Hearth’s Warming Eve was approaching — a holiday where you were supposed to gather with family or friends in order to exchange gifts, listen to good (and, in some ways, cautionary) stories, drink a pint of cider prepared for the winter, sing a couple of songs, and, of course, share joy, happiness, and endless fun with your loved ones, realizing your unity to spite the ancient Windigos. Of course, every nation living in Equestria and beyond had their own ideas about this special day, but that's how Sandbar — a young pony of light turquoise, mint, off-white color with a mane the color of the sea — saw this holiday.
The holiday had yet to come, so the atmosphere at the School of Friendship was relaxed. The students were already starting to pack their things, buying gifts for their relatives, and spending the last days with friends, hoping to reunite after the holidays.
Night. The full moon, filled with some mystical silver light, had just replaced the sun. Only occasional clouds, driven by a cool breeze, sailed past the night luminary. Maybe they were coming from Cloudsdale?
That night Sandbar, not yet suspecting that this night was a special one, crept along the hall of the school's now-dormant dormitory, trying not to stamp his hooves — Silverstream had a very light sleep, and any sound, even the quietest one could snatch her from the domain of the Princess of the Moon. He'd stayed too late today in the Sugarcube Corner, volunteering to taste dozens of Pinkie’s cupcake recipes. According to her, her friends were worthy of only the best cupcakes, so she did not let Sandbar go until every cupcake was tasted. Though, to be honest, the colt did not mind spending time with the professor — how can anypony refuse the hero of Equestria, the element of laughter, a good mentor and a companion to the princess, especially when all combined in one pony and, besides, the cupcakes were just delicious.
He was already at the door of his room when he suddenly heard the quiet but distinct sounds of guitar playing coming from another room.
Sandbar froze. Although the sounds were muffled, he realized that he had never heard someone play the guitar so beautifully and melodiously (other words he could not think of), as he had never heard such sad melodies, especially on the eve of one of the most gladsome holidays. Was Octavia holed up in one of these rooms?
Sandbar was surprised for a second time when he discovered that music was coming from the room of his friend Gallus, who had never been famous for his musical abilities.
Without any hesitation, the young stallion approached his friend's room and leaned his ear against the door. Then he was surprised for the third time because, as it turned out, the door was unlocked…
The door creaked open, and Sandbar, losing his balance, tumbled forward and awkwardly sprawled on the floor like a horse rug.
Gallus, who was sitting with his back to the door, turned around and tried to hide the guitar as if it was the evidence of some heinous crime.
“W-what are you doing?!” The griffon with blue plumage (only the belly and neck were white) tried to be indignant, but his voice broke. No matter how hard he tried to imitate anger, fright clearly got the better of him.
“How about you?” thoughtlessly blurted out the frightened and ashamed pony, still lying on the floor like a rug.
“None of your business!” The feathered one replied pugnaciously, turning away. The voice, despite the postured anger, still sounded somehow wrong. Sandbar had never heard such intonations in his friend's voice, just as he had never heard his guitar playing.
He slowly got up and stood in place. On the one hoof, the friend was clearly not happy with such a brazen invasion of personal space. On the other hoof, something was clearly wrong. But what?
“Are you still here?” Gallus raised his voice without turning his head.
Then everything became clear. Shortness of breath, changes in tonality, slight nasal twang…
Is he... crying? Sandbar guessed.
It became clear to him what he needed to do. He didn't know if he was doing the right thing, but he knew he couldn't do anything else. It was impossible.
After closing the door, the colt cautiously approached his friend and sat down next to him on the bed. He didn't say anything, didn't object, didn't try to kick him out. He just glanced from under his brows with his eyes wet with tears and sniffed softly. His paws clutched the guitar to his chest, like a mother her child.
“You play well!” Sandbar said, almost in a whisper, lightly nudging the feathered one. “Why didn't you mention this before? Professor Rarity said that you should be proud of your talents, and it's perfectly normal to show them.”
“Because I knew you'd pry...” the young griffon muttered angrily, then he took a deep breath and continued more calmly. “Or else, so that Silverstream doesn't make me tell the hippogriffs what a 'guitar' is. I'm not ready to pick up a million synonyms for 'strings', or whatever…”
Gallus turned sideways to the Sandbar and began to pluck the strings with clawed bird fingers. The room became filled with the sounds of a certain calm, melancholic, and incredibly sensual melody.
