Hey Gallus,
If you’re reading this, so sorry we’re not at the house. We tried to wait for as long as we could, but it’s a long journey to the Changeling Hive and we had to leave early to arrive before sundown.
Don’t feel too bad though, we hope you had a nice time getting here, and we should be able to see you in a few day’s time. Just be sure to use the key to get in and out and help yourself with what’s left in the fridge in the meantime.
Happy Holidays,
Ocellus & Smolder
P.S. See if you can get some gems before we get back, Smolder is a bit more annoyed about waiting than I am.
The note was left on the front door of the house, encased in an envelope with a single key. Gallus stared deeply at the note as it hung above his head, held by his outstretched arm, as he laid on a pulled-out sofa bed in the living room on a cold morning Hearth’s Warming Day. With his body lying on the padded mattress, covered in the warmth of the woollen bed sheet, it was the most comfortable he had ever been.
The comfort, along with the lack of pressure put on to wake up and tidy his living space, would have made the first morning of winter break a pleasant and relieving experience. However, the note was a reminder of both his disappointment and misery, that his friends were away on the holidays.
There was also the reminder of the guilt he felt upon the first arrival, knowing if he did not spend lunch with Scythe and his family, he could have at least seen Ocellus and Smolder before they left. Even though he reassured himself that spending the day with Scythe was worthwhile, the feeling of missing out made him restless as he stayed awake in that late morning.
Eventually, Gallus had enough. He got out of the sofa bed, made some toast with the bread in the kitchen cupboard to eat and then went out the front door into the snow-blanketed town of Ponyville. He was gonna take flight.
The flight was no different in the air than it was to a jog on the ground, neither a fast nor slow pace as he flapped his wings through the sharp chill breeze and made his way around the outer perimeter of Ponyville. Even for how cold it was, Gallus felt tepid as his body heat offset the air around him.
The lack of body armour also reduced the amount of stress flying such a distance. As such, he had an easier opportunity to marvel at the theming and decorations, the lights, holly wreaths, and the snowponies. Some buildings did more than others, the Sweet Apple Acres had a colourful blend of glisten and glimmer and rural décor, the former home of Princess Twilight Sparkle had lights that shimmered off the crystalline walls.
As he turned his way into the town centre, he saw a few residents out and about, a few who caught sight of the blue griffon waved their hooves, to which Gallus would quickly return with a smile and a quick wave of his talons.
After an hour of continuous flying, Gallus finally made a descent and decelerated to a stop, landing firmly in the market square. Out of breath, he could only feel the cold on his claws and paws as they were deep into the snow below. In front of him was the Sugarcube Corner, brightly lit with Hearth’s Warming lights, but the windows were dark, and the door was covered with a sign saying, “CLOSED FOR THE HOLIDAYS”. A popular destination for social gatherings, Gallus was reminded once again of his friends.
With Ocellus and Smolder off to the Changeling Hive, Silverstream being long gone along with Yona, and Sandbar being away and busy on that day, Gallus longed to meet at least some creature from Ponyville who he was friends with.
“Griffo!” a small, elated cheer emerged from Gallus’ left side, and he suddenly felt something soft hug his left forearm. Gallus looked down to see a pale green filly hugging his arm. Even though she was covered with a dark green hat and scarf, Gallus recognised it was the five-year-old Coral Currents.
Gallus got his wish, though he remained jaded as he hoped his wish was some creature at least his own age. “Oh joy, I have a monkey on my arm,” he remarked sarcastically. Without prompt or permission, Coral beamed and moved her way over to climb up Gallus’ wing to sit on the bridge of his spine. “And now I have a monkey on my back” Gallus followed with a groan.
The young filly giggled, oblivious of the sarcasm. She needed to climb onto Gallus to give him a big hug near his round head. “Missed ya Gallus! Did you miss me?” she asked.
“I sure did…” After continuing his sardonic demeanour, his eyes widened as he realized something. If Sandbar’s little sister is outside, then Sandbar must be in Ponyville, and probably nearby. “Hey, is your brother around?” he asked, his head upright and twisted side to side to look out for Sandbar, except he was nowhere in sight.
