//------------------------------//
// Episode 12: Generously Stealing the Show 
// Story: COLD 
// by Shadow Spector 
//------------------------------//


Episode 12: Generously Stealing the Show


"Why did you call me over here?" Opul crossed her arms before leaning against the walls.
Droll forced a smile. "Wait and see."
Opul shifted with a sigh. All she could do was trust whatever Droll had to show off was worth it, but trust hadn't been her strong suit for a majority of her life.
The yak cleared his throat as he made his way across his kitchen. "Droll always think 'why creatures no make life easier?' Why creatures need do more work than needed?"
Opul flinched. "That's why you called me over here? To advertise something?"
Droll's face twitched before repeating himself. "No . . . Just, why do creatures do more work than needed?"
The dragon shrugged. "I don't get it."
Droll looked away, as if things were deviating from his plan. Instead of answering, he took a jug of water from his countertop before pouring a tiny puddle over it.
The dragon stiffened. "What are you doing-?"
"Please wait." The brown non-pony met Opul's eyes with the same brokenness she had been used to seeing for months now. With one expression, she decided to dial down her impatience.
"Alright, alright, continue."
After another forced smile, Droll continued his presentation. “Why creatures do all work-” he cleaned up the puddle with a nearby rag, “- when creatures make objects do it.” With that, he tossed the rag with little force across the room, its path appearing to fall short of an open trash can that was tucked inside a mini cave-like opening in the counter. Before the rag could miss its target, a sudden jerk of force pushed the trash can in the way, letting the rag fall safely inside the garbage.
Opul flinched at the sudden movement. “What just happened?”
Droll’s expression began appear brighter. “Whatever dragon want to think happen.”
“But-but.” Opul tried her best to make sense of the situation but nothing was coming to mind. “There’s got to be some way you did that.”
Droll leaned in to whisper to his friend. “Droll secretly unicorn.” 
Opul gave an amused look before Droll walked to the other side of the room again.
“Magnets are inseparable,” he said as he picked up one black magnet in his cloven-hooves. “As long as yak hold this magnet, other magnet will not be able to reach. But as soon as Droll let go of magnet . . .”
The brown non-pony gently placed the magnet on the floor. Immediately by the time the magnet touched the base, a rolling sound came from behind Opul. Before the dragon could turn back to see what it was, a magnet with great force rolled passed her legs, heading towards its other half. The yak awkwardly pushed the magnet in the path of the other magnet, and the two polar objects clasped together as if never wanting to be apart.
Droll looked up at Opul with a bright smile. “See? Magnets miss eachother. Not good to put them apart.”
Opul’s jaw fell slightly open. “There's no way attraction can happen from that distance. How did you-?”
“Magnets like eachother,” Droll said with a bright smile. “One cannot be without other.”
The dragon's expression softened from her former bewilderment. “Wow, Droll, it’s good to see you actually able to smile again. Especially after Lenia-.”
“Who?” Droll interrupted abruptly, trying to keep a straight face. “Droll no know how dragon means.”
Opul lowered her eyebrows before gritting her teeth. “Right . . .”
“Now!” he said with unnecessarily loudness, as if trying to force the two into a different topic. “For final act, Droll will make item fall.”
The brown non-pony turned to a small, tan-colored shelf that was on the other side of the room. Opul looked back and forth between the yak and the object, realizing that she was separating the two from eachother.
The white non-pony scoffed. “Let’s see if you can still do your magic with me blocking you.”
“Oh dragon of little faith,” Droll said, his voice sounding hopeful.
The yak focused on a single teacup that was on the small wooden bookshelf, raising his cloven-hooves upwards as if he were holding an invisible lasso. With a few deep breaths, he began to swing the fake-rope over his head. Opul didn't have the heart to tell him that his "lasso's" swinging path would have been interrupted by the wall behinds him, but eventually, the yak released his grip to. The two friends watched as nothing went through the air but soon after, Droll acted as though there were tension in the pretend-rope.
“Got it!” Droll said, causing Opul to chuckle. "And now! Droll will now move teacup with mind!"
The white non-pony watched carefully as her friend pretended that he had the teacup in his grasp, and as Droll began to slightly jerk his cloven-hooves, nothing happened.
“Uh,” he panicked before speaking in an unnecessary volume. “Yak said: Droll will now move teacup with mind!”
Still, nothing happened.
“With!” Droll began. “Mind!”
