I still hadn’t gotten used to Mount Aris weekends. In both Equestria and the Griffon Empire, Saturday and Sunday make up the weekend. Here, it was Friday and Saturday. I stared at the high vaulted ceiling as I pondered the question instead of getting out of bed. A few minutes passed before I came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter, but I still felt mildly curious as to why hippogriffs started their weekend a day early. Maybe I could ask Silverstream about that the next time I saw her.
After a brief pause, I ran the thought through my head again and felt vindicated by the lack of a nervous rush in my chest. I had devoted myself to suppressing all the gooey, crushy thoughts in my head about her, and I was making progress. A few days ago, I would have gotten jittery at the mention of her name. Now, the pangs were less severe. Controllable, even. Within a week’s time, I would be able to put it all behind me and go back to hanging out with Silverstream like normal.
With that settled, I rolled out of bed and padded down the ramp toward the bathroom, my talons gently scratching on the wood floor. Fridays were good days. I could sleep in and let my muscles recover from the long week of scooping up the horrid messes that sailors left behind. Yesterday, I had completed my duties early, but instead of letting me do anything remotely interesting, they stuck me with scrubbing the kitchen—galley, I reminded myself—from top to bottom. Somehow, that was more taxing on my body than throwing trash bags and shoveling out dumpsters.
After a shower, I flopped down on the couch and stared up at the ceiling while I let my feathers air dry. I was stuck in a weird limbo between not wanting to go outside and having nothing to do inside. I could go out to the markets and find some things for my room, but that would require leaving the apartment.
I hated conflicting feelings. Nothing good ever came from them. Just like having a crush on Silverstream, being indecisive about what to do with myself today would lead only to self-assured destruction. I needed to make a choice, so I did. I would go outside. I would make a run to the markets and find a few distractions.
I threw myself off the couch and yawned, doing a quick stretch and shakedown even though I was only damp. I headed up the ramp on the other side of the tree. Before I left, I needed to feed Sassafrass.
When I flipped the lights on in Ty’s room, I saw no movement in the lizard tank. I crossed the room quickly and peered around the side of the cage, revealing a pair of beady eyes looking at me from under the log.
“Not feeling too social today?” I said with a slight smile. Carefully, I reached in and plucked the sponge from last night’s feeding out of the tank. It was still damp enough that I could reuse it, so I dropped—
An ant was crawling up my talon. Reflexively, I shook it off, and the tiny insect disappeared from view as it launched across the room, somewhere into oblivion. A visual check of the enclosure revealed a few other ants skittering around in the sandy bottom of the tank.
“Not hungry either, huh?” I dropped the sponge into an ant jar and waited a moment, allowing a few ants to crawl up but stopping short of the usual number. I transferred them to the tank with the pair of chopsticks Ty provided and tapped the glass, watching Sassafrass for signs of life. She stayed still as a statue, only the faint rise and fall of her chest as she breathed showing that she was alive.
“I guess you can eat when you feel like it.” I smiled at the tank weakly and left the room, flipping the lights off on my way out. Her lack of appetite worried me a little, but I decided it wasn’t scary just yet. If there were still ants in her tank tonight, then I’d worry about it. Heck, maybe I’d just given her too much food without realizing it?
Taking a page from Sassafrass’s book, I decided to skip out on breakfast and instead pick up something at the markets while trinket shopping. I checked my coin bag on the way toward the door: seventy bits—enough for a couple of items and a good lunch. I stepped out the front door, but when I turned around to lock up, a rustle in the tree above me grabbed my attention. Something was falling toward me. Instinct kicked in as I bristled and darted to the side, clearing away from the porch the moment a pink blob of hippogriff landed on it.
“Surpris—wait where’d you go?” Silverstream shouted as she came to rest and whirled around until she found me crouching next to the tree, hackles raised.
It took a second for my brain to get up to speed with what just happened. “I—I told you it’s dangerous to sneak up on griffons!” I stammered.
“I’m two for two on making you all puffy and not a single scratch, so who’s the real loser here?” Silverstream stuck her tongue out at me, making me suddenly very self-conscious about my raised hackles. I shook out my back and smoothed the feathers and fur, hoping my blush wouldn’t show through the fine feathers on my face.
“I’m warning you, these talons are sharp.”
“Sure,” Silverstream giggled at my attempt to hide my bruised pride. “So anyway, whatcha doin’?” she asked.
“Nothing much. Just headed down to the market to find a few things for my room.”
“And you didn’t invite me?!”
I shrugged. “I didn’t think it was important enough to get you.” Among other reasons.
“But there’s bargain hunting to be had! I know these markets like the back of my wing. I can get you all the good deals.”
“Last time I went shopping with you, we paid double the asking price for a chair.”
Silverstream scoffed. “That was all you, Gallus.”
“You were egging me on the whole time.”
“The point—” Silverstream held up a claw to interrupt the dispute “—is that you should always bring me along when you go shopping. I’m a good luck charm in hippogriff form!”
Maybe I hadn’t made as much progress as I thought I had. The screaming pain in my chest was still there. I could ignore it, but I was about to break a sweat from trying. “Okay, do you want to go shopping with me?”
Silverstream shook her head. “Nope! I’ve got to go help my dad.”
I deadpanned. “Then why did—You know what? Never mind. I guess I’ll see you later then.”