Sandbar had heard many songs in his hitherto short life, but neither the heady hits of Countess Coloratura, nor the tempestuous tracks of Sapphire Shores, nor winter carols, nor the spirited songs of Pinkie Pie, nor even the seriously solemn sanatas of Octavia had ever awakened in him such emotions as these three simple chords.
It seemed as if he wasn't playing the guitar, but his soul itself was singing, filling the space with longing and sadness, mourning for something. Closing his eyes and listening to this melody, Sandbar seemed to feel himself in a boat surrounded by a solid wall of fog in the middle of the ocean, and there was no edge to the ocean, and there was nothing beyond the fog — he was forever doomed to a kind of loneliness in the void.
Sandbar looked from the griffon's paws, masterfully plucking the strings, to his muzzle, and back again. His eyes were closed, but there was still moisture on them. It was noticeable how tense his jaw was, with what efforts he kept his beak closed, how slowly his mighty chest rose and fell.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gallus noticed how his friend was looking at him with barely concealed admiration. At first, he tried to just ignore it and only clenched his jaw tighter, playing with his jaw muscles. Then he couldn't stand it and, stopping the game, opened his eyes.
“I can teach you how to play, too. Do you want to?” he asked, quickly wiping his eyes and smiling timidly.
The colt had many questions on the tip of his tongue, like why he was crying and whether everything was fine with him, but knowing the griffon and his habits well enough, he understood that now was not the best time. And, obviously, not everything was fine with him…
“Of course!” Sandbar did not hesitate to answer, taking the instrument from the bird's paws. “But I don't think I can do anything with it... my hooves are not suitable for this.”
“Huh, tell it to Appledash, or whatever her name is! She taught me how to play.”
“Professor Applejack? I didn't know could…”
“There’s something you don’t know about our teachers, huh? Who are you, and what did you do with Sandbar?” Suddenly amused, Gallus grinned.
He slid somewhere behind the horse's back, and now Sandbar was sitting between his friend's paws, pressing his back into his soft chest. He had no idea that griffon feathers could be so soft. The pillows could easily be stuffed with them.
“The guitar should be held like this,” he said, correctly placing the instrument in his friend’s hooves. “Although it will probably be more convenient for you to hold it this way. Now put your right hoof on the strings, pinch here, and…”
Completely different sounds filled the room. No matter how gently Gallus held the pony's hooves, guiding them in the right direction, the student could not really learn a single lesson. Any chord he played sounded rough, ragged, unmelodic. Trying to play on one string, he touched a couple of neighboring ones; all the mistakes that a novice guitarist could make, he made a hundredfold.
Despite the negligence and incompetence of the student, the lesson was surprisingly fun. They had never laughed as much as they did now. Alone, for sure.
When the Friendship School first opened its doors to Gallus, he, like many students, experienced problems with adaptation. This problem was particularly acute when it came to doing anything together — he was afraid of not being the best. The outwardly imperturbable griffon would sweat at the very thought that someone might see him from an imperfect side or might think that he was not the best of all. That's when Director Twilight told him that friends don't care if you're good at anything or not, what important is that you do it together, have fun, and get to know each other. After all, joint activities were supposed to bring everyone closer.
A lot of time had passed since then. Now Ponyville had become practically home, and the ponies didn't seem too weird, and Twilight left school in order to rule Equestria. But he remembered this lesson well, and more importantly, he put it into practice.
“Now try the same thing on an open string. Even you can't screw it up.”
“You don't know me well... where is it?”
“Here, I've already shown you.”
“I get it... how do I play it?”
“For starters, sit up straight.”
“Like this?” the colt stretched out like a string, resting the top of his head on the griffon's chin.
“Even Grandpa Gruff doesn't hunch like that, you stooping dog!”
“Hey, stop messing around!” The pony laughed, hunching over to spite his strict teacher.
“Okay, okay, just try to do it like this. Try to keep the sound clear.”
“Like this?”
“You didn't hold the string.”
“And now?”
