The pleasantries were skipped at this point, everypony know what we were here for, so no use in wasting breath. Gallus still looked peeved with Sandbar, who was slightly smiling as he stood next to him.
“Hello, everypony. I-I’m gallus.” Gallus said, shaking a bit as he did so.
“They already know that, Galley,” Sandbar added, resting his hoof around the Griffon’s neck, probably to calm him down.
Gallus cringed when he heard his nickname called out in front of others. He had mentioned before that he was still getting used to it alone.
“Right, well. As you all also know, I’m a griffon. In griffonstone, there isn’t all that much time for love. We live in the mountains. There isn’t any real standout stuff there. It’s all rock and thatch. We try to survive and pinch a penny when we can, but other than that most every griffon sticks to themselves. The only reason I can think of that there’s even procreation is that the government, flimsy as it is, gives a stipend to couples who decide to have a kid. Being a parent changes some of the griffons. They get more compassionate with their partners and kid, but most of the time it only extends out to there. My parents, on the other claw, decided to break the mold and immediately split as soon as I was able to do things for myself. We all went our separate ways, me wandering around the streets of griffonstone looking for my next meal. Skip a couple of years and here I am, in Equestria, starting a new life at the friendship school, actually opening up and making friends like Sandbar. “
“It wasn’t until after hearth’s warming eve that I started realizing my feelings for Sandbar. There was always something about him that struck me differently whenever I thought about him. It was like there was something more to him that I had to figure out. It’s hard to describe, even now, knowing what that feeling was. I started to notice everything about him, like the way he played his mane when he got nervous, or the way he would talk with ponies, every part of him in the conversation from his hooves to his head, always moving, or the way he would help out ponies so willingly, without any hesitation. It was weird, cause I kept asking myself why I was so fixated with him and only him.”
“You just couldn’t keep your eyes off me, I remember~,” Sandbar teased before getting an earful.
“Shut it!” Gallus squaked at his coltfriend. “Anyway.” He returned back to looking at the group. “Time passed and I kept on thinking about him, like there was something wrong, like I was overlooking something about him that was wrong. I looked back to my friendship lessons for some kind of direction to the right answer, but all that came up was a lesson taught by Princess Cadence about how to recognize when a friendship could become something more. I was confused when reading it, so I read it again. I had to check my notes, re-check them, ask Ocellus if we had the same notes, we did, and finally after reading them for the twenty-fourth time, it all hit. It was like a fog had been lifted. It wasn’t anything about him that I was missing, it was something in myself that I was missing.” Gallus smirked and looked over to Sandbar, “I read the notes about four more times just to confirm, and it all made my heart swell with a foreign feeling. It was love that I was feeling. I hadn’t felt anything like for so long, I got overwhelmed. I just laid there in my bed, wanting the feeling to never end. I realized that I loved him, and was happy, but I felt like there was more there, like I could get more out of it. Then it occured to me that there needs to be two for there to be a relationship.” Gallus stopped, looking around at the room filled with incredulous faces, “Now, I know what you’re thinking. Well, duh. Like I said before, there wasn’t exactly anyone around to tell me about this stuff.”
“So, I did some research about relationships, first in Equestria, then in Griffonstone. Equestria was fine, relatively. There were a few accounts of hate crimes within the past 10 years, but I’d consider that a walk in the park compared to what I found about Griffonstone.” Gallus grew a harsh scowl on his face, as if he were looking at Griffonstone right then, “Re-education. Sub-creature status. Registration. It was a death sentence to be gay in Griffonstone. If you didn’t get re-educated, you would be considered an untouchable that had to go on record as such. The few that had spoken out about that, who tried to cause some form of change, got crushed by the ambivalence of the general populace. If it didn’t get them a bit, it didn’t concern them. That's what I would go home to some day. Then came the debacle of whether to tell Sandbar one, that I had feelings for him, and two, about the status of homosexuals back in my home country. If I had to go back, I wouldn’t have been able to. I couldn’t leave without Sandbar in my life, and I certainly couldn’t bring him to the slaughter house. I was confused with what I needed, or even could do at that point.”
