Perhaps predictably, Gallus was left waiting in the examination room for a while, which didn’t help with his nerves. He didn’t particularly like visiting doctors after all, though that was mostly because griffon doctors weren’t very reputable. Many worked solely for their own personal gain, extorting extreme amounts of money for their services, exploiting their patients for unethical medical experiments, or yet other abuse. But the most frequent complaint was simply shoddy or half-hearted treatments. A particular tale that liked to circulate was of how one doctor refused to treat a griffon suffering from a heart attack simply because he “wasn’t in the mood.” Gallus was uncertain whether this tale was really true or not, but even if it wasn’t, he had other examples he knew were.
A personal one had been in his pre-teens, after having dislocated a wing and relenting that he couldn’t correct it himself. But the doctor that treated it saddled Gallus with so much debt afterwards that he nearly starved paying it off by the deadline, even with Gus’s aide which he had by then. It was a miracle he succeeded at all considering he was still effectively a street urchin back then. He was confident the griffon hadn’t wanted him to in fact, so to have him spitefully punished for defaulting on his payments. And as if that wasn’t enough, this doctor had also thoroughly creeped him out. After later learning that same doctor proved to be a rapist, he was relieved the guy hadn’t also been a pedophile. All this was enough to convince him, like a lot of griffons, to try and treat his ails himself so to avoid ever having to do that again, even going as far as once enduring a bad case of the flu entirely on his own rather than have it treated.
But that was griffon doctors. Since coming to Equestria, he’d found he could trust their doctors better, having much more confidence they would actually do their jobs right. But Gallus still didn’t particularly enjoy the examinations, and with his faith in the profession being so low, he preferred avoiding them if he could. The recent debacle of Dr. Gene Type certainly didn’t help either, making him even more reluctant than usual. Still, in this instance, he couldn’t really avoid it if he wanted whatever answers could be had about his lineage. So he sat waiting, trying to boost his hope that doing this wouldn’t be a mistake.
Finally, the examination door opened to admit a very no-nonsense looking nurse. She was accompanied by the Night Guard assigned to safeguard him, but as he only took position next to the door so to silently observe the proceedings, Gallus turned his full attention onto the pale blue earth pony. “Hello,” she greeted more on automatic than with feeling as she consulted a clipboard in her hoof, “the doctors will be with you shortly to begin their tests, but before then I’m here to conduct a general physical.”
Gallus raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. “Hope you’ve brushed up on your griffon biology then,” he muttered, having doubts a pony would be well-versed on it.
“Griffon physiology, actually,” the nurse corrected pedantically before adding, “and I think you’ll find me adequately versed in the subject.” She then set down the clipboard and pulled out a blood pressure cuff. “Now, if you would give me your foreleg…?”
Gallus extended his right forelimb towards her. She wrapped the cuff around it just above his elbow before grasping the rubber bulb dangling from the cuff and giving it a few pumps, causing the cuff to inflate and squeeze his arm. She studied the readings on the attached gauge for a moment before releasing the pressure and started jotting something down on the clipboard with a curious hum.
“What?” Gallus asked, trying to see what she was writing. “What’s wrong?”
The nurse whisked the clipboard’s contents out of his view. “I’m just noting a few things for the reference of the doctors,” she assured without elaborating, exchanging the blood pressure cuff with a stethoscope. “That’s part of the whole point of this physical.”
“Yeah, but I’d still like to be kept in the loop,” Gallus grumbled, automatically exposing his chest so she could press the stethoscope over his heart. He flinched slightly at how cold it felt. “I didn’t come here just to be told nothing.”
“The doctor will be the one to give the final diagnosis,” the nurse pressed as she listened to his heartbeat. She made another hum and again proceeded to jot something down without explaining what or why to him. “My job is just to gather some of the information needed to make it.” She shifted the stethoscope over one of his lungs. “Now take in a deep breath and hold it.”
Gallus made an annoyed groan but obeyed. A moment later she asked him to breathe out again before doing this again with his other lung. She then circled around behind him and did it again, pressing the stethoscope to his back. Then, mildly surprising, she repeated it all a second time. This time when she went to jot down another note, her hum was accompanied with a faint furrowing of her brow.
“What?” Gallus demanded, taking notice. “What?”
“It’s probably nothing,” was the nurse’s unenlightening assurance, ignoring Gallus’s frustrated sputters as she then patted the top of the examination table. “Lie down on your back.”
Gallus begrudgingly conceded, exposing his belly to the nurse. She then proceeded to use her hooves to feel around his abdomen for any abnormalities. He was starting to see why they were doing the examination in relative privacy like this—clearly, parts of it were somewhat awkward. “Find anything interesting?” he groused after a moment of this.
“Nothing yet,” the nurse unhelpfully replied as she continued feeling around his insides. “Have you noticed any abnormalities to report?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“No unusual aches or pains?”
“Nope.”
“Are your bowels moving?”
“Well, they could move, but why would they want to leave when the place they’ve already got is rent-controlled with the utilities included and everything?” Gallus shot the nurse a cheeky grin.
The nurse only gave him a deadpan expression in response.
Gallus frowned, disappointed. “Yes, my bowels are moving,” he relented before adding out of annoyance, “Heck, you should’ve seen them move this morning.”
“A demonstration won’t be necessary,” the nurse flatly assured, finishing the abdominal check and continuing to jot things down without telling Gallus what. She then paused as if thinking it through a bit further, motioning for him to sit up again. “That is unless the doctors feel obtaining a stool sample is necessary.”