Unfortunately for him, Coral ignored his question. “I’ve been doing great at school,” she happily disclosed, “Miss Cheerilee is the best teacher, we’ve been learning numbers, listened to stories, drew pictures, and everypony was friendly! No wonder all you grown-ups still like to go to school.”
From her position, Coral could not see Gallus’ face, as it remained fixed in an annoyed glare towards the Sugarcube Corner. Oh Coral, sweet naïve filly, assuming grown-ups like Gallus are going to school to do exactly like first-year fillies and foals with their stories and pictures and friendly ponies, nothing like the military academy he’d been spending his time in.
“Yeah, that’s great” Gallus quickly dismissed, before returning to searching the surrounding area. “Now about Sandbar…”
“Hey Gallus, have you made new friends at the Ah-Kah-Dah-Mee?” Coral asked curiously.
Gallus then paused his search, turning his head back forward. He recalled his last three months, he dealt with jerks, with being stood out and left out, but he also met some good ponies along the way too. He finally turned his head around to look at Coral with a smile, “Yeah, I’ve made a few” he answered.
Coral’s smile widened, “How many?” she eagerly queried, scooting forward on Gallus’ back.
Confused by the specific question, Gallus raised an eyebrow, he looked up to think and count. Of course, Scythe would be a friend, he’s been kind and supportive since day one. Pound Sterling too, she shared his element of pride and was a fun pegasus to be around. Lightning Dust had been arrogant at times, but she was willing to admit fault and do better, and it’s not like her jerkiness was out of malice. Nicknames… he’s a bit arrogant too, but at least Gallus had payback.
“I’d say I’ve made four, I guess…”
“YAY!” Coral elated, throwing her forearms in the air in celebration. “That means I win!”
“Win?” Gallus echoed in confusion. Coral waved out to one side, and before Gallus could get an explanation of what Coral was celebrating, he was surrounded by five colourful beady-eyed little ponies. Gallus was left uncomfortably speechless as the five ponies looked up with curious scrutiny.
“Hey Gallus, that’s Ruby Light, that’s Lollipop, that’s Amber Swing, that’s Swift Dash, and that’s Star Wings” she happily pointed out each one of the ponies on the floor. “These are MY friends,” she said with her head high and her face beaming.
“Uh… hey?” Gallus said to the five, he forced a smile and slowly waved a raised claw, cautious to make the sharp claws not visible to cause intimidation.
“Wow, Coral knows all the creatures…” whispered Lollipop, a rose-pink earth filly with a mane of red and white fringes, in awe at the sight of the large blue griffon.
“Hey! Is it true that you go to an Ah-Kah-Dah-Mee?” asked Ruby Light, a brilliant red unicorn filly.
Recognising her funny pronunciation of the word Academy, Gallus turned his head to Coral. “Guess you told your friends about me?” he remarked rhetorically.
Ruby Light continued, “Coral Currents said you go to a Royal Guard Ah-Kah-Dah-Mee so you can be a griffon knight for the pony guard.” In response, Gallus sighed and pinched his beak, these ponies told Yona’s of all descriptions. In no mood to correct and be pedantic, he just parroted what Ruby Light asked in a sardonic tone.
“Yes, I’m training at the Royal Guard Academy to be a Griffon Knight.”
All five faces lit up, there was a choir of “Woah” before smiles and excited whispers ushered amongst the group. Gallus wasn’t sure what he was feeling, some sort of energy and enthusiasm, a feeling that he was standing taller than usual, his snarky attitude didn’t get this much of a positive reaction before. His only certain response was his uncontrolled urge to grin.
“Does that mean you wear a suit of armour?” eagerly asked Star Wings, a pegasus filly that was sky blue.
“I sure do,” Gallus answered with a smirk.
“Do you get to use those shiny pointy spears?” Swift Dash fervently followed, he too was a pegasus and the only foal of the group, with a cream-coloured coat and a black mane.
Gallus nodded, “Yep, sure have.”
“Does that mean you’ll get to work with Princess Twilight Sparkle?” asked Amber Swing, a unicorn filly whose coat matched her name.
