“So, I may have broken the Treehouse.”
All five of Silverstream’s best friends turned from their textbooks to stare at the hippogriff as she settled down beside them in their favorite library reading room. She squirmed uncomfortably on her cushion.
“Break how, exactly?” Yona asked, genuine curiosity coloring her tone. “Walls and floors strong enough to withstand yak celebration dance.”
“And they’re dragon fire resistant,” Smolder noted.
Ocellus nodded her head. “The magical properties of the Harmony magic and the natural resonant structure of the crystal should be strong enough to withstand anything we could do to it.”
“I’m sure it’s fine, Silverstream,” Sandbar said soothingly. He reached a hoof out and placed it gently on her shoulder. “Why don’t you tell us what happened?”
The hippogriff sucked in a breath and eyed her friends quickly in turn. Seeing no malice, she swallowed down her anxiety and began to explain. “Well, I was going for a swim in the pool when I-“
“Wait,” Gallus interrupted sharply, “we have a pool in the Treehouse?”
“Of course we do,” Ocellus said with a small chuckle. “Just down the hall from the library.”
“There’s a library?” the incredulous griffon pouted.
“Speaking of,” the green stallion said, removing his hoof from his friend, “how did all those books get in there?”
“You’re the pony magic expert,” the griffon replied.
“Just because I’m a pony doesn’t mean I know everything about Equestrian magic!” Sandbar protested.
“Enough to help us pass tests,” the orange dragon beside him said, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest.
Silverstream cleared her throat. “But anyway, then the walls started shaking and-”
“Just earthquake,” Yona interrupted.
“Yeah,” Sandbar agreed. “We don’t get them that often here, but I’ve been through a few before. It was pretty scary, though, I understand why you’d be afraid.”
Some of Silverstream’s anxious energy flowed out of her. “Oh. Just an earthquake?” When several of her friends nodded, she grunted quietly. “I heard this loud cracking sound, too, like a huge crystal being shattered.”
“Oh no,” Sandbar wailed. “We just helped the tree rebuild! I don’t want to have another big fight and musical make-up number again so soon!”
“Shh,” the small, usually quiet changeling interjected.
“And there was this bright light from the bottom of the pool, and a flash of heat, and I… I flew out of there in a hurry.”
“Light?” one of her friends asked. “Heat?” another said.
“But the Treehouse is still standing?” Ocellus asked nervously.
“More importantly, is the pool still okay?” Gallus asked. As several creatures glared at him, he shrugged. “What? I haven’t even had a chance to enjoy it yet.”
Gallus whooped and flew over the still surface of the water. “Pluck my feathers, there is a pool in here!”
Smolder laughed. “Strange request, but okay. Which wing are we starting with?”
The griffon landed quickly and folded his wings behind him protectively. “Just an expression!” he said, mild panic entering his voice. “Who puts a pool next to a library anyway?”
Ocellus paused in her inspection of the water, tilting her head slowly. “That’s actually a good point. I hadn’t thought about that!” She raised a thin hoof and tapped it to her chin several times. “How do the books avoid being damaged by the ambient humidity?”
“Pony magic,” Yona said solemnly.
“Ooh, maybe that’s right!” Silverstream said excitedly. “What do you think, Sandbar?”
The green-coated pony groaned. “For the last time, just because it’s pony-related doesn’t mean I know everything about it!” He huffed in irritation. “Especially when it comes to magic.” He waved his front hooves in front of his head, gesturing to a non-existent horn.
“So, where’s the big scary-sounding problem?” Smolder asked, stretching and cracking the knuckles of her claws.
“Oh,” Silverstream said, glancing nervously at the pool, “it, uh, came from the bottom of the pool.”
The six friends peered into the crystal-clear, still waters.
“Yona see nothing.” Several others voiced agreement.
“Oh well. Nothing scary, so sad,” Gallus said as he leapt into the air.
“Gallus, wait!” Silverstream said, throwing up a claw, “Don’t-“
The griffon turned his body in the air, pointing down at an angle. He stretched out his lithe body arrow straight from claws to paws, and he slipped into the water. The surface of the pool rippled softly.
“Wow,” Gallus heard Sandbar say, as the griffon surfaced, “that was really graceful.”
Smolder elbowed the pony in the side. “Makes you wonder where all that grace is the rest of the time, huh?”
Gallus rolled his eyes and dove beneath the surface again, reveling in the water’s gentle tugging as he swam through it.