“Ew,” Gallus curtly replied as he obeyed.
The nurse picked up a penlight and, using her spare hoof to hold them open, examined each of his eyes. This time her hum was more approving, though Gallus was still annoyed she wasn’t telling him anything about what was getting noted down. “Seriously, since I’m the patient, is it really going to hurt anyone to tell me what it is you’re observing?” he asked.
“It would if one makes conclusions before getting all the data,” the nurse replied as she pulled out a tongue depressor. “Open your mouth and say ah.”
Gallus “ahhhed” at her with all his strength while she examined the inside of his mouth and throat. This time when she hummed it was followed up with an actual comment. “Gape color appears healthy,” she observed aloud, surprising Gallus that she knew this important indicator of griffon health since most ponies didn’t. She then squinted a little. “Throat seems to be mildly swollen though.”
“Ahhat’th abbably becath Ah wahh neahhlah thrangulahd jahth ha ahvannah befarh,” Gallus attempted to slur around the tongue depressor.
The nurse removed it and gave him a look. “What?”
“I said that’s probably because I was nearly strangled just the evening before,” Gallus repeated.
The nurse raised a questioning eyebrow at him. Gallus merely returned it, refusing to elaborate. So the nurse scoffed and went back to noting things down without comment. Once done, she moved behind him again. Gallus turned his head to try and follow her movements before being distracted by a faint snap ringing from his other side, sounding like someone clicking their talons. Confused, Gallus turned his head back around to investigate only for the nurse to shift positions and he heard the snapping sound again in his other ear. When he whipped his head around once more, he saw the nurse walking back to the clipboard to jot down more notes.
“Hearing’s good,” she remarked aloud, noticing his glance.
Gallus just looked at her hooves, confused. “How the heck did you make that sound with hooves?” he asked.
The nurse, however, refused to elaborate like he had for her and instead pressed on with the next step in the physical. “Next we’ll be taking your temperature.”
Gallus immediately chuckled. “Good luck with that,” he said snidely. He tapped the side of his beak with one talon. “Thermometers don’t really mix well with this.” Indeed, the last time the nurse at the School of Friendship tried, his beak had accidentally snapped off the end, destroying it.
“I am already aware conventional thermometers will not suffice,” the nurse replied. “The medical records your school nurse sent us made that especially clear. Fortunately, there’s more than one way to take a temperature.” She opened a nearby drawer and started rooting through it. “I have a rectal thermometer here we can use to—”
“NOPE!” Gallus vaulted himself off the examination table and towards the door, startling the guard still standing beside it.
But before he could close the gap, the nurse grabbed him by the tail tuff and yanked him to a halt. “Oh, no you don’t!” she said as she kept him from escaping. “I know this won’t be very pleasant but it’s got to be done, so the sooner we do it, the sooner we can get it over with.”
“Nooooo,” Gallus bemoaned as he was dragged back to the examination table.
At least the guard had the decency to avert his gaze for that part.
It also largely set the tone for the rest that followed. Once the nurse had finished torturing him (followed by another notable gap of waiting), Gallus was visited by multiple specialists in seemingly random order, all of whom gave him examinations pertaining to their specific field of expertise. So one doctor came in to give him an eye exam, another conducted a nose, throat, and ear exam, another for a hoof and paw exam, and so on. Each had their own unpleasantries and discomforts to it, and by the end of it all there weren’t many parts of Gallus’s body that hadn’t suffered some level of embarrassment. He was assured every time it was so to collect needed information, which he didn’t really doubt, and to their credit everyone still treated him with the expected level of care and caution…but it still didn’t make it any more enjoyable to experience.
Likewise, none of these specialists were griffons, meaning that even though they still knew their way around griffon physiology, they were clearly more used to handling pony patients than any other creature. In fact, all but one of the doctors belonged to some tribe of pony. The only one who wasn’t, admittedly standing out the most simply for that, was the tall and feline hoof and paw doctor—an immigrant from Abyssinia, or so was explained during his part of the examinations. Nevertheless, it still made Gallus feel a little like a fish out of water, being examined by creatures not the same species as he.
Then, whenever he wasn’t being poked and prodded by doctors, he was being poked and prodded by that darn nurse returning again and again to obtain some sample from him. The exact ones ultimately didn’t matter because, by the end, Gallus was pretty certain she’d taken one of everything possible, no matter how unpleasant or awkward it was. If it was something a sample could be taken of, she was there to take it. Even worse was when the nurse came back to take another sample of the same thing due to some new unspecified detail having come up and needing further study. Pretty soon, Gallus was getting rather sick of it.
“Some more blood, Gallus,” he mumbled aloud to himself while the nurse took the latest round of samples. “A needle won’t hurt, Gallus. Roll over, Gallus. Breathe deeply, Gallus. Blood sample, Gallus—marrow sample, Gallus—skin sample, Gallus…” He huffed. “If…if I live long enough…I’m going to run out of samples.”
“You’ll live,” the nurse assured him nonchalantly.
“Oh yes, I’ll live,” Gallus was forced to agree. “But I won’t enjoy it.”
Also in-between all of this was Gallus being escorted into another room so to magically scan his body and, as the operator conducting the scans put it, “steal a peek inside.” However, like all those notes that darn nurse wouldn’t let him see, he barely even glimpsed any of the resulting images. So for him, the scans were little more than him being told to contort his body around for long periods of time while the operator got the desired images. That said, he did get word of Spike enduring these same tests around this time—as Gallus was leaving, the scan operator asked an assistant to have the dragon come in next. Hopefully that meant Spike was persevering through all the hassle, because he sure as heck was having a time trying to.