Finally, the brown shelves began to move slightly, rocking back and forth slowly before the swinging began to pick up speed. Droll began to strain harder as he pretended to pull the teacup with his invisible lasso, but instead of the teacup being dropped to the floor, the entire mini bookshelf fell to the ground, shattering the porcelain. Opul quickly backed up to avoid getting hit, but instead of fear or annoyance, she was just impressed.
Droll looked at the broken pieces scattered underneath the bookshelf, gritting his teeth at the sight. “Yak can fix that.”
Opul turned to Droll with her eyebrows raised before she put her claws together to give her friend some much-needed applause. The bright smile on the dragon’s face caused Droll’s face to light up twice as bright as his friend’s.
“Thank you, thankyou. Friend too kind.” Suddenly, Droll’s bright smile began to falter slightly at his own choice of words.
Immediately, Opul spoke up. “That was so impressive, Droll! You really do a great job with your magic act. Imagine how Candid would react.” She stopped herself. “We won’t need to imagine because I’m going to get him right now!”
Without hesitating or looking back, the white non-pony rushed out of the household, set out on revealing the amazing show to her other friend.
From behind the base of the bookshelf, Jewell crawled out before standing up in front of Droll. “Jewell do good?”
Droll smiled down at him. “Yes, Jewell do good.”



Opul rushed down the streets, hoping to catch any sight of her friend. Her first instinct was to check the community hospital to see if her friend had needed to check up on his maimed injury. Today, or at least sometime soon, would be a day in which he had to do that.
With the hospital barely in sight, she caught a glimpse of an army of ponies all lined up around it, standing guard while staring ahead of themselves at nothing.
“What’s going on around here?” she asked.
After predictably receiving no answer or even so much as an acknowledgement of her existence, she decided to move on down the line to see if she would find a pony who wasn’t stubborn. After minutes of searching, her quest was interrupted by the shouting of a guard on one side of the line of guards.
“Hey!” the voice said. “Stop flying here! You’re making everyone really nervous!”
“It’s not in your right to tell me not to fly!” the familiar voice shouted back. “As long as I don’t pass you guards, you can’t say anything about me!”
Opul looked up to the sky to see her idiot griffon friend in the sky, flying around in circles to boast to the guards that there was at least one thing they were powerless in. After rolling her eyes, the dragon decided to rush over to the guard who had been speaking.
“Hey,” she began, “doesn’t seem like you have much control to stop him.”
“Do you know this griffon?” the guard asked firmly.
“Maybe. But what if he needs to see Dr. Degree for a prescription? Could be important.”
The guard sighed. “General Radiance has called for maximized guards around and inside the Community Hospital for an exclusive special event. No admittance is allowed until tomorrow morning.”
“What about if creatures need to attend for medical emergencies during the night?”
“Who cares about them? Nopony in or out until tomorrow morning. Now, if you know this creature, take him away before we take action.”
The white non-pony slouched, knowing she wasn’t going to get anymore information out of the guard. Instead, she called up to the griffon who was still flying in circles near a couple of tall buildings. “Candid!”
Immediately as her voice entered the air, the griffon stopped before staring down at his friend. “Opul!” Without a hint of hesitation, he flew towards the roof of the nearest building before folding his wings back up.
“Candid, I have news!” she called up.
“I can’t hear you from up here!”
“Just fly down!” Opul yelled up to him.
“No!” Candid looked around, trying to find a fire escape that wasn’t there.
Opul huffed. “Would it be better if I closed my eyes?” Without waiting for an answer, Opul turned to look to the ground, hovering her claws in front of her face. After three seconds, she uncovered them to find an orange griffon directly in front of her.
Immediately, Opul flinched. “Where did you come from?!”
“Couldn’t hear me, huh?” Candid said with a smirk. “Best part of stealth is that when it’s not explained, it makes you question what is possible.”
Opul’s heart was still beating when she decided to tell her friend the original intent of her visit to him. “Candid, there’s something really cool that I think you’d like to see.”
“What is it?”
“Just come and see." Opul turned to lead the way down the streets. "I think you’ll be amazed.”
The orange non-pony snorted as he followed. "You can't just say something ominous like that and expect me not to question it."
"Come on, do you trust me or not?"
"That's not fair! There's plenty of things that benefit from questioning!" 
Opul turned towards her friend as she walked backwards. "You're doing great, little griffon! Just keep on walking! We're almost there-."