Silverstream dropped down to the ground and blocked my path as I turned to leave. “Wait! I still need to ask you about something.”
I held my hand out flat and rolled my wrist, gesturing her onwards.
“Ok, here goes.” Silverstream inhaled, prepping herself for the question that was to come. “Have you ever played ring toss?”
“Uh, yeah? Who hasn’t?”
“Right?” she snorted. “Anyway, I need someone to work the ring toss booth today. Can you do it?”
“What kind of festival is it?”
Silverstream puffed up, her eyes shimmering with pride. “The High and Dry Hootenanny!” she announced, singing the last word. “Dad and I have been planning this one by mail for months!”
I snorted. “Hootenanny? Really?”
“What? It’s a fun word!”
“You hang around professor Applejack too much.”
“She says a lot of them fun words!” Silverstream said, poorly imitating the pony’s trademark drawl. I caught a hint of a blush as the fur on her cheeks puffed out ever so slightly. Had I just managed to turn the tables and fluster her a little?
Why did she have to be so adorable all the time?
I caught the thought and tossed it back into the sea of ideas that need never resurface, deciding to speed the conversation along instead. “So, why’s the hootenanny so high and dry?”
Silverstream grinned at my curiosity. “Because we love living in our old city again! High and dry, out of the water? You get the idea. But I really need your help and I don’t think I can’t make the festival work without you so will you pleeeeeeaaaase help me?” She pulled out the puppy dog eyes and got right in my face, her beak a single inch away from mine.
One inch.
Air raid sirens went off in my head, screaming at me to break rank and run for cover. I eased back a half step. I was wrong. I wasn’t ready. Didn’t anyone ever teach her the concept of personal space? Maybe I hadn’t noticed it before because of my obliviousness, but she seemed to love getting all up in my face every chance she got. How was I supposed to whip myself into shape if she got within kissing distance every time she saw me? I needed to keep avoiding her. Another few weeks of the silent treatment would be enough to rid me of this—
“Sure, I can help out today.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach as my body said the words completely on autopilot, stepping totally out of line with my conscious mind. Item number twenty-one on today’s list of reasons to be disappointed in myself.
Silverstream beamed and pounced on me with a quick hug. “Great! Meet me near the gate to the Harmonizing Heights at about four. I’ll get you set up. You’re gonna have a blast at this thing, just you wait!”
She was already airborne and flying off towards the treetops before I could leverage a response. “Great, can’t wait,” I said weakly.
What did I just get myself into?
More work and a cowpony hat, that was what.
I could easily tell that Silverstream had designed the ring toss game by just how forgiving it was. If I or anygriff back home had been the designer, I would have rigged it with rings just small enough that getting them to land on the pegs would have been nearly impossible. In this version of the game, small rings had been substituted for hula hoops, and the pegs for wooden barrels.
I didn’t hate it, though. In comparison to my usual duties, this was a lot more fun and worthwhile. Ring toss was popular with the younger hippogriffs, and awarding little knickknacks to fledgelings dressed like Equestrian outlaws beat scooping sailor garbage any day, though I wasn’t getting paid for this, as far as I knew.
For her part, Silverstream had chosen a pretty good spot for me to help out. Running a ring toss booth at a carnival held remarkable similarity to working at the markets in the Griffon Empire. I had to attract and hold the attention of customers and entice them to come and peruse the merchandise. There was no haggling here, but I could still use my entrepreneurial skills.
Well, I could have if I could focus on the job. Several hours in the booth passed with me distracted by the tangle of nervous thoughts in my head. I couldn’t put my all into selling the game with my mind running in circles, dreading the inevitable moment when she would come by to check the booth. What was I going to say to her? How would I say it? I had to walk a perilously thin line with every conversation so as not to betray my true feelings to her while also not seeming too aloof.
“Hey, mister?”
The voice pulled me back to reality, where I was face to face with short blue fledgeling with an excited smile on her face. She pointed to the barrel, where five hoops were stacked neatly around the top.
“I won!” she announced, her chest puffed out in pride. “I want the shark!”
“Hey, look at that,” I said, reaching up to the hidden shelf above my head where the grand prizes were stored and retrieving one large shark plush. It was nearly half her size. She took the plush from me and off she went, disappearing into the crowd before I could congratulate her.
My anxiety was making me run a carnival attraction like a morgue, just sitting there and moping instead of being proactive and working to bring in new players. No, I just sat there nursing the gigantic ball of butterflies in my gut. I did my job when griffs came up to the booth. I took their money and set them up to play, but that was it. I wouldn’t break any records with my performance.
Aside from my mediocrity, the High and Dry Hootenanny seemed like a big success. The entire market row along Main Street had been converted for the festival, the usual vendor stands folded up and set aside to make way for carnival games and a couple of stages at either end of the road. The Hootenanny theme meant that anyone working on staff was dressed in western wear. I had a ten-gallon hat on my head, and a number of the crowd were wearing dusters and Stetsons of their own. A few had even busted out boots with spurs on their hind hooves.
My booth wasn’t far from the gate to the Harmonizing Heights, so I could see the action at one of the stages. In the gaps between players, I got to watch the acts cycling through. An illusionist was putting up an impressive display on a big white screen held up behind him, and I had heard mention of sign-ups for an open talent show coming up at some point. In the sky above, flying races and agility competitions soared past every few minutes, and over it all I could hear the faint sound of fiddles and banjos in the distance. Mount Aris was usually a bustling place, but now it was downright crowded.