Sandbar hugged Gallus tighter, there must be something important coming up, then. It looked like he needed the support. He was practically writhing in the spotlight.
“He knew, of course. Not that I loved him, not yet. He knew that something was wrong with me those next couple of days after I found out about Griffonstone. I was anxious, second guessing myself at every step, my grades suffered, and my temper was something left to be desired. So he did something I never would have thought of. That weekend, he got a couple of train tickets and invited everyone to the beach. Conveniently, almost too conveniently, everycreature but me cancelled at the last minute. He looked really sad, so I couldn’t have flaked too. We went to the beach and had a blast. Sandy looked like he was in his second element when at the beach. He had so much that he wanted to do, and I had only thought you go to the beach for the water. We spent the whole day there; time passed by like nobody’s business, and soon enough it was sunset. Time to go back home. Before then, we sat on the sand, staring at the sunset. It was like one of those sappy love novel scenes. Sandy, do you wanna explain this part?” Gallus asked, looking over to his still smiling coltfriend.
“Yeah, I think I can do that.” Sandbar cleared his throat, “So backing up a few hours before this, yes. I deliberately set up Gallus to go the beach with me alone, cause I knew there was something wrong. All of our friends knew there was something wrong. I just needed to figure out what. So I took him to the beach. I love the beach. It’s where I got my cutie mark, it’s where I go when I’m stressed or worried about something. That’s what I told Gallus when he asked why I chose the beach. I told him that he was worrying everyone and that I thought bringing him here would help him loosen up and tell us what was going on. I didn’t expect him to go from a smile on his face to full on crying.”
“Hey! I wasn’t going to add that part, Sandbar!” Gallus tried to whisper through gritted teeth.
“Well it’s true, you switched moods so quickly, I think you almost had Pinkie Pie beat. It caught me so off guard.”
Gallus sighed, “Alright. Fine. I did start crying. But it wasn’t like I was expecting to, either. It just sorta snuck up on me.”
“No kidding, you told me everything, about how you were gay, how they treat homosexuals in Griffonstone, how afraid you were, and finally, how much you loved me.” Sandbar’s smile grew even more after saying that. I think he was remembering it vividly.
“I didn’t mean to blurt that part out. It wasn’t planned at all. Everything just started coming out, and I guess, so did I” A couple of small chuckles came from the audience before he resumed, “But I felt so relieved, not even hearing what you had to say about it, after I let it all out. It was an even bigger relief when you said you liked me, too. Then it was just silence. I don’t think you had anything more to say, and after I said everything, there wasn’t much left that needed to be said. Just two creatures watching the sunset.”
Sandbar moved his mane out of his hair and quickly pecked Gallus on the lips, causing Gallus to immediately tense up, but relax and smile at Sandbar. “So that’s where we’re at right now. I have no idea what I’m going to do once I have to go back to Griffonstone and we’re still trying to find a way to come out to our friends.”
There was a moment of dead air before Sunburst spoke up, “That’s a very touching story. Had you spoken to any of us, er, well Starlight and Twilight at the time, we would have been happy to help you work out this problem. We still are. I’m not sure what exactly we can do about it, since it is international law and boundaries that we are going to be going through, but I’m sure if we go over it, we can work something out.”
Gallus gave out a long sigh, “You have no idea how much relief I felt after hearing that. We’ll come into your office first thing tomorrow.”
It seemed that everypony was getting help, quite quickly as well. The more and more I listened to the stories, the solution to my problem became more tangible. After Gallus and Sandbar, there was Trenderhoof, and then me. What was I going to say? I hadn’t even really thought about how I was going to tell my story, and there was only so much time left before I had to talk. What more of trenderhoof could I learn that I didn’t know already? I was going to take the time that he spent talking about his coming out story to organize my thoughts. It was all starting to come together now, I could almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.