Finally, though, after it seemed like he’d suffered every medical related indignity imaginable, it was over. He was informed that a doctor would talk with him about the results shortly and was left, once again, to wait in the examination room. This time he didn’t have to wait as long before the door opened and the guard escorted in another doctor, this one a bat pony stallion slate grey in color and with a jet black mane. Gallus presumed he was affiliated with the Night Guard, hence why he was entrusted with this task—the Night Guard wanted someone seen as one of their own doing this. And Gallus appreciated that thought…though he couldn’t help but remind himself Gene Type had been similarly affiliated with the Royal Guard and that hadn’t stopped him from trying to attack.
This pony, however, didn’t act like Gene Type had and instead approached professionally. “I imagine you’ve been waiting long enough by now, hmm?” he began by quipping with a grin before moving on to the introductions. “I’m Dr. Shade Star. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gallus.”
“…thanks?” Gallus replied uncertainly as he shook the pony’s proffered hoof.
“Well then, let’s not beat about any longer and get right into it,” Shade then proceeded, holding up a clipboard presumably filled with the many test results. He started to pull out the topmost paper. “I hope you find all this helpful. We’ve at least learned quite a bit about your physiology.”
“Admittedly,” Gallus said as he accepted the paper Shade handed him, “I’m just hoping it settles a few lingering doubts.”
“I think we can safely say it has then,” Shade motioned to the paper he just handed him. “That paper discusses your blood test results. Note the section concerning your genetic lineage.”
Gallus held up the paper so to skim over its contents. Most of it was very technical medical terms he didn’t totally understand beyond indications that, for the most part, the results were fairly normal. However, a little more than halfway through the document, it read: “LINEAGE: 43% DRAGON, 57% GRIFFON.” Gallus felt his heart tense as he stared at the words, chasing away any remaining doubt he could’ve still had. Not that he had much at this point given all the other evidence, but to still see it printed in black and white gave it a surreal level of definitiveness.
He swallowed. “I guess that’s that then,” he mumbled to himself. “I’m a hybrid.”
“Indeed,” Shade agreed with a sympathizing nod. “If it helps though, that makes you an exceedingly unique creature, genetically speaking.”
The compliment only helped a little, given the magnitude of the reveal. Gallus took in a deep breath, trying to steady himself. “…and Spike?” he braved asking.
Shade motioned to another portion on the paper. “Without a doubt your sibling by blood,” he replied as Gallus skimmed the relevant section affirming as such. “Given your personal histories, it is actually somewhat miraculous you both managed to cross paths again after being separated for so long.” He grinned encouragingly. “Clearly, fate has been favoring you greatly.”
“Hopefully that continues then,” Gallus muttered under his breath, thinking of the repeated attempts on his and Spike’s lives. He then frowned as he processed all the implications, lowering the paper. “So, wait…if I’m a hybrid, how come I still look like a full-blooded griffon?”
“A quirk of this sort of genetic hybridization,” Shade explained patiently. “In fact, under normal circumstances, a dragon and a griffon probably couldn’t crossbreed this successfully if it weren’t for the world’s natural magic making up some of the difference. But by so doing, it causes traits from one side of your lineage to effectively cancel out if similar traits on the other side are more dominant or simply take seed before the first can, otherwise both traits would negatively clash.”
“…meaning?” Gallus prompted, not sure he was following.
“Basically, the core traits of your outward physiology are mostly determined by which side of your genetic lineage ends up the most dominant.”
“But according to this I’m half-and-half, aren’t I?”
“Mathematically, not quite—if you were truly evenly fifty-fifty griffon and dragon, you likely wouldn’t have been successfully conceived, even with natural magic nudging things, because both sides of your genetic lineage would fully cancel each other out, producing no viable zygote.” Gallus swallowed uncomfortably again at how close he might’ve not come to existing altogether. Shade continued. “So while you’re fairly close to fifty-fifty genetics, you aren’t truly. Your griffon-half is slightly more dominant by about fourteen percent, making it the genetic side manifesting the most traits. Ergo you appear, at a glance, fully griffon while leaving your dragon traits more recessive and thus not as visible or obvious.”
Gallus ran that all through his head for a moment. “I assume it’s the reverse for Spike then?” he asked.
Shade nodded. “Spike is even more closely split at only a four percent difference, but his dragon-half still proved the more dominant, thus making his appearance draconic like how yours is griffon.”
Gallus continued to mull it over for a moment, looking down at his claws. “Huh,” he mumbled, almost disappointed. “Guess that means I missed out on getting any cool draconic traits,” he mumbled only semi-seriously.
“Ah, but that’s where this all gets a little complicated,” Shade instead corrected, stepping around the cot Gallus sat on. “Because you may appear fully griffon, but I never said you didn’t have some draconic traits. That’s what the rest of these tests were spent determining.”
Gallus perked up at that, simultaneously surprised, intimidated, and intrigued. “…really?” he asked with hesitation, as if afraid asking would somehow change it.
“Quite,” Shade confirmed with an amused chuckle. He stepped over to where a small and flat platform only a couple inches tall and big enough for a single creature to stand upon sat on the floor—Gallus hadn’t really paid it any attention the whole time he’d been in the examination room. “The easiest way would be to show you…with your permission, of course.”
Gallus turned himself around so to stay facing the bat pony. “Sure, why wouldn’t I?” he asked.