He glanced up, his vision shimmery and uncertain through the waves in the crystal clear water. Silverstream jumped up and hovered frantically just above the pool’s surface until Gallus re-emerged. She grabbed the griffon’s arms and lifted him free of the pool.
“Hey, what gives?” Gallus protested.
“Didn’t you hear me earlier?” the hippogriff whimpered. “About scary things happening in here?”
“There’s nothing there,” Gallus replied drily. He wiggled his shoulders until Silverstream let him go. He landed and shook the water from his back half rapidly, soaking Yona and Smolder.
Gallus dove back into the water. He heard a muffled cry of surprise that was quickly drowned out by the rushing sound of the water moving past his head. He angled his body upward, letting the movement pull him back to the surface.
“Gallus, what’re you doing?” Sandbar said, his concern plain in his voice. “Silverstream said it could be dangerous!”
“It’s fine,” the griffon said, twisting a wing and splashing water half-heartedly towards his friends. “In fact,” he said as his paws spun, treading water, “it’s better than fine. It’s great!” He swam around in a small circle. “The water’s way more comfortable than that chilly lake, especially this time of year.”
Silverstream took flight and few closer to the griffon. She hovered a few wing-lengths away from him and eyed the pool suspiciously. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Of course! If you don’t believe me, why don’t you dive in here yourself?”
The pink hippogriff shook her head slowly.
“We should get back to our studies,” Ocellus interjected. “Whether or not Silver really did see anything strange, there’s obviously nothing going on right now. But there will be something wrong with our grades if we flunk mid-terms.”
Sandbar groaned loudly. “Or that essay for Headmare Twilight.”
Ocellus huffed in irritation. “Tell me you didn’t leave that for the last second?”
Smolder jumped in to defend the pony. “It’s not like it was due yet.”
Yona shook her head, her braids swaying widely. “Yak not procrastinate. Yona research for multiple weekends and still have work left.”
Sandbar and Smolder made sad sounds. Gallus sympathized, not having started the project himself. Not that his friends needed to know that. Besides… “I’m taking a mental health break,” he announced to nocreature in particular. He spread his wings wide and lounged back onto them, floating lazily. Floating, he thought, was like the reverse of flying.
“Come on, Gallus,” Silverstream pleaded from above him. “Let’s go back to the library.”
“No!” he said with a little more force than he intended. He blew out a breath. “No, thank you,” he amended. “It’s been a stressful week, and this is really nice.”
“I’ll make extra copies of my notes,” Ocellus offered. “Just… don’t stay too long.”
“Yeah,” Sandbar said as he winked at the griffon, “you know how wrinkly your paw pads get if you stay in water too long.”
Gallus glared at the earth pony. “You want me to tell them all about your personal grooming habits, Sandy? No? Then shush.”
Silverstream giggled as she floated back towards the group. “How wrinkly, Sandbar?”
“Hey!” the griffon protested. His friends walked off, tittering to themselves. “…rude.” He leaned back, letting the water cradle his head, the soft ripples of his movement disturbing the otherwise calm surface. He tried to let that calm flow into him. It was a funny thing to miss, solitude. He had spent so long with so little, with nogriff supporting him, that he had plunged himself headfirst into friendship when the pony school offered him a claw up. And he loved his strange group of friends. He didn’t even mind the other pony students, really. But he sometimes missed the quiet: Curling up alone in a quiet alley, when the weather wasn’t too frigid, and napping the day away. He did his best to recapture that feeling as he floated quietly along the surface of the quiet waters, the only sound the occasional splash of water against the side of the enclosure.
And then, as it had done all too often of late, Gallus found his mind lingering on graduation. Just a few months in the future, he would receive his diploma. He felt the joy in his accomplishments, but he felt pain at the thought too—a nasty, gnawing worry that chewed on his guts and tore at his heart. Because where would he go after? More importantly, where would his friends go? They all had lives and duties that would carry them away from the crystal walls of the School of Friendship, away from Equestria. And then where would he be without them?
He splashed both claws down hard into the water, like a fledgling throwing a temper tantrum. He choked and spluttered as water rained onto his face and into his beak. It wasn’t fair. They had saved the world together! Twice! They’d been part of the friendship magic that locked those three villains away in stone. They deserved something greater than just drifting apart after graduation. Something that would keep them together.
An ear-splitting sound shook the air. A fraction of a moment later, Gallus felt it through the water, as well. Another earthquake? The griffon paddled with his paws, driving his body through the water to the edge of the pool as quickly as he could. He pulled himself out of the water, fear finally catching up to him as he shook himself dry.