I watched the comings and goings idly during my downtime. It was the only thing that kept me from hyperventilating at the thought of when I might hear—
“Hey Gallus!”
Silverstream. There she was, a clipboard in hand, a duster draped across her shoulder and a wide-brimmed sombrero on her head, bustling over toward the booth as she worked her way through the crowd.
My chest tightened. “Howdy,” I said, actively trying to convey nonchalance.
“Ooh, getting in character! I like it. How’s everything going?” she asked.
“Good,” I said. “At this rate I think I’m going to run out of prizes in an hour.”
“I can go find more if you need them!”
“I was exaggerating,” I dismissed, though there was some truth to it. “How’s running the festival going?”
“As far as festivals go, this one is great! Dad and I have organized tons of them before. He does most of the real planning, though. I just go around and make sure everything is all running smoothly.”
I was doing pretty good at this whole ‘act casual’ thing. “So is your dad like the Mount Aris version of Professor Pinkie?”
Silverstream shook her head, “Not really. He’s nowhere near as crazy,” she said with a laugh. “This is just something he does for fun sometimes. He works for the navy just like you do!”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Just like I do? So he cleans trash out of the ships?”
That caught her off guard. “No!” she barked through an awkward laugh. “No, he’s in charge of a bunch of supply chain stuff. Doing festivals is like an extension of his day job so he’s, like, super good at it.”
“Looks like it,” I said, tossing a glance at the nearby event stage, where the crowd was cheering enthusiastically for the illusionist performer. “I didn’t know this many griffs lived here.”
“They don’t,” Silverstream said. “A lot of the attendees came up from Seaquestria and a few came from villages further up the peninsula.”
I nodded, and… I lost it. Suddenly I was fresh out of casual things to say. Now that we were done catching up, what else could I talk about? ‘Oh hey, Silverstream, wanna talk about how I totally don’t have a crush on you?’ Please. I wasn’t in any position to talk to her right now. Maybe if I just let her lead the conversation and didn’t offer much, she’d get bored and—
Wait. This was Silverstream. The hippogriff with an uncanny ability to get me to tell the truth when she saw something amiss. I had used a lot of my leeway to be awkward around her. If I didn’t stop acting weird, she’d get suspicious and pry it out of me. I needed to keep the conversation going, and fast. Damn the torpedoes, I had to say something!
“When are you going to take me down to Seaquestria?” I blurted out, though the damage had already been done from how long it took me to formulate the sentence. Silverstream’s brow creased for the briefest moment before she caught it and returned to her usual grin. She was onto me.
“Hopefully someday soon.” That was odd. For a moment I thought I detected a hint of sadness in her voice, but she quickly returned to normal. “Hey look!” She pointed behind her, noting a big group of hippogriffs coming down the road. “That’s a lot of customers. Mind if I help you run the booth for a little bit?”
It was less a question and more a statement, as she hopped over the counter and joined me in the booth before I had a chance to object.
It feels a lot smaller in here now, I noted as she brushed past me and her tail flicked the tip of my beak.
“Don’t you have other things to do?” I asked.
Silverstream waved off my question. “Everything’s going smooth, no worries. Plus I get to hang out with you some more!”
The lump in my throat swelled, but I swallowed it before it could choke me. I just had to play it cool for a few minutes. No different than the other hundred times we’d hung out before. I could do this.
“Step right up, folks!” Silverstream announced, filling the role of the carny without missing a beat. “Step right up! Try your claws at a game of skill as old as time itself!” The wave of new hippogriffs rolled in, the majority walking past us toward the stage at the end of the way. Thanks to Silverstream’s advertising, a small line gathered in front of the booth in under a minute. It put my customer attracting skills to shame. I averaged one every five minutes: she pulled five in one.
It made sense, I decided as I took the first griff’s money and passed her a stack of hoops. Silverstream was more exuberant than me. She was well-known around the city, so a familiar face would draw more interest than some random griffon that happened to be in the mix... and she was prettier than me.
I wanted to fight that thought, but it kicked loose others. While the customers stepped up to the booth and tossed their rings, I found my attention drawn away from the work and settling on Silverstream. She was in the zone, shouting words of encouragement and zipping around the booth, to the delight of the customers. She turned a plain, uninspired game of ring toss into an exciting, engaging challenge just by being there.
I enjoyed watching her work. She lit the booth up with her personality, and I found myself admiring it. A little bit of warmth in my chest flared every time she congratulated a winner, which was well over half of the players since the hoops were made so large.
The line dwindled quickly, and soon we were all out of new players. I was only halfway paying attention when she started talking to me. “...Busy today, huh?” she asked. I didn’t catch all of what she said, so I just nodded absently.
Silverstream hopped up and perched herself atop one of the barrels. “All this here hootenanny stuff has me pooped!” She wiped her mane out of her face, the long, sky blue locks cascaded out from under her hat and down her shoulders like a waterfall, caressing—
Stop. I forced myself to divert my attention toward the front of the booth. The crowd moved along, though it was thinner now. No customers in line to bail me out.
“Hey Gallus?” Silverstream asked.