“Well, it’s just that some creatures find this a little…unsettling,” Shade explained as he used his hoof to tap a concealed control on the platform.
The platform started humming before a swirling mass of magical energy formed above it. It shifted, grew, and changed shape and color repeatedly before finally settling into a complete three-dimensional recreation of Gallus himself in full figure, standing normally on all fours and staring straight ahead.
“Whoa!” Gallus breathed in awe, hopping off of the cot and moving closer so to have a better look.
“This is what all those imaging scans we took were for,” Shade explained while watching Gallus circle his magical doppelganger, taking in the sight. “This way, we can recreate your own anatomy down to the finest of details for easy viewing, seeing details you wouldn’t be able to very easily on your actual body. Like I said though, some creatures are unnerved to see a duplicate of themselves like this and it does take a bit of getting used to.”
Gallus, however, took in this duplicate with more curiosity than discomfort. Shade wasn’t kidding about the high level of detail it used, because while the duplicate image just stood there, not reacting to anything around it, it was also no static image. The duplicate still made all of the same small little motions expected of a griffon idly standing in place. A feather shuffle here, a tail twitch there—the duplicate’s chest even visibly rose and fell as if breathing. Gallus waved one paw in front of its eyes, noting that while it otherwise didn’t react, its pupils still reflexively dilated as if shifting its focus from the room’s far wall to the paw waving in front of its beak.
“Huh,” Gallus hummed, impressed, before with a cheeky grin he made a pair of finger guns at the duplicate. “Hey there, good-looking!”
The duplicate idly blinked and continued to be unfazed by its surroundings.
“Anyway,” Shade continued, rolling his eyes at Gallus’s antics, “with this I can show you your body’s more hidden draconic traits that you’ve probably never noticed.”
“Okay,” Gallus said, finally pulling his attention away from the novelty of his duplicate and back on the doctor again, “like what?”
“For starters, your feathers,” Shade began, motioning with his clawed wingtip at the duplicate’s feathered wings.
Gallus glanced back at the feathers of his left wing, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. “What about them?”
“Well, anatomically, they’re like the feathers of any other griffon and clearly still function in the same way,” Shade explained. “However, we found additional minerals in their structure besides the normal keratin, minerals normally found in the scales of dragons.”
“Wait, really?” Gallus asked, glancing from the duplicate’s feathers then at his own.
“Oh yes, though it makes sense. Scales would’ve grown instead of feathers had you been a full-blood dragon, so it makes sense your feathers, the next best thing, would share some traits with them.” Shade then motioned to the duplicate’s talons. “A similar story for your talons—they bear comparable minerals found in dragon claws but generally not griffon talons.”
Gallus held up one paw, studying the long and pointed talons protruding from the tips he’d never really thought that hard about before. “So…what does that mean?”
“Mostly that both are more resilient and durable than they’d be for the average griffon,” Shade explained with a friendly grin. “In fact, if you were eating a more draconic diet, that reinforcing might even continue to develop, further adding to their resiliency.” He motioned to the duplicate’s talons again. “Theoretically, you might even be able to dig through stone like a dragon with those talons.”
Gallus’s eyes bulged slightly and again regarded his talons in awe. He had a hard time envisioning that idea, but then again he couldn’t say he’d ever tried before. Why would he? A normal griffon couldn’t dig through something as tough as stone without injuring themselves, and he previously had no reason to think it’d be any different for himself.
“And like I said, that’s just for starters,” Shade repeated, noting Gallus’s amazement. He stepped back to motion at what appeared to be a small flap of skin just above the duplicate’s hip. “This, for example, appears to be an underdeveloped muscular pouch.”
“That’s a pouch?!” Gallus exclaimed in shock, twisting around to grab at the loose skin on his body.
“An underdeveloped one, so I’m not sure how useful it actually is to you,” Shade explained before continuing. “But they’re a common trait with dragons. It’s my understanding they’re used to carry objects in like saddlebags, with the pouch stretching to accommodate the contents. Think of it as like a chipmunk storing food in their cheeks or a kangaroo’s pouch, just…located in a different spot and used for a different purpose. Like dragons, you have small ones above both hips apiece, though again I’m not sure how far they’ll stretch to fit things for you.”
Gallus fingered at the small flap of skin, managing to wiggle a couple of talons into it. To his awe, the pocket of skin did indeed stretch to fit them with such ease that, if he couldn’t feel his talons wiggling within the apparent pouch, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed it was there. “Whoa,” he mumbled. “I…I always just thought that was a flap of loose skin.” He looked back at Shade and the duplicate, humbled. “…heck, I didn’t even think I’d have any traits that obvious.”
“It’s only obvious if you know what they are, part of the reason we’re doing this now,” Shade pointed out before motioning one wingtip up and down the duplicate’s spine. “Another example: I’m guessing you never noticed you have small scales running down the length of your spine.”
“What?” Gallus again exclaimed, wrapping one paw around to feel at the small of his back, the only part he could easily reach. He only felt the usual fur and feathers though.
“To be fair, they are pretty hidden under your coat,” Shade elaborated, noticing his attempts to locate the scales. He moved to press another control on the duplicate’s platform. “Here, I can tweak the image so you can see them more easily.”