“And now you've pinched them all, and... hey, you're just kidding around! It's not fair!” Gallus ruffled the stallion's mane that, even in winter, pleasantly smelled of something marine. And cupcakes. Marine cupcakes.
Another peal of cheerful innocent laughter came out, followed by silence. With the silence came the old atmosphere of incomprehensible apathy and melancholy. The stallion almost physically felt something gnawing at his friend.
Gallus changed his position, sitting next to Sandbar, and the colt immediately felt abandoned and orphaned without a comfortable support in the form of a griffon. He even felt a slight chill, even though the room was warm. He wanted to lean back against his soft fluffy chest again, get his flank covered with wings, feel warm breath on his neck, hear a kind laugh in his ear. Doesn't the true friendship mean to enjoy each other, to care about each other? Sandbar saw more than once how Professor Rainbow Dash would sit in an embrace with Professor Applejack, covering her with a wing and thinking that no one could see them. Neither of them guessed the invisible presence of a sharp-sighted student, trying to study all the habits of his idols, learn all about friendship, graduate from school with all honors, and, perhaps, get a job at the princess's court to bring the light of friendship to all who need it.
“Gallus, is something wrong?” he finally ventured the question that tormented him, and gently touched a friendly shoulder.
“Nothing,” the griffon answered unexpectedly sharply, frowning again and lowering his head.
Celestia's mane! Sandbar silently reproached himself for his haste. He won't say anything now for sure.
But the griffon, as unexpectedly for Sandbar as for himself, burst into a tirade.
“It's nothing. Just think, on the eve of Hearth's Warming, everyone, including me, will go home, and this time I won't be able to detain all of you to clean. So, while you're all having fun out there, I'll have to listen to endless reproaches from Grandpa Gruff again, wander the streets, and — what's even worse — miss you, and wait for these stupid holidays to end!”
“You can always write us letters. Doesn't Gabby deliver them anywhere in the world?” Sandbar suggested after a moment's thought. The problem was by no means new, but the pony still didn't know how to react to it.
He was not afraid of friendship problems — after all, with such mentors only fool could be afraid. But there was nothing he could do about it. The thought really depressed him. He couldn't really forbid his friends to leave, could he? Or…
“No, you don't understand. I can't last that long... without you! I don’t care about this Griffonstone, if you aren't there! I don't care about everyone else! I need YOU!”
Gallus opened the window, letting in fresh, frosty air. Silvery moonlight filled the room, causing the tears to seem as if a trail of shimmering diamonds was flowing down the cheeks of a griffon who looked out of the window.
“...me?” the shocked colt could only answer, not fully realizing what he had just heard.
From the very first day of his stay at this school, griffon kept to himself, as, indeed, did Smolder. But if the dragon eventually, as it’s said, "thawed out" for her friends, Gallus always tried to behave with restraint to maintain the image of a tough guy who had prepared sarcastic phrases and grins for all occasions. It was only with Silverstream that he seemed to flourish — he smiled, laughed, made good jokes, talked about topics that he would not dare to start a conversation even with himself.
But with Sandbar, he always behaved especially coldly and did not miss a single opportunity to joke about his "eggheading" and reverence for professors, treated him with some kind of exaggerated disregard, blamed him for all the troubles and often argued aimlessly... yes, the things he did to the unfortunate colt. From the very first day. From the very first sight.
And how surprised the pony was when he heard such words from him. "I don't care about everyone... I need you..." Not Silverstream, not Smolder... him!
Gallus fell silent. He could not stop the gushing flow of bitter tears. He tried not to whimper, in case Sandbar thought he was a crybaby, Celestia forbid! Although Director Starlight taught that no one should hide their emotions from friends, Gallus has not fully learned this lesson yet.
“I... can I help?” The pony walked slowly towards his friend.
He had never seen any of his friends in SUCH a state before. His heart was breaking when he looked at the silhouette of the one he used to consider a friend shuddering in silent sobs…
Gallus clenched his fists and jaw hard. He wanted to drive this naive brat away, but at the same time... he didn't. And he couldn't.
“Shall we take a walk?” the griffon suddenly asked, turning sharply.
And without waiting for an answer, he grabbed his friend by the arms and flew out through the window.