A bright light shone from the doorway to the library.
“I TOLD YOU I wasn’t imagining things!”
“Yeah, yeah, fair enough,” the griffon replied dryly.
“But it didn’t come from the pool?” Sandbar asked. “Silverstream said she saw the same sort of thing at the bottom of the pool.”
“No, it was definitely in the library,” Gallus replied. “I tried to see where the light was coming from, but it was blinding.” He shivered. “And hot.”
Ocellus buzzed with excitement. “Just like how Silver described it!”
Yona closed her book with enough enthusiasm that the table shook. “Friends investigate Treehouse instead of studying!”
Smolder flipped her book into the air and snapped it shut with a flick of her tail. “Just what I was going to say, Yona.”
“I suppose we could move our study session to the Treehouse instead of here,” Sandbar conceded.
Ocellus nodded happily, but the four other friends stared at the stallion as he quietly packed his book into his saddlebag.
“Dude,” Smolder said, laying a claw on the pony, “you are such a buzzkill sometimes.”
The soft sounds of sleeping creatures filled the otherwise quiet calm of the Treehouse aerie. The top room of the Treehouse had a thousand tiny windows, each a different shape, and starlight from the night sky peeked here and there into the room. Sandbar sighed softly, relenting to his relentless insomnia. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he got up and walked around for a bit. ‘Tired legs, tired brain’ his dad always said.
He stood slowly, carefully dislodging himself from where he lay pressed between Yona and Gallus, regretting the loss of warmth on his fur. All five of his friends snoozed softly, their overlapping limbs and tails making an enormous cuddle pile on the aerie floor. Even prickly, standoffish Smolder had her arms around Ocellus and was using Silverstream’s wing as a pillow. Not for the first time, he thanked the sun and moon that he had been chosen to attend the School of Friendship. Getting to know these creatures, bonding with them… it was the happiest he had ever been.
He turned to walk down the nearby staircase when a distant sound caught his attention. He perked his ears forward. The sound, a distant tapping or knocking, was being carried to him through the staircase. Was somepony knocking on the Treehouse door? He glanced back at his sleeping friends. The sound didn’t disturb their slumber. Sandbar shrugged and trotted quietly towards the stairs.
The earth pony stepped into the narrow, winding spiral, taking care that his hooves had properly landed on each thin step before moving forward. The knocking sound grew louder as he moved downward, until he was concerned whoever was making the sound was going to break something. He quickened his pace.
He stepped out of the landing and realized the sound wasn’t coming from the front door, after all. And that it wasn’t a knocking sound. It was a cracking, a terrible splintering sound, coming from the great hall located just off the entrance. As he neared, a brilliant light filled the space. Sandbar’s eyes went wide, and he went sprinting back up the stairs. His momentum carried him straight into the wall, and he missed a step halfway to the top. The pony toppled and felt a sharp pain as his chin connected with a crystalline step. A rush of horrible, metallic flavor washed over his tongue, and he grimaced before spitting out a glob of blood.
Ignoring the pain in his tongue and jaw, the earth pony scrambled upright and continued his rapid ascent. As he burst onto the upper landing he yelled out. “Hey! Every creature! Wake up!”
His friends roused themselves, with various degrees of urgency. Sandbar heard Ocellus mutter something about not being ready for a test.
Yona rubbed sleep from her eyes with a massive hoof. “Why Sandbar wake us?” The yak lowered her hoof and flinched upon seeing the stallion’s face.
Gallus groaned. “Don’t tell me the School is under attack or something.”
Sandbar shook his head. “No. Downstairs! It’s doing… whatever it is, again!” That got their attention, and very quickly the six friends were hurrying down the stairs together.
And as they approached the great hall… nothing. No light, no sound, nothing at all out of the ordinary.
“It was here! There was a light and a loud sound, just like you guys said before, and… and…”
Silverstream cupped the stallion’s chin in one claw, gently. She twisted Sandbar’s face to the side, inspecting the blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. “Are you okay?” she asked, concern flowing through her voice.
Sandbar stared into her large, dark eyes. “You believe me, though, right?” He asked, trying to keep the desperation from his voice.
“Of course we do,” a quiet voice reassured him. A slender hoof rubbed his shoulder. Sandbar felt Gallus’ claw on his other side.
Silverstream nodded.
Sandbar sighed in relief. “Yeah. I’ll be okay, then.”