“Yeah?” I croaked. Why was my mouth so dry? I cleared my throat and tried again. “What’s up?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said last week.”
Dread built in my gut, but I didn’t look her way. “Yeah?”
“Did you really mean it? The stuff about wanting to go back to Griffonstone?”
In the midst of all the romantic tension in my head, I had forgotten about what I said to her after I fell into the stackberry bush. Right now, going home sounded like a good idea, but for entirely different reasons than what prompted me to say it in the first place. It was best to be consistent though, so I nodded. “I said I was thinking about it.”
“Well, have you thought about it?”
I hazarded a glance over to her. The warmth and exuberance she’d been full of moments ago were gone. That same shiny-eyed look of concern she’d given me while I broke down last week was on her face again, knitted brow and ears splayed back ever so slightly.
“A little,” I lied. “It’s kind of a big decision.”
“Then don’t go!” Silverstream blurted out, almost yelling at me. “Why are you thinking about giving up so easily?”
I turned away. “It’s complicated.”
Silverstream hopped down off the barrel, wings spread. She had more fire in her now. “It really doesn’t need to be.”
“It is, though.”
“Why is it?” she asked, the question almost accusatory. “I get it, your job sucks! I haven’t liked some of the jobs I’ve worked, but I never thought about running away from home because of them!” She groaned. “I know you’re not telling me everything. What is it? The food? Your apartment? Do you not like your roommate? What is it?”
“Silverstream—”
“Is it me?”
I winced.
“Tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it! Please!”
The words hung over the booth like a bad omen, stifling both of us. Their heated nature earned a few head turns from passing hippogriffs outside. I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Lucky for me, she didn’t expect me to.
“I’m sorry,” said Silverstream, much more quietly. Her eyes glistened, threatening tears. “I just…” She took a breath. “It hurts when you don’t talk to me. After you told me you wanted to leave, you’ve been really distant. Every time I came over to see you this week you weren’t there. You’ve been avoiding me, haven’t you?”
“Silverstream—”
“Can you just tell me please? What’s wrong? Am I the problem?”
If only she could know the half of it. “No!” I stood up and walked over to her, hoping it would make me seem more believable. “No, you’re not the problem. Not even close. You’re one of my best friends in the world! Why would you be the problem?”
“Well, when you give me the silent treatment, what am I supposed to think?”
“It’s nothing like that. I’ve just been, you know, busy this week. I’ve been staying late at work a lot and going out on my own to explore things. It’s just bad timing that I wasn’t ever home when you knocked.”
Lying through my beak, yet again.
“So you aren’t going to leave?”
“Never said that.”
Silverstream’s eye twitched. “Are you kidding me? What are you… I...” she fumbled the words, growing more and more angry with every moment until she threw up her hands. “I don’t believe this! Are we not friends anymore? You can’t just keep lying to me like this and expect—” Her head snapped to the right and the anger evaporated immediately. “Howdy! Welcome to Ring Toss Roundup!”
I let out a breath as a new customer mercifully interrupted the conversation. Silverstream instantly abandoned her rant and went into some approximation of her normal demeanor. I shuddered as the air left my lungs. I had been dreading this moment. This was the price I had to pay for being shady with her, but I hadn’t expected her to catch onto my lies so quickly. Her words stung, probably just as much as mine had to her.
Two high-pitched shrieks assaulted my eardrums and interrupted my brooding. Silverstream had practically pulled a hippogriff mare over the table with a hug. For a second I thought she was taking out her frustrations on a customer, but the laughing and smiling told me otherwise. This was one of her friends. The mare had mint green fur with a streaked purple mane, a bit taller than Silverstream.
“Oh my gosh Laguna, it’s been so long!” said Silverstream.
“Girl, where’ve you been?” said Laguna when Silverstream let go of her.
“Oh you know, school and junk.”
“I know that, but why haven’t you come to see me since you got back?”
I tuned out of the conversation and turned to the hippogriff mare accompanying Laguna. She was bespectacled and stood with a bit of a slouch, hovering a bit awkwardly off to the side while Laguna and Silverstream chatted it up. You and me both, sis, I thought.
“And this is my girlfriend, Gale!” said Laguna. The ashy gray mare stepped forward and waved hello. “She came up from Seaquestria just for the Hootenanny. I told her she had to experience one of your festivals.” Her attention turned to me and a smirk grew on her face. “Ooh, is this your boyfriend?”
I could feel my feathers falling out of my head. Silverstream giggled and glanced over to me, “Nah, this is Gallus. He’s a good friend of mine from school. He's staying down here for work this summer.”
Wow, the friendzone was just as cold as they say. And yet I felt a little relieved?
Silverstream turned back to the couple. “Nice to meet you, Gale. Are you two gonna play a round?”
“How much is it?” asked Gale.
“Three bits for five throws,” I said. Gale nodded and passed the coins across the counter, and I exchanged them for the hoops.
The couple didn’t separate as they stepped in tandem over to Silverstream’s side of the booth. “Alright, lovebirds, here’s the rules!” Silverstream started. “If you can get a hoop over the barrel, you get a prize! We’ve got some fun stickers, glow in the dark keychains, or seashell necklaces for the small prizes. The grand prize is one of the big stuffed animals hanging out on the roof, and five hoops wins it!”