The duplicate’s image flickered for a split second, then the blue and tan of its feathers and fur faded away into nothing leaving only the pink skin visible underneath. It made the duplicate look like it’d been shaved and plucked completely from head to toe, appearing so ridiculous that Gallus’s first reaction was to stifle a chuckle. But a moment later, now that the feathers and fur were no longer blocking his view, Gallus noticed for the first time how the duplicate sported small, smooth, bumps clustered around his spine, colored blue similar to his usual coat except notably darker in shade. Stepping closer, Gallus realized with a jolt how it reminded him of Spike’s scales. In fact, now that he thought about it, the darker shade was similar to the color of scales Spark appeared to have before his death…suggesting Gallus had inherited it from him.
His jaw hanging slightly open, he again reached around to feel for these scales. He had to dig past the fur and feathers a bit until he reached the flesh hidden underneath, but after a second of searching, he found a small round something that felt like it could be one of them. He was still trying to process the idea of having scales of any amount on his back when he noticed something about the duplicate’s wing and pointed a talon at it. “Is that wing supposed to look like that?”
“I was actually just about to get to that,” Shade admitted and motioned to the wing’s middle joint, where a section of skin visibly stretched from one side to the other. “As you can see, your wings are slightly webbed by a couple inches around this joint, where your forewing bones join with your metacarpals. It doesn’t seem to meaningfully affect your flying ability any as it’s more vestigial than anything, but it’s enough to still take note of.”
Gallus extended one wing and poked a talon through the feathers until he felt it make contact with the webbing. “Webbed,” he mumbled, glancing at the stallion’s own webbed wings, “like a bat wing?”
“Or more accurately, a dragon’s wing,” Shade corrected, “In any case, I’ve never seen such webbing on any kind of feathered wing like this before, so it can only be from the dragon side of your lineage.” He then motioned to the duplicate’s bare skin. “Your epidermis also bears an extra set of glands that are producing, in amounts just enough to fully cover your skin and coat, a chemical that protects from combustion reactions.”
“Combustion reacti—” Gallus’s eyes bulged once again. “Are you saying I’m fireproof?” That didn’t seem right—he had definitely burned himself a time or two over the course of his life.
Shade’s hesitation seemed to confirm it. “More…fire resistant, I’d say. You’d certainly still burn if exposed to an open flame long enough, so I wouldn’t go playing with fire anytime soon. But you’d also not burn quite as immediately as, say, I myself would.”
Gallus let out his breath in a whoosh, rubbing at the back of his head as he looked the duplicate over. “Just how many of these traits do I have, anyway?”
“There’s actually a good few more, if you’re still interested in hearing them all,” Shade replied and motioned to the duplicate’s image. “Though I should warn you the remainder are all increasingly more internal. I can show you with the imager, but it’ll mean showing you a side of your anatomy that most aren’t prepared to see.”
Gallus pshawed that aside though. “Dr. Star, half-dragon or not, I’m still a predator, one who’s gutted his share of kills before. I already have a pretty good idea what those insides are going to look like.”
“Yes, but it’s not the same to see your own though,” Shade stressed before pressing on, working with the platform’s controls. “But if you really have no issue with it, we’ll continue.”
The duplicate’s image flickered again and this time its outer skin faded away, revealing all of the muscles within. Gallus’s eyebrows went up at the peculiar sight, realizing Shade’s point about how weird it was seeing his own muscles exposed like this, but as predicted it still didn’t bother him much. “So did I get draconic muscles or anything like that?” he asked as Shade continued working with the controls.
“Actually, other than a couple fairly minor differences in structure, your musculature is as you’d expect for any griffon,” Shade admitted, looking up briefly. “So much so, I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
Gallus frowned, a little put out. “So no dragon super strength?”
Shade chuckled and resumed working with the controls. “No, not really. Granted, your muscle fibers overall have a higher amount of growth than the average griffon your age, but that’s just as likely due to good exercise as it is draconic genetics.” He shrugged. “Either way, it just means your muscles are in good health.”
Gallus sighed. “Well, I guess that’s still something,” he conceded.
Meanwhile, the duplicate’s image was shifting yet again, causing the muscles to fade away and reveal his skeleton and the internal organs underneath, an even more bizarre sight. Shade continued adjusting the controls so Gallus expected the image wouldn’t be like this for long, but he nonetheless noticed a peculiarity with the duplicate’s skeleton.
“Wait, hold on,” Gallus interrupted, motioning for Shade to pause before pointing at the duplicate’s backbone. “There’s something different about these bones too, isn’t there?”
“With your vertebrae?” Shade asked, glancing at the bones in question and nodded. “Yes, actually, as you can already tell they each bear additional protrusions larger than would be found in griffons though still small enough to remain subdermal and not outwardly noticeable. They appear to be spines that never developed fully.”
“I have spines?” Gallus repeated, suddenly envisioning himself with spines like Spike’s running down his back—that was a weird thought.
“Well, your whole skeleton has small anomalies for a griffon that were probably inherited from your dragon father, and like your talons and feathers, it also bears draconic minerals in addition to traditional calcium which add to their overall strength,” Shade explained. “Tell me, have you ever broken a bone before?”
Gallus shook his head. “I dislocated a wing once and I’ve stubbed my toes plenty of times, but no, I’ve never actually broken a bone.” He shrugged. “I figured I’ve just been lucky.”
“And you probably have been, as you can still break a bone…it’s just going to take more force than it would for most other creatures.” Shade motioned for him to wait a moment and resumed working the controls. “But your truly interesting draconic traits still lie further within.”