Ocellus lay on a couch in the school lounge. She tried telling herself she wasn’t pouting, but she didn’t believe herself. For beings that had once lied about everything, her species had a hard time lying to themselves.
“Hey, little Topaz,” a friendly, gruff voice said, “what’s got you so cloudy?” The dragon approached the couch. The analytical corner of Ocellus’ brain noted the odd timing of bipedal clawsteps—so different than her own 4-hoof gait.
“Hi, Smolder,” she offered, letting her genuine happiness at seeing Smolder shine through her dampened emotional state. The dragon couldn’t eat emotions like a changeling, but it still seemed the polite thing to do. “It’s nothing.”
Smolder hopped up onto the other side of the couch and leaned back into the corner. She kicked Ocellus in the back hoof with one clawed foot, gently for her.
“Hey!”
Smolder snorted. “You are the worst liar, you know that?”
Ocellus felt several emotions wash over her simultaneously: Irritation, joy, and confusion, all at once. Changelings were excellent liars, but she was also happy to have a reputation that bucked the species stereotype. But still… “I am not!” she protested weakly. “What about when I impersonated Professor Rarity so we could skip class?” She crossed her front hooves across her chest grumpily. “Or when I pretended to be a giant piranha to scare away the fangfish from our teachers?”
Smolder huffed a small plume of smoke. “Yeah, but you can’t lie about how you feel.”
Ocellus felt herself blush. “Lucky for you,” she said quietly.
Smolder chuckled softly. “Yeah, lucky for me.” She draped her legs over the changeling’s. “So spill it.”
“It’s silly.”
Smolder snorted. “Of course it is.” Ocellus felt a spike of irritation before the dragon continued. “Doesn’t mean it’s not important, too.”
Ocellus sighed. “It’s just…” she glanced out the window to collect her thoughts. “Everyone else has seen the… whatever it is… that’s happening with the Treehouse.” She shook her head. “I dunno. But it’s been two weeks since Yona saw the light in the Treehouse cellar. More than three since Sandbar woke us up in the aerie about his experience. And nearly as long since you…” The changeling felt a claw slide under her elytra and shivered, refusing to take her usual comfort from the touch. “It’s like you’re all being tested, or called, or…” she drifted off, unwilling to voice her concern.
“You think that this is some friendship thing, and the Tree is excluding you.” Smolder said the words quietly, calmly, but they still struck Ocellus like a brick. She nodded, feeling tears welling in her eyes. “First of all,” Smolder continued, her voice steady and firm. Ocellus tasted steely notes of certainty in the air, “if it is some kind of test or something, you’ll do just fine—you’re the smartest creature I know.” Her tone shifted, becoming dark and sharp. Fiery peppers layered over the metallic taste. “And second, if that Tree decides otherwise, she’s clearly pretty stupid. You’re so, so important to us. You’re a vital part of our group.” The claw under the elytra slipped between folded wings and clenched for a moment. Ocellus felt the sharpness of the claws—not a threat at all, but a promise the dragon could and would keep a hold on her. The flavor of the emotions in the air took an ecstatic turn towards sugary bliss. Ocellus whimpered softly. “I say,” Smolder growled, “we go camp out, you and me, until the Tree decides to show you something too.”
Ocellus nodded fervently.
Sandbar trotted through the Treehouse, a small smile on his face. Princess Twilight had just announced her immediate departure from the School of Friendship for her Ascension. Sandbar figured on many levels he was sad about the change in Headmares, but one thing he wasn’t going to miss next semester was the lengthy essay Twilight assigned in each of her classes. Starlight Glimmer (Headmare Glimmer, he corrected internally) seemed far less likely to set unending research tasks for students. Unless it was about kites, possibly. He wanted to bring Smolder and Ocellus the news, since they had been camped out in the Treehouse the last few days.
The earth pony peeked his head through a door into one of the small salons and saw the dragon and changeling in question on a couch. Saw their bodies pressed tightly together and heard soft, urgent sounds, and he felt his face flush. He tried to duck back quietly but heard himself utter a timid “eek!”
The sounds from the other room stopped. “Sandbar, was that you?” Ocellus asked, her voice strained. Sandbar tried not to think about why she sounded breathless.
“Um. Yeah?” he replied.
An orange dragon flapped out into the hall, her arms crossed over her chest. The stallion’s eyes darted to the ground. Smolder laughed roughly. “Oh come on, don’t act like you’ve never seen us kiss before.”