The couple glanced upward. “Oh!” said Laguna. “I want that sea serpent!” I felt slightly off-put by her choice of prize, but it wasn’t like I grew up in an area where sea serpents existed.
“Your wish is my command,” said Gale.
It was a little funny to watch the bookish hippogriff fumble with the hoops. She had atrocious form, but she still managed to land two of the five throws on the barrel. “Oh, ouch, sorry about that!” said Silverstream, gathering up the hoops from the floor. “Not enough for the grand prize, but you can pick out some of the regular prizes!”
“It was the wind,” said Gale, blushing faintly. She dropped three more bits on the counter in front of me. “I’m just getting warmed up. This time for sure.”
She got none.
Laguna had progressed from giggling at her date’s ineptitude to rolling her eyes. After Gale concluded her second failed attempt, Laguna walked over to the table and put three of her own bits down. “Watch and learn, bookworm,” she said as she bumped Gale out the way with a smirk. She concentrated on the barrel for a moment and let the hoop fly, settling it gracefully down around the barrel.
Her date’s face grew progressively redder with every throw. Laguna got three out of the five, and her misses were a bit closer to the mark than Gale’s.
“That’s three! Not bad, Laguna!” Silverstream reached up into the top of the awning and pulled down the stuffed serpent. It must have been two meters long, a green plush snake sporting a mustache and a head of hair.
“But wait, I only got three?” Laguna asked.
“It’s cumulative,” said Silverstream with a wink. “Go on, take him!” She tossed the stuffed serpent, which landed over Laguna’s back. She took the plush and wrapped it around her neck, bringing its face up next to hers.
“I think I’ll name you Slithers,” said Laguna to the plush. “We’re gonna go catch the show at the stage. Say hi to Terramar for me, will you?”
“Sure can!” said Silverstream. “How about we go get lunch sometime?”
Laguna beamed. “Let’s do it. Later, Silvers!”
Silverstream waved them off with a smile, and the couple turned to leave. I half expected her date to be all pouty, considering she’d just gotten what I would consider a nice big slice of humble pie. But as they walked away, I caught a glimpse of a shared laugh between the couple, followed by a playful swat of the tail from Gale.
My cheeks heated up as more intrusive thoughts injected themselves into my mind. A weird sort of longing swelled in me as the couple shared a laugh. I wanted what they had, but now I knew that Silverstream had me neck deep in the friendzone. Which is a good thing, I had to remind myself. It still didn’t ease the sting.
I averted my eyes. Desperate for something to occupy myself with, I pulled out the cash drawer and started counting out the afternoon’s haul—an unimpressive pile of coins, maybe a hundred bits if it were soaking wet.
I knew what was coming. Now that we weren’t helping customers, we’d go back to the conversation from earlier. Dread filled my guts, but this time it felt different. I needed to push back and get her off my case, but how could I do that without looking like a total jerk?
“So…” said Silverstream. “You never said whether you still wanted to go back to Griffonstone.”
“I don’t know,” I said, sorting the coins by denomination with a talon. “I don’t really want to.”
She threw her hands up. “So that’s it! You’re staying!”
I held up a claw to stop her building elation. “I’m not sure I want to stay here either.”
Silverstream deflated so hard that she almost started flying around the room like a balloon. “Ugh, why not then? What’s so bad about Mount Aris?”
“For starters, I don’t really fit in here.”
“Well, think of the positives then!” said Silverstream, somewhere behind me. “There’s all kinds of reasons to stay! Mount Aris is pretty. The food is great. You have a job that pays well. I’m here!”
Enough things in this conversation had already made me nervous. I just wanted it to be over. Of course the stupid, primal, ‘hmm, must pursue female’ part of my brain considered her a good reason to stay. Why wouldn’t it? She was nice, she was pretty, and she cared about me. And she was really pretty. What more could I want?
To not screw things up with one of the first friends I ever made?
The wrestling match between my conscience and my baser instincts raged while I stood up. I needed a sack to stash the coins in, and I thought I’d seen one in the back earlier. I whirled around and…
There she was. Right in front of my face. Our beaks one inch apart.
One inch.
Time warped. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there face to face with her, staring at her like a schmuck.
“Gallus?” she said.
“Eh?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m good.”
“Are you sure? You seem a little… out of it all of a sudden.”
Reality began to catch up to me. “Nah, I’m good,” I repeated, forcing myself to stop gawking and get the coin bag I’d been after. I scooted past her and started rifling through the supply bin in the back corner of the booth.
The jig was up. Any second now, she’d ask me a question I couldn’t weasel my way out of convincingly. She was about to find out about my weird, misguided crush on her, and that would be the end of our friendship as I knew it. Maybe we’d still be friends after this, but it’d never be the same. She’d always have this little embarrassing tidbit on me, and it would definitely drive a wedge between us.
My heart sank. Maybe it would be better if I just came clean and explained myself. My limbs tingled with fear at the thought. Maybe I could salvage a little scrap of my dignity if I was the one to come out with it and tell her. I took a breath that rattled around my ribcage, doing little to steel my nerves. Here goes.
“Fine! If you’re not going to talk to me, then I’ll just go!” Silverstream stomped across the booth. Before she hopped over the front table, she stopped and chanced a glance over her shoulder at me. There were tears in her eyes, accompanied by a dejected frown that nearly tore my heart in half. She stood there staring at me with those glassy eyes for a few moments, her anger softening into more tears. “I get it, you need some space. That’s fine. I’ll leave you alone. Just… let me know when you’ve made up your mind, okay?”