At this the duplicate’s skeleton likewise faded away, leaving only the internal organs it supported. Like how it’d been for the duplicate’s exterior, the interior was not a static image—its heart was visibly beating at the center of its chest (more calmly than Gallus’s real heart currently was) with the lungs swelling and contacting on either side of it. Gallus even noticed the duplicate’s gizzard give itself a squeeze and started to understand why other creatures found the imager a strange thing to experience.
Fortunately, Shade swiftly distracted him from that thought by motioning to a small lump of an organ at the back of the duplicate’s throat. “This organ here,” he explained, “is normally found only in dragons. Its purpose is to produce and ignite the fuel used for fire-breathing.”
Gallus’s head whipped around. “Are you saying I can breathe fire?” he exclaimed, stunned.
“Unfortunately, no, as your gland appears to be non-functional,” Shade admitted with an apologetic look. “It might be producing mana for the magical spark that would light the flame…but I cannot be certain if you actually have the capability to trigger it. But that you have it at all is intriguing.”
Gallus snorted however, eyeing the little organ that was apparently completely useless to him.
“Moving on downward then,” Shade continued and pointed to the duplicate’s heart. “Functionally, your heart is the same as any griffon heart, but we noticed during testing that its cardiac muscles do have a bit more oomph to their contractions, stronger than the average heart.”
Gallus shrugged, not sure he understood the significance. “Okay, so…what does that mean? That I will always have good cardio?”
Shade chuckled. “Well, I imagine that with regular exercise you’ll have decent stamina with a heart like that,” he said. “But beyond that, I can’t really predict what it’ll be for you. More than likely, it will continue to serve you like a completely normal heart for the rest of your life, barring no unforeseen complications or injuries of course. Or health concerns caused by other organs working with your heart, which reminds me…” he pointed a hoof at Gallus. “Forgive my forwardness, but I must ask—do you use any recreational drugs? Particularly any which are inhaled?”
Gallus blinked, taken aback by the sudden question. “Well…no, not really…” he then huffed and rolled his eyes upon remembering an obvious exception. “…or at least I don’t anymore.” He pinched at his brow with one paw. “Back when I was about eleven, some griffons I…associated with convinced me to take up sweetsticks for a while…”
“Mm, yes, sweetsticks,” Shade hummed thoughtfully, turning to examine something on the duplicate. “That’s a particularly potent one.”
“…but it was only for a month at most,” Gallus quickly went on to add. “I quit when one griffon passed away suddenly from complications pretty clearly due to his long-time use of sweetsticks, spooking me enough to not want to tempt fate and I…never went back.”
“That was smart, because you quit just in time,” Shade explained and motioned to a spot on one of the duplicate’s lungs, motioning for Gallus to lean in and look too. “You see that discolored patch on the lower lobe of your lung?”
“…yeah? What is that?”
“That’s permanent scarring, consistent with the use of drugs like sweetsticks which was no doubt what caused that damage.” Shade looked to Gallus seriously. “I’ll be honest—finding this actually alarmed a couple of us at first because we worried it was a possible sign of something serious developing. Fortunately for you though, this scarring is minor enough it’ll likely not cause any meaningful trouble moving forward. The fact your lungs inherited a dragon’s ability to partially filter smoke probably also helped minimize the damage. But if you hadn’t stopped using the sweetsticks when you had, it likely would’ve caused serious problems later in life.”
Gallus’s eyebrows went up at the close call. “I’ll be sure to tell Gus that the next time I see him,” he promised.
Shade patted him on the back. “You do that,” he encouraged before getting back on subject. “Anyway,” he continued, motioning to the duplicate’s guts further back, “it seems your digestive tract on a whole was what inherited the most draconic traits. Most are fairly technical in nature, but in summary, all of those traits working together makes your digestion a little more…aggressive…allowing for more effective digestion of foods. Likely because of it, in fact, your intestine is around a whole five feet shorter than it would be in the average griffon of your same age and size.”
Gallus furrowed his brow, not sure what to make of that detail. He had actually just been looking at the duplicate’s guts and thinking he had a lot more intestine than he thought. “Is…that a bad thing?”
“No, actually, the exact length of one’s intestine already varies from individual to individual, but in this case it’s clearly just another indication of your mixed breeding,” Shade explained, “giving you an intestine that’s a mix between griffon and draconic at about a length roughly in-between the two. All that means is that you digest most foods a little more quickly than a full-blood griffon, especially the non-draconic foods you’ve probably been eating most, since they’re comparatively simpler to digest.”
“It’s not like I’d ever eat much of any other food though,” Gallus pointed out as he processed this new detail.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Shade however interjected. “I did suggest earlier that, assuming you can safely do so, you could gain some potential nutritional benefits of a more draconic diet. And obviously while you lack the teeth to properly chew them, I think that you reasonably could safely digest at least small gemstones.”
Gallus snorted, skeptical. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, for example, your stomach,” Shade began, pointing at the relevant organ on the duplicate. “Not only does it visibly bear additional linings that’d be unusual for a griffon, there is clear evidence of it producing additional chemicals like those found in a dragon’s stomach, or as they call it, their ‘cauldrons.’”
Gallus opted against asking which of the many samples specifically they had taken from him allowed them to figure that out. “Cauldron?” he asked instead.
“It makes sense when considering the many aspects to dragon digestion that’s comparable to smelting, just in biological form.” Shade smirked. “Why do you think their internal body heat is so high? They have an almost a literal furnace inside themselves. You’re a bit different, of course, as your internal body temperature is surprisingly close to normal for a griffon, but your stomach seems geared up as if it wasn’t anyway.”