“N-not when you’re…” …rolling around on a couch, pressed close… “m-making out…” He swallowed roughly. It was hot in the Treehouse suddenly.
A claw lifted his chin suddenly. Sandbar stared into mischievous eyes the color of a clear sky. “You wanna watch again?” she suggested playfully.
“Smolder!” Ocellus chided loudly as she, too, made her way into the hall. A small, chitinous hoof slapped the dragon’s claw away from the pony. “Be nice!”
The dragon grumbled darkly. “I was.”
Ocellus shook her head ruefully. “What do you need, Sandbar?”
The stallion shook himself, glad for the change in topic. “Oh! Princess Twilight announced her Ascension earlier. She’s going to rule Equestria and Counselor Starlight Glim—”
“SHH!” Ocellus interrupted.
The earth pony blinked slowly. “But I, uh…”
Ocellus shushed him again. She looked at Smolder and Sandbar, her compound eyes unusually wide. “Can you not hear that?”
Sandbar perked his ears forward and listened. He shrugged.
“Hear what, Cell?” the dragon asked.
Ocellus fluttered her wings nervously. “This way!” she yelled before darting forward.
Sandbar blinked, taken aback by the display of enthusiasm Ocellus usually saved for term papers and pop quizzes. He galloped off after his friend, Smolder running by his side in her awkward two-legged gait.
The three creatures rounded a corner, and Ocellus suddenly pulled up short. Sandbar danced nimbly to the side to avoid plowing into her. “It’s happening!” Ocellus said gleefully. “Oh goodness, it’s so much scarier than what you both described.”
Sandbar looked at Smolder for clarification. The dragon shrugged expressively. The hall ahead of them was empty and quiet, as usual. Ocellus whipped her head around to stare at him. And then at Smolder. She stuck out her tongue briefly, as if smelling something distasteful. “Why are you confused and not scared? Or excited? Or…” She whipped her head back to stare down the hall and then back to her friends. “You can’t see it?” She flinched. “Or hear it?”
Sandbar shook his head slowly. He saw Smolder do the same from the corner of his eye.
Ocellus pulled herself up tall. She was a slight thing, but she made herself look regal in that moment. “You all were alone when it happened.”
Understanding began to dawn on Sandbar. “Oh!” he said, “the sound and light!”
Smolder tilted her head to the side, thinking. “I guess we were.”
Ocellus nodded. “But I can hear it. Feel it. Right through that door,” she nodded to the side where a plain, crystalline door stood. A wave of blue magic sheathed her form, and suddenly heavy plates of armor replaced the usual thin chitin of her exoskeleton. “I’m going to see what it is.”
Sandbar whinnied. “Not alone, you’re not!”
“We should get the others,” Smolder said.
Ocellus shook her head. “No,” she said, determination plain in her tone, “It didn’t last very long for either of you. We don’t have time.” Her gaze fell on Smolder and her voice turned plaintive. “Please, I need to know.”
Smolder nodded slowly. The dragon had never been easy for Sandbar to read, but he thought she looked proud. The stallion took a deep breath. “Together, then!” Smolder stepped to the front and put a claw on the door.
Ocellus flinched as the dragon opened the door. “It’s so hot!” she cried out, shrinking back from the door.
Sandbar glanced through into the small chamber beyond. It looked perfectly ordinary to him—no heat, no light. And then he heard a sound. One ear flicked back to listen. A knocking, cracking sound. It wasn’t coming from the room in front of him. His eyes went wide. It was coming from the same place as before. It had to be. He looked at Smolder in alarm, to see her eyes wide too. “You hear it too?”
“Yeah, in the basement among the roots again!”
“What?” Sandbar said in confusion. “No. The knocking from the great hall.”
Ocellus gasped. “It’s individual!” Sandbar stared at her in confusion. “Whatever this magic is, each instance of it can only be seen by one of us.”
Smolder nodded, taking up the thread. “And if it’s all happening at the same time…”
“We have to get the others!” Sandbar cried.
“And what if it’s dangerous?” Ocellus asked, shielding her face with a slender hoof.
“Hey Tree!” Smolder shouted. “Is this a test or something?”
The three creatures were greeted with silence—no sparkly apparition or dream voice responded to the question.
Smolder grunted. “Okay, I’m the fastest one here. I’ll get the others and get them back here pronto.” She slapped a claw against the earth pony’s shoulder. “You two stay safe.”
Sandbar nodded earnestly, and the dragon launched herself into the air, zipping off down the hall.