The resolve I’d worked up drained out of my chest with my breath. I didn’t have it in me to stop her. “For sure,” I croaked, my mouth dry.
Silverstream sighed. “The carnival games close at nine, come find me if you need help closing up.” I could easily see the weight on her shoulders when she flew off and disappeared into the rest of the festival. Great. Now I was an emotionally confused mess and a jerk. I had hurt her by avoiding her after dropping that bombshell last week, and now I’d doubled down on the whole shutting her out business. How? How was it possible for one griffon to mess things up this badly this fast?
The rest of the festival sucked.
Whenever I got stressed, I had an old habit of pacing it out: back and forth, back and forth, sometimes for hours. Recently, I only did it the night before a big exam. But there I was, pacing back and forth in the den of my apartment.
Hyperventilating wasn’t part of my usual process, though.
I was already a nervous wreck from the incident at the hoop tossing booth so it came as a cruel twist of the knife in my chest when I got home and went to feed Sassafrass. She hadn’t eaten a single ant that I’d put in there that morning, and she hadn’t moved from under her log.
For a few agonizing seconds, I thought she died. On closer inspection, I found that she was still alive, but I knew she wasn’t acting normal. Desperately afraid that I’d done something wrong, I hightailed it out of the apartment and straight to the address Ty gave me for Diamond Glitz’s house.
That was fifteen minutes ago. My frantic knocking woke the hippogriff up, and she hadn’t been pleased about it. Once I explained the situation, she told me she’d be over in a few minutes.
And so, powerless until Diamond arrived to bail me out of possibly killing Ty’s beloved pet, I paced. While I walked the floor, my thoughts rested mostly on the plight of the little lizard in Ty’s room. How I was stupid and careless and shouldn’t have agreed to take care of an animal.
Self-deprecating thoughts often come in groups, so in the gaps between kicking myself over Sassafrass, I kicked myself over Silverstream and how I’d handled our little chat today. I was a liar and a coward. I was weak. Everything wrong with my life stemmed from my own inadequacy.
The door opened, pulling me back from throwing myself into the pit of despair. Diamond stepped in, a cup of tea in hand, looking less sleepy-eyed but still wearing the same purple robe she had on before. Wordlessly, I led the way to Ty’s room.
“She’s in there,” I said, pointing a talon at the glass tank. “Thanks for coming over on such short notice.”
Diamond breezed past me, heading straight for the lizard enclosure on the far side of the bed. “What’s she doing?”
“She only ate about half of the ants I gave her last night and didn’t touch them this morning.”
Diamond craned her neck down to peer into the enclosure. “Yeah, they’re digging tunnels in there. You gave her more when she didn’t finish the ones from last night?”
“I didn’t notice until they were already in there,” I said. “She’s just been sitting under her log all day, hasn’t moved as far as I can tell. Do you think she might be sick?”
“We’re about to find out.” Diamond flipped the lid off the tank and reached in, removing the log and revealing the statuesque Sassafrass. The lizard did not react to her cover disappearing, her eyes staying shut tight. With careful claws, Diamond plucked Sassafrass from her habitat and held her out on a palm.
“Hey there, Sassy,” Diamond cooed, stroking Sassafrass along her spines. She was lethargic, but I could see her eyes opening wide enough to show me she wasn’t dead. Diamond turned to me. “How long have you been leaving the lamp on?”
“I’ve been turning it off at night and leaving it on during the day, just like Ty said to.”
Diamond cupped her free hand over the lizard’s back and flipped her over. She gently felt Sassafrass’s underbelly with the back of her claws. “She doesn’t have any swelling or anything. Seems healthy. It’s almost like she’s just sleeping.”
“Depressed, maybe?” I offered.
Diamond considered it for a moment. “Could be.”
“Think maybe it’s because she misses Ty?”
Diamond stiffened. “Could be,” she repeated, flipping Sassafrass right side up and stroking her with the back of her talons. Sassafrass stayed still, but at least she had opened her eyes.
I watched her hands closely, noting the comfortable familiarity she had with the small lizard. Diamond was skilled at handling reptiles, much better than me. I hadn’t even tried to pick her up. I felt a little nervous about Sassafrass freaking out and hurting herself. “Do you have any lizards at home?” I asked.
Diamond shook her head. “Nope, just a cat who’s probably wondering where I went so late.” She sank back onto her haunches and cupped Sassafrass between her hands. From where I stood, her sitting down revealed the nightstand next to Ty’s bed. A small picture frame behind the alarm clock caught my eye. I walked over and picked it up. It was a picture of Ty and Diamond together in their seapony forms, beaks and manes replaced by snouts and dorsal fins. Both were making funny faces and wearing goofy accessories: an oversized sombrero on Ty and glasses the size of platters on her. He had his fin wrapped around her shoulder and a sort of tranquil grin on his face. Kind of like his usual calm demeanor, but more… happy?
I turned back to her. Even with my near complete lack of romantic experience, I could see something going on there. I’d noticed it last week at the rave, but now it was that much more obvious. Why had Ty never mentioned anything about it to me? Surely it would have come up when we were all together in the same room.