“That’s the plan!”
The five continued being awestruck as Gallus grinned profusely with his head held high, it didn’t matter that they were a bunch of five-year-olds, he couldn’t help but enjoy being the centre of attention for a moment.
“That’s awesome!” Swift Dash exclaimed. “I wanna be in the Royal Guard someday!”
“Hey, work hard and you just might!” he remarked encouragingly with a wide grin.
“You’ll probably have an easier time than I do.”
“Hey! Are we gonna play or what?”
A distant voice of a foal caught the attention of the whole group, Gallus included. At the other end of the market square, five foals stood in a line. They appeared to be the same age as Coral and the other ponies, most looked like earth ponies with one unicorn. They also had two yaks with them, one male and one female, they looked young but also twice the size of the ponies.
The five ponies surrounding Gallus all started to shift towards him, all sharing a disheartened look. He could sense that they weren’t a good group, “Who are all they?” he asked.
“Those are some ponies from school, we challenged them to a snowball fight.” Lollipop answered.
“Yeah, except they got two yaks on their team.” Ruby Light continued.
“It’s not fair, we couldn’t get one yak on our team.” Amber Swing complained.
“Yeah, Yaks live on the snow, they’ll beat our team easily.” Star Wings shared her sentiment.
There was only one pony who was not discouraged. “Come on ponies,” Coral called out to her friends, “we have an advantage of our own.” All the others were perplexed, especially Gallus.
“You do?”
“Gallus is gonna play on our team!”
“I am?”
“Mh-hmm!” she confirmed with a nod. “Back before school started, Gallus and I played a secret game where if I win, Gallus will play in any game I wanted” she explained proudly. “He wouldn’t hold any bars either, whatever that means.”
It then dawned on Gallus what she was referring to, the day before he set off for the academy, he and Coral agreed to a game. If Coral got to make more friends than he did, he would have to play any game or activity she wanted. “…no holds barred.” Since he said that he made four friends, and she clearly had five, she won.
“That means he’s gonna be on our team!”
As Gallus was left dumbfounded, the other ponies started to become optimistic. “Oh yeah! With a military expert on our team, we’d be sure to win!” Swift Dash proclaimed, bouncing around in excitement.
“You’ll play, right?” asked Coral, as she perched herself on top of Gallus’ head so she could look him in his big blue eyes. “PWEASE!”
Those eyes... Gallus felt himself starting to crack when he looked at those two large blue eyes shimmering like the sunlight bouncing off the ocean floor, begging him, pleading with him. Even if he tried to look away there were five more pairs of glistening eyes staring back at him, telling him to play or make them sad.
He sighed, “Only on the condition that I’m captain, understood?”
All six of the ponies cheered in jubilation, they now have a military griffon on the team. The new captain on their team gave his first order.
“Now line up!”
All six ponies stood parallel to each other in a straight line, sat upright towards Gallus. They were unable to refrain from giggling or smiling at the imaginary scene of a military drill, with sounds of drums and Gallus dressed in a full suit of armour. With Gallus’ stern face, it was hard to tell if he was genuinely serious or playing along, as he marched slowly down the line and spontaneously began a speech.
“Alright cadets, I have just been made aware that we are out to battle against a set of rival ponies from the class of Miss Cheerilee.” He reached the end of the short line, made use of his hours of drill training and did an about-face turn, swooping around to the opposite side to march the other way. “What makes the battle seem most dire, is that they have two yaks on their team. However, the way I see it, their two yaks do not prevent us from winning the fight, isn’t that right, Cadet Coral Currents?”
He lowered his head to peer directly into 'Cadet' Coral’s eyes, and yet his stern look did not break her smile. “Sir, yes, sir!” she loudly responded, before breaking into a giggle. Gallus was sure if he were in Coral’s hooves, he would be made to do push-ups on his wings, but knowing this was a childish game, he smirked and returned to facing upright and continue his march.
“Sure, they have two yaks, combined with four earth ponies and one unicorn, they clearly have the advantage of strength.” He did another about-face. “But our team of two earth ponies, two unicorns, two pegasus ponies, and one griffon, have something better, strategy.”