“Okay, so I have a stomach with some kick to it,” Gallus reasoned. “That doesn’t mean I should go eating gemstones. There is still the whole breaking them up into smaller pieces part to consider.”
“But that’s why you, like all griffons, have a gizzard,” Shade explained, motioning to the sack-like organ that sat just past the duplicate’s stomach. “And for you, it seems to be extra resilient, with the muscular walls bearing a higher grinding power and the interior folds featuring chitinous plates adding durability.”
“Yeah, but while I’m not a doctor like you, I happen to know a normal griffon gizzard is already pretty capable as is,” Gallus pointed out before motioning to the toothless interior of his beak. “It kinda has to be for all that gets put into it.”
“I know, but your gizzard is above and beyond even that,” Shade stressed. “I almost want to conduct an experiment, feeding you a small gemstone and track it’s progress through your tract, see how well it digests, because I really do think that gizzard of yours could handle it, as could the rest of the tract. At the very least, it’d be smoothed over and eventually passed without trouble.”
Gallus pulled a face as he envisioned what that would ultimately entail. “I’ll decline, thank you, and just take your word for it,” he said.
Shade flipped through his clipboard for a second. “In that case, there’s really only one more matter we need to discuss,” he said, before motioning to the area between the duplicate’s hind legs.
Gallus caught on immediately, eyes bulging on how awkward that would be. “Oh no,” he said, pulling back. “Oh no no no no…”
“Yeah, that’s kinda why I saved this for last,” Shade admitted sympathetically—clearly he didn’t relish the idea either. “But it’s part of your physiology too, so I’d be remiss if we didn’t discuss it.”
“Dude, trust me,” Gallus stressed, eager to weasel his way out of it, “I probably learned about the birds and the bees a lot sooner than most should.” He repressed memories about the indiscretion some griffons had back home. “So I’m pretty sure I know everything you could tell me on that already.”
“From the perspective of a full-blood griffon, sure,” Shade agreed. “But as a hybrid, though?”
Gallus hesitated, seeing the point. “…does it really make that much of a difference?”
“Actually yes, since any offspring you might sire would be hybrids themselves.”
“I…” Gallus trailed off, having not considered that before. But now that the doctor brought it up, it was a valid point. If he really did have kids of his own someday, he couldn’t figure out a way they’d be conceived without him passing on at least some of his own hybrid…ness. “…even if I…hooked up with another griffon?” Admittedly, it wasn’t a subject he’d put a lot of thought into before, but he’d always assumed that’s what he’d probably pair up with.
“Even then,” Shade assured. “Some of your dragon genes will always get passed on to your offspring, no matter your mate. Even if they hatched, say, seventy-five percent griffon and only twenty-five percent dragon, that would still leave gaps in the inherited griffon genes that the dragon genes could fill and manifest in.”
“What…what would that even look like?”
“I could only guess, but going off what traits you inherited, I’d surmise they would bear many of the same—a largely griffon body featuring, say, underdeveloped dragon spines, at least some scales, maybe even webbed wings.”
“So…I’m going to have mutant kids?” Gallus surmised, starting to become horrified.
Shade frowned at that. “Well, that wouldn’t be a very kind thing to say to your future children,” he sassed.
And in that moment, to Gallus’s even greater horror, he realized he’d reacted to the idea with the same distaste the very creatures wanting him dead no doubt had. Turning ashamed now, he curled in upon himself, hiding his head behind his wings.
“That’s why we need to talk about this,” Shade went on more sympathetically. “So you can be aware of all this and start planning accordingly now rather than after your offspring hatches spouting fire. You’re going to need to decide whether or not passing on your hybrid traits is something you really want, and if so, how and who with.”
And so he went on running Gallus through the expected quirks of hybrid reproduction. But Gallus found himself half-listening, only really absorbing the information if it seemed especially important to keep in mind or if it just caught his attention (Shade mentioned along the way that, internally, his genitals also bear a couple draconic traits which was…weird to think about). Mostly, though, Gallus just turned the idea of his potential children also being hybrids over again and again in his head, trying to come to terms with it. It scared him how hard it was proving. And it wasn’t something he could escape either. Really, the only way to avoid the dilemma would be to remain celibate and never have kids at all…a thought that broke Gallus’s heart more than he expected it would. But then, he had always envisioned himself starting a family someday…when the time was right.
This threw that daydream into chaos though, and he wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to make it a reality anymore. Never mind his own thoughts about having hybrid kids or even that of the hypothetical mother, he would be bringing such kids into a world that might not want them, enough to seek destroying them like had been tried with himself and Spike. And since there was a chance those kids might not be able to hide their cross-bred nature like their father could, that potentially made them even more of a target for the hate. Could he really live with himself, bringing kids into the world only to make them suffer that?
It was all, naturally, very deep questions Gallus wasn’t prepared to be asking himself, let alone answer.
He was still rolling the troubling matter around in his head as Shade finished and he was allowed to leave, heading into a nearby waiting room where he sat with his assigned guard until Spike arrived with his own guard a few minutes later, also looking distant.
“Hey,” the little dragon nonetheless greeted as he approached Gallus seated on a chair.
“Hey,” Gallus replied back. He ran his tongue over the edges of his beak. “So…how’d it go?”
“Well…okay, I guess,” Spike answered as he sat down beside Gallus. He bit his lip for a second before just saying it. “It’s…made clear that we’re really brothers, first of all.”
“Yeah, it did,” Gallus admitted, having somehow almost forgotten that all-important detail in the excitement. He sighed. “Which I guess means you’re just as much a hybrid as I am.”