“When was this taken?” I asked, tapping the picture frame.
Diamond turned her attention away from Sassafrass, “Oh that? That was—” she paused for a moment to think, “—last year, I think it was at a sailors’ ball we went to. Why?”
“No reason,” I said, setting the picture back in its rightful place. The lack of outward signs to their now blatantly obvious relationship struck me as odd, but before I could push that angle any more, my mind used it as a springboard. I needed advice on how to get out of an awkward situation with a girl, and I had a girl right here that I could ask for advice!
“You mind if I ask you a semi-weird question?”
“You might get a semi-weird answer. What’s up?” said Diamond.
My mental gears jammed on the question. “I’m trying to think of a good way to phrase this,” I started. “Do you know anything about…like...uh...”
“Go on, spit it out.”
I slapped my palm against the side of my forehead. “I guess I should just give you some context.” I took a breath and let it out through my nostrils. “I have a friend that I’ve known for almost a year now. She’s awesome, pretty much the best friend I ever had. In fact, she’s the only reason I’m living here and have a job right now.”
“Sounds like a nice girl.”
“The nicest,” I said, “and that’s the whole problem. Since I’ve been here, I’ve seen her a lot more one-on-one than before, and now every time I hang out with her, it’s like—”
Diamond held up a hand and stopped me. “I think I—ow, hey! Quit biting!” She glared down at Sassafrass, who stared back with a mouth full of claw and a total lack of fear. She pulled her talon free from the maw of the wannabe dragon. “I think I know where you’re going with this. You’re looking for advice on how to ask her out?”
“Not exactly,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “It’s more the opposite, really.”
Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
The conversation lagged for a moment while Diamond stood up and returned Sassafrass to her tank. “So she’s after you and you’re trying to let her down easy.”
I blanched. “No. No! Not at all. I’m the one with the problem here.” I pointed a claw at myself. “I’m crushing on her and I’m trying to stop myself before I screw up and ruin everything.”
Diamond looked at me for a moment. I didn’t know what to make of the look. It was like she was confused, but also disappointed in me—kind of a scowl but not quite. “This is Silverstream you’re talking about, right?”
“Wait, you know her?”
“Hard not to,” Diamond said. “She’s a local celebrity. Royal family, ambassador to Equestria and whatnot.”
“That just makes it worse!” I groaned. “She’s important and popular, and I’m nobody. I wouldn’t have a chance anyway, so why am I getting all worked up over her in the first place?”
“Whoa whoa whoa, slow down,” Diamond said. “Are you sure you want my advice? You might not like it.”
Reluctantly, I nodded.
“Be honest with her.”
I frowned. “Well yeah, obviously, but that’s kind of the whole issue here. I haven’t been honest with her since I got here, and now I’m too scared of her to tell the truth.”
“How much longer do you think you can keep up the lie?”
Thinking back to the extremely awkward incident at the festival from earlier, I couldn’t counter that.
“Exactly.” Diamond laughed. “You’ll have to come clean eventually. Best to do it on your terms. Clear the air, make sure she knows how you’re feeling. She’ll understand!”
“Is it really that easy?” I asked.
“Yep.” Diamond looked over at me with a sympathetic smile. “It’s gonna be nerve-wracking. But you’ve already had plenty of that, haven’t you?”
I nodded.
“Then it’s nothing you can’t handle. Have a little faith. If she’s worth having as a friend, she isn’t going to let something like this ruin what you have.”
For the first time since the festival, I cracked a smile. “Thank you.” I muttered.
“Best of luck with that. Silverstream is a good girl. You could do a lot worse,” she said with a wink that I frankly did not appreciate.
“And I think I know what’s wrong with Sassy,” Diamond said, walking across the room to the doorway. On the outside wall next to where the windows were, a small black square sat on the rib between panes of glass. Diamond did something to it similar to scratching downward with a talon. Slowly, the walls faded. The dark panels faded down until they were transparent, exposing the nighttime streets of Mount Aris.
“Whoa,” I said, turning my head all around and taking in the sudden lack of opaqueness.
“You had the shade panels darkened all the way. Have you been letting in any light from outside?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I didn’t even know that was a thing I could do.”
Diamond laughed. “Well now you do. She needs a little bit of sunlight in addition to the heat lamp, otherwise she’ll think it’s winter. Less eating, less activity.”
“Like hibernation?”
“Yeah, but with less sleeping and more just sitting there. Leave those panels open some during the day and she should start eating like normal again.”
“I’ll do that,” I said. “Thanks.”
“No problem!” Diamond did one quick survey of the room and stifled a yawn. “I guess I’m going to head home. If she’s not back to normal in a couple of days or starts swelling up, come get me.” Diamond took one last look into the tank and smiled. “Yep, she’s just sitting there under the log. Bye, Sassy,” she cooed before turning and making for the exit.
I snuck a glance back over to the picture sitting on the nightstand. Sudden curiosity hit, and before she could disappear down the ramp to the living room, I stopped her. “Hey, Diamond?”
“Hmm?”
I kept my eyes on the picture. “What’s the deal with you and Ty?”
I didn’t get an answer right away. She stood in the doorway with a troubled frown and stared at the picture on the nightstand.
“It’s complicated,” Diamond finally said.