He looked out onto the other team, starting to get impatient with the theatre on display. He imagined the scene was one of his war studies assignments, imagining his notes flipping through a notebook as he noted the environment, the terrain, the ponies on his team, and the ponies and yaks on the other. Confident he had an attack plan, he grinned.
“For us to win, we will follow our strategy to the correct detail, we will outsmart our rivals, and we will win the snowball fight that will occupy us the market square adjacent to Sugarcube Corner. Are you cadets with me?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” the ‘cadets’ responded in unison.
“Alright, here’s our plan.”
He then gestured his claws to get the ponies to bunch up, used the snow to draw out his plan and started whispering for which pony to do what. Meanwhile, on the other side, the ponies of the opposing team were getting irritated, folding their arms, and tapping their hooves on the snow waiting for the game to start.
Only one of the yaks showed any concern with how Gallus and his team were behaving.
“Um, griffon knows snowball fight only game, right?”
Two teams, lined up in the middle of the market square, looking at each other with determined grins on their faces. The surrounding area felt quiet, undisturbed by any other pony in Ponyville, possibly because a few of the adults were watching from their windows with popcorn ready, but that was not important.
A snowball fight was going to commence in three, two, one…
“CHARGE!”
The ponies and yaks all charged down the market square towards each other, running as fast as they could with their little legs. The yak’s team felt this snowball fight would be easy, they could only see four ponies running towards them, with the two pegasus ponies and the griffon hanging back. All they needed to do was get close enough to throw direct hits. They then felt their luck improve, as Coral and Lollipop split away from the four and began to run past them, meaning only two targets for them to throw snowballs at.
Once the yaks’ team was close enough, they stopped and dug up their first snowballs, and aimed them ready to throw. Before they could, they felt a snowball hit them from behind. They turned around to see Coral had hit one of the yaks. They then aimed for her but got hit by another snowball from behind. This time it was Ruby Light, they tried to aim for her but got hit from the side by Lollipop, and again by Amber Swing. Before they knew it, the snowballs were hitting them from all sides.
“Oh no! Yaks surrounded!”
No matter how many snowballs they threw, several more were hitting them from other directions. Boxed in, they couldn’t find an opening to move out for a better shot. At the very least, they could tell which pony was firing at them, even if the task of dodging and throwing was made slightly difficult, the game couldn’t get harder for them.
That was until they could feel snow land on them from above, several times. So much snow suddenly raining from above, it became harder for them to see who to aim at. “Argh, yaks trapped in blizzard!” one of the yaks cried.
Turns out, Gallus, Star Wings, and Swift Dash spent their time hanging back gathering up as much snow as they could, and flew over the boxed in ponies and yaks to drop snowballs from above. The feathered flying cadets swooped down to collect more snow, before flying up again to throw more snow at them.
After several minutes of throwing snow around, Gallus swooped to the far back to watch the show. He was impressed with how his team was handling the strategy, even without him. His arms folded and sporting a smug grin; he knew who was clearly victorious in this battle.
His grin was then quickly smacked off by the force of a large ball of snow hitting him on the side of his face, the impact leaving an exact half of his face covered white with snow. When he turned to look, “Direct hit on griffon!” exclaimed a large female yak, pumping her hoof after a strong throw.
“Nice one Yona!” exclaimed her partner in crime, a sea-green earth stallion with turtles on his flank.
Sandbar and Yona were standing right there… “You two were watching the whole time, weren’t you?” he deadpanned.
“Duh, somepony had to keep an eye on my sis.” Sandbar remarked sardonically.
After he brushed off the snow from his face, Gallus slowly approached Sandbar and Yona. The other two were slowly losing their calm as they held their grins, seeing a glaring Gallus getting closer and closer. The two had no idea what Gallus was going to do to get back at them for the snowball and watching him embarrass himself.
Until Gallus grabbed them both and pulled them in for a hug. “I’ve missed you guys.” It was a satisfying reunion, although to Yona, not the best yak reunion.
