkie cheered as she whipped out her party cannon. She signaled for Starlight to make a hole in the force field. The Pegasi, Fluttershy, and Spike where still stuck in their shouting match. Gesticulating wildly, flailing digging tools, and overall getting nothing actually done. All their noise was cut off in a flash of confetti.
“Hey there, everypony!” Every eye turns to her so fast, it’s as if they made a sound. “There's a party in store for every one of you, but only if you go home right now!”
“You think a party is gonna convince us?”
“There's free food!”
The flock of Pegasi mumble amongst each other before dispersing back toward Ponyville.
“Problem solved.” Pinkie says, blowing the smoke from her cannon. Fluttershy and Spike glide back to their friends but as they do, Pinkie shouts. “Don’t! Stay there!”
Spike and Fluttershy stop in an instant. “Okay, but why is there a parallelogram now?” Spike puzzled.
“It’s a bomb! I think?”
“Bomb?!” Spike and Fluttershy shouted, and Gallus. Though no creature noticed him.
“Kinda! The dirt is drawing a spell and Twilight needs you look at it from above and see how close the ring is to finishing!”
Gallus’ heart pounded in his chest. His eyes darted to see the patterns in the lines. Once they found the line drawing along the edge, his eyes fixated on it, trembling. The outer ring of the magic symbol had already made 3 corners of the spell, and the line was already drawing to complete the shape. On instinct, his legs started backpedaling before he could even think to run. His feathers stood up on end and his wings spread in preparation to fly. To fly, just anywhere but here.
“I-I have to get out of here!” *He turned to run and found himself on the ground. He groaned, trying to open his eyes. His eyes were met with Rainbow’s fierce piercing glare.
“Gallus, I can’t believe yo-” she cut off her own shouting. She placed a hoof on her chest and took a deep breath. She spoke again in a deliberately calmer tone. “Gallus, I am very disappointed that you would trick me. I underst-”
Gallus latched Rainbow’s shoulders, his beak to her snout. “WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!” He dashed for the skies, trying to fly away with her. She just wouldn’t move.
“What are you doing? I’m trying to be a good teacher!” She bit on his tail, trying to tug him back down to the earth. “I just want to talk.”
“No, you don’t understand! It’s a bomb!”
“A wha-?”