“Complicated how?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out,” she said with a dry laugh. “Maybe we have something in common there.” Before I could pester her any more, she ducked down the hall and left.
“Silverstream, is everything alright?”
I glanced up at Dad, who stared across the table at me with a quirked eyebrow. His plate of shrimp with cream sauce was mostly gone; meanwhile I had barely managed more than a couple of bites from mine.
“You’re usually starving after a festival. Is something wrong? Did I put too much salt in the sauce?”
“No, it’s fine!” I took a big bite to demonstrate my interest in the food. I even went so far as humming my approval and closing my eyes while I chewed! But when I opened my eyes, his concerned stare didn’t go away. “See? Yummy!” I said through a mouthful of shrimp.
“Uh-huh,” said Sky Beak. He went back to his food and left me alone for a minute. I swallowed, but the food didn’t give me any satisfaction like it usually did. It was just as weird to me as it was to him. I always loved shrimp with cream sauce! It was one of my favorites. And yet I just... didn’t want it.
“So, I think the Hootenanny went really well,” he said, trying to break the ice. We’d spent most of the meal sitting in silence, and that was all my fault. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to him. I was just distracted.
“How’d everything go with your friend from school?”
I fought the urge to spill my guts. “He did fine.”
I had conscripted Gallus’s help for that festival specifically so I could spend a little time with him and get him to open up to me again, but the plan had been cursed from the start. I told myself I did it “for science” or whatever, so I could finish my painting of him. I had even convinced myself of it, but the uglier truth was that I wanted to corner him. It only took me a few minutes to screw it up and ask him too strong of a question, and then he closed off. If he wanted to quit his job and leave Mount Aris, I was running out of time to find ways to get him to stay.
And that wasn’t even the biggest reason today was a disaster.
Fork clinking against plate on the other side of the table reminded me that I wasn’t alone. I had spent enough of dinner brooding that Dad was getting annoyed. Or scared? “Silverstream, will you just talk to me? Did I do something to upset you?”
It was rude of me to shut him out like that. He hadn’t done anything to deserve the silent treatment, but between my frustrations with Gallus and… the other thing I wasn’t going to think about right now, I didn’t have much to say to him. But now I needed to do damage control.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not you. I just have a lot on my mind right now.”
Sky Beak nodded slightly in understanding. “I know you’re upset that she didn’t come,” he said. “To tell you the truth, so am I.”
I felt something strain in my chest, but I held it together. “I just need a little time to think,” I said, getting up from my chair.
He didn’t say anything for a moment, clearly weirded out. His face said, “Since when do you need to go off and think about things?” but his mouth said, “Just let me know if you need to talk, okay? You can always talk to me about anything.”
I smiled and gave him a quick hug. “I know. Thank you, Daddy.”
He returned it. “Going to bed?”
“Yeah.”
He leaned across the table and picked up my bowl, passing it to me. “Take that with you in case you get hungry later.”
I took the bowl from him and smiled. “Thanks. Goodnight. I love you.”
Sky Beak smiled back. “Goodnight. Love you too, sweetheart.”
I left the dining room knowing full well that he would be up for a while worrying about me. It hurt my heart that I was worrying him so much, but I couldn’t think straight. Exhaustion, Gallus, and… Mom not showing up. All of it conspired to turn me into a recluse for the evening.
I went into the living room and climbed the spiral staircase that led up to the house’s second level, where my room was. We lived in a spacious tree, almost large enough to fly up to the balcony, but not quite enough to do it comfortably or without breaking something. As I crossed the balcony to my door, I looked at our family portrait hanging on the wall. All four of us in our seapony forms: Mom and Dad, me and Terramar.
I moved past it quickly before it forced tears into my eyes. I could deal with the third thing that I wasn’t thinking about right now later. It wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Right now, I needed to worry about Gallus and redoubling my efforts to get him to stay.
I flopped down on my bed and groaned into the pillow. Today had been a stunning failure. Not only did I not figure out my griffon problem, but I also tore open a wound I thought I’d put behind me already. Today was just... fantastic.
At least the pillow could accept my thoughts. Another groan escaped me, and I picked the pillow up and buried my entire head under it, my beak pressing into the mattress. Why was he giving me so much trouble? Sure, I knew he could be stubborn, but this was ridiculous! Why did he want to leave? Everything he ever told me about his home life or lack thereof was horrible! How could I have put him into a situation worse than what he started with? Was I that bad at this?
“No. I’m fantastic,” I said decisively into the mattress, though the sentence felt lifeless. That couldn’t be it. He might be working hard, but there was no way I offered him something worse than what he had back home. Gallus was a hardworking, logical guy. He wouldn’t just act like this without a reason. What could it be?
I racked my brain for the details of the day. He seemed fine when I asked him to run the booth that morning, but he got all quiet and stiff in the afternoon. Granted, me basically vomiting out my frustrations on him didn’t help, but he acted nervous. He was hiding something. I could see it in his eyes. The nervous little twitches back and forth, never quite looking at me straight on until he stared at me for like a minute without saying anything! What was that about?
I ran the moment through my head again. I told him to think of reasons to stay. Food, money, me. That was such a weird place in the conversation to freeze up. Thinking of me as a reason to stay made things awkward for him? Ridiculous! I was his friend! He almost acted like...
...He likes me.
My head snapped up, launching the pillow to the floor.
“Oh.”