Being the bigger of the three, she picked up Gallus and Sandbar in each arm to hug them both tight, “Yona miss Gallus also!” she exclaimed as she left them compressed into her furry chest and dangling a few feet above the ground. Gallus almost forgot what a yak hug felt like, the odd combination of comfort and lack of breath, warmth in the body, cold in the head and legs from the lack of blood circulation.
Fortunately, Yona knew there was such a thing as too much yak hug and lowered the pony and griffon back on the ground to recover. As Gallus was recovering, he could still feel joy and disbelief at who he was next to.
“How come you both are here?” he queried, “I thought both of you would be away for Hearth’s Warming.”
“That’s the thing.” Sandbar answered, “Turns out our parents had made plans.”
“Yak family came down from Yakyakistan to spend Hearth’s Warming with Sandbar family,” Yona explained succinctly.
Meanwhile, the snowball fight with the yaks had turned less competitive, with both sides laughing and cheering. Gallus could see Coral happily riding on the young male yak, while a young female yak was trying to spray the two with snow.
“So those yaks…”
“Small yaks are Yona’s brother and sister from Yakyakistan.”
“Yona’s family decided to celebrate Hearth’s Warming with us, before taking us over to Yakyakistan to celebrate Snildar fest, so both of us can celebrate the holidays together.” Sandbar looked over at his little sister with a warm smile on his face. “It also gives Coral some time to enjoy the holidays with her new friends. Dunno why, but when she started school, I thought she’d be worried.”
Remembering how worried Coral was, he knew how right Sandbar was and could share his relief. “Yeah, guess it’s lucky we got to meet up today.”
“Guess so, although there was a bit of time, we could have met on Hearth’s Warming Eve though.” Sandbar further remarked, perplexing Gallus. “Yeah, we felt bad about us not meeting you from the academy, so we convinced our folks to wait for you…” Sandbar admitted, his voice trailed off at the worrying thought.
“Oh yeah.” Gallus smiled nervously, rubbing the back of his head. “I, uh, was kinda roped into a festive lunch with one of my friends at the Academy.”
Sandbar lit up, “Dude that’s awesome!” His feelings were a mixture of joy and relief, a part of him was worried Gallus would have been on his own for the Hearth’s Warming Eve like past years.
“Yona thinks Gallus should bring new friend to Ponyville sometime. Old friends like new friend?”
Gallus grinned and nodded, “Yeah, you’d like him.” He then turned to Yona slyly. “You’d definitely like him.”
Yona raised an eyebrow, “Yona confused. Why Gallus think that?” she asked. Unfortunately, Sandbar interrupted her question when he realised what time it was.
“Yona. It’s nearly midday” he whispered. In recognition of the time, Yona nodded. “Hey! Coral!” Sandbar then bellowed, “Best wind down the games, we need to head home for lunch!”
Yona quickly followed “«Yuri! Yula! Playtime over! Yaks heading back to Sandbar’s for lunch!»” she belted out, although in her native Yakyaki as opposed to Ponish, Gallus continued to smirk knowing full well why Scythe would like her.
In the distance, Coral, Yuri, and Yula, all vocally responded in awes of disapproval.
“Sorry sis,” he loudly apologised, “but mom said the sooner we have lunch, the sooner we can get to open presents at grandma’s.”
Yona did the same. “«Yona knows, but mama said sooner yaks enjoy Hearth’s Warming, sooner Yaks enjoy Snildar.»”
Although they wanted to play more, the three youngsters liked the idea of celebrating the holidays, and so waved their friends goodbye and made their way towards Sandbar and Yona. Gallus looked at them making their way up, simpering at the thought that their time together was gonna be coming to an end for now.
“Well dude, you comin’?” Sandbar asked Gallus, smacking him on the arm to get his attention.
The question stunned Gallus, “Really?”
His two friends nodded, “Friends should enjoy holidays together!” answered Yona.
With that, Gallus was once again roped into a family lunch for the holidays. Although it wasn’t as fancy, it felt just as big when it was being shared with two families instead of one, but if it meant he got to spend even an hour more with his friends on the festive season, this winter break was gearing up to be the best break so far.