“Yeah,” Spike confirmed, pulling out a sheet of paper and handing it to Gallus to read. It ran through the results of Spike’s blood work, like the similar paper Shade had given him. Gallus’s eyes thus quickly settled on the lineage section, which read: “52% DRAGON, 48% GRIFFON.”
Gallus let out his breath in a slow whoosh. “Well, at least I’m in good company then,” he admitted.
Spike chuckled at that. “I suppose so,” he admitted. He fiddled with his claws. “Did they run you through any weird hybrid traits you inherited?”
“Oh, a whole laundry list,” Gallus replied with a chuckle of his own.
They spent the next couple of minutes telling each other what they’d learned about themselves. Spike, it turned out, had quite a few unusual hybrid traits too. Some were comparatively minor but obvious when you thought about it, like him having less durability and strength or a greater tolerance for cooler temperatures than a full-blood dragon would. Others were neat, like how Spike had a “best of both worlds” sense of smell, a griffon-like lung capacity and muscles in his wings allowing for long endurance and high altitude flying, sharper griffon-like vision during the day while also still having a dragon’s night-vision, and barely visible but functional griffon-like paw pads on his feet. Spike also claimed that tests suggested he had a higher reaction speed allowing more agility than the average dragon which may or may not be a result of his hybrid genetics.
Some traits didn’t really affect anything, like how Spike apparently had an underdeveloped gizzard which didn’t cause him any problems but also didn’t seem especially functional, a slightly slower rate of digestion overall, or how he had follicles for feathers along his wings but none actually growing any. Others were mildly annoying, such as having waterproofing glands for non-existent feathers that instead made him more prone to breakouts (and apparently why Spike’s molt had been particularly rough), or an altered metabolism that more readily processed nutrients from non-draconic foods but was also the likely reason why he still sported so much of his baby fat for his age (fortunately, this could go away now that Spike better understood his actual dietary needs).
Others were just weird or embarrassing, like Spike sporting a more pronounced caecum in his intestines (Gallus didn’t even know what that was, but apparently it helped to digest fiber or something) or kidneys that conserved less water than a dragon and thus in turn required a larger griffon-like bladder to compensate. One trait that particularly stood out to Spike though was that his hybrid dietary needs made him more truly omnivorous instead of leaning heavily gemmavorous like the average dragon. This meant he didn’t have to subsist on a diet of mostly gemstones and could ingest pony foods just fine without much consequence, at least none that weren’t already universal for any other creature.
“Apparently normal dragons can’t do that as much,” Spike explained to Gallus, “at least not in large amounts or else they risk indigestion. Which I guess explains why whenever Smolder and Ember eat my nachos they always complain about getting cramps but I never hear that from literally any creature else that has them, myself included.”
“Huh,” Gallus said, finding that detail odd but sensible. He played with one of the feathers on the tip of his wing. “Did they, uh…also talk about any traits of the reproductive nature?”
“Oh my gosh, yes,” Spike groaned, blushing. He covered his eyes with his paws. “I haven’t had to talk about that in so much detail since I made the mistake of asking Twilight certain questions when I was younger.” He uncovered his eyes so he could roll them. “It turns out her being a walking talking encyclopedia has some downsides.”
Gallus snickered a little, envisioning what that must’ve been like. But as quickly as the humor had come, it dried up again. “Did they also talk about…future offspring?”
Spike breathed a heavy sigh. “Yeah,” he admitted. “They said any kids I end up having will be hybrids too.” He glanced at Gallus. “I’m guessing they told you the same.”
Gallus nodded. “I’ve been…trying to come to terms with the idea ever since.”
Spike was quiet for a moment. “That sort of thing is still a little ways off for me, but I guess it’s something you’d…need to keep in mind a bit sooner.” Studying Gallus’s face and no doubt seeing how much it troubled him, he added, “I don’t think it’s something to be ashamed of.”
“I know,” Gallus admitted. “But it’s…not something I can take lightly either.” He sighed. “I guess…I just always had this picture of what kind of family I’d want to have someday, and…this kind of changes all that. So it bothers me…and it bothers me that it bothers me, y’know?”
“…yeah,” Spike agreed.
“And I know it’s not like it’s something I’m going to face all that soon,” Gallus continued. “It’s just…knowing what we’ve faced as hybrids…I can’t ignore that they’d might have to face that too.”
Spike mulled it over for a second. “As I see it though, there’s not much point getting so worked up about it until that time comes for either of us,” he reasoned. “And then, if it does happen…it happens. I’ll just have to…give them the best lives I can, regardless of the troubles that may come with it.”
Gallus mulled on that thought for a moment before his gaze turned distant. “It makes me wonder what our own parents thought about it and if they ever had…doubts.”
“Maybe,” Spike admitted. He gave Gallus an optimistic grin. “But it clearly didn’t stop them. And…I don’t think they really regretted it either. To them…we were still worth it.”
Gallus managed to share the grin himself. “Well, if and when we ever cross that bridge ourselves,” he said, “I hope we can be just as good parents as they were.” He then shook his head, casting that subject from his mind. “We’ve got more immediate concerns anyway.”
“Yeah,” Spike agreed before his expression turned more jesting. “Like, we probably ought to figure out us being brothers before we even start thinking about being parents.”
Gallus laughed and patted Spike on the back. “Fair point.” He considered it for a second before glancing in the dragon’s direction. “You want to go get lunch then? Just us brothers?”
Spike looked back at him and grinned. “Lunch sounds great.”