Before she could finish, a loose stick intervened in her path. With no balance, she felt the weightlessness of herself tumbling towards the ground, but before any hard impact could be made, she felt the force of her friend already behind her, stopping her from going any further.
Instantly, her face turned red but shock took priority in her head. "How did you get here so quickly?"
"I'm still not as fast as I'd like to be."
Soon after she realized how close she was to him, and dragon cleared her throat. "It's, uh, just inside Droll's house here. I told him I'd go get you."
The griffon looked away. "Let's not keep him waiting."
Finally, Opul led the way inside, calling for her other friend to warn him of her arrival. She instantly noticed the change in design of the household layout, as if Droll had been preparing the place specifically for her and Candid. It was only after she continued to look around that her eyes caught on the yak who was smiling in anticipation in the corner of the room.
“Welcome,” he began, “to Droll’s Magicland.”
“That sounds stupid,” Candid said, prompting Opul’s lone wing to come up and headslap him. 
The dragon cleared her throat. “Droll, do you have anything exciting for us this time?”
Without saying anything, the yak smirked before flicking his cloven-hoof. Instantly, the top of a counter beside Opul and Candid engulfed in flames that were all contained in a safety circle. Opul backed up behind Candid, startled at the sudden explosion, but Candid kept his ground as if not affected at all by what just happened. Droll gritted his teeth at the fire as if concerned for something, but after a couple of seconds, he stared at Opul and Candid expectantly.
“What, do you have a stove over something there?” Candid asked.
“No stove,” the yak reassured. 
Candid rolled his eye, but Droll continued to stare at Opul expectantly, as if eying something directly above her head. The dragon was confused for a moment before Droll clapped his cloven hooves together.
“Poof!” he said in satisfaction. “The great Droll teleported bow to Opul.”
The dragon consciously blinked before Droll pulled out a small mirror, pointing it at Opul so that she could see what he was referring to. On the top of the dragon’s head was a small, white and pink bow that stood motionlessly on her emerald green hair. The white non-pony stared in astonishment as she admired the bow, not focusing on the stool that still stood behind her.
“Green base with white top,” Droll began. “Symbol of beauty.”
Opul’s smile contrasted Candid’s frown at the situation, but before the griffon could speak, Droll was off on another trick.
“Yak sometimes wonder how quick designs be done.” He proceeded to the counter that had the fire still going strong. After taking some water, he sprinkled a few drops over it, letting the sizzling sound fill the room with hisses. “Fire contain different colors. Just water has effect on all in this room. Candid’s tail had most effect.”
Instantly, the griffon tensed and he looked at his own tail to notice the top half was its natural orange and the bottom half was light green. He was speechless except for a few stutters of shock, prompting Opul to rush over to Droll with her bow bouncing on her head. In a friendly manner, she bumped the dull side of her claws against Droll’s cloven hoof.
“That’s - that’s not-.” Candid couldn’t finish his sentence over the sound of laughter.
The griffon huffed at the apparent derision of his friends. Being the brunt of a joke was one thing, but something felt far different when he noticed how overly satisfied Droll was at Opul’s giggling nature. Instantly, he went red, but he couldn't figure out if he was blushing or angry. Either way, he decided a different approach to the situation would be best.
“So you like true magic?” Candid said to Opul, trying to subdue his anger. “Well then you shouldn’t like Droll’s tricks. Afterall, he’s not even doing anything himself.”
Droll’s face drooped. “How griffon know?”
“You just used a furnace for your counter.”
“Wrong.”
“You had the bow ready to drop on Opul’s head.”
“Also wrong.”
“You had green paint fall on my tail when I wasn’t looking.”
“Getting closer,” Droll chuckled.
“And you don’t know how I got this.” Candid pulled out the white and pink bow out from behind him, holding it proudly in front of him.
Immediately, Opul reached her claw above her head to notice the absence of the bow.
Droll’s jaw dropped. “How-?”
Candid beamed. “A real magician needs to have no explanation for what he did.”
The yak frowned. “Candid no magician.”
“Then how do you explain this?”
“Magic yak’s thing!”
“Well it looks like it’s my thing now.” 
Candid turned to smirk in Opul’s direction, but the dragon was not taking any joy in watching what seemed to be unfolding.
“What do you think, Opul?” he continued.
“I think maybe you shouldn’t do that.”
The griffon huffed. “Hey, if I’m better than him, then that’s not my fault.”
“Griffon no better than yak!”
“How did I do this then?”
“Yak no know! Just-.”
“Then I’m better than you.”
By now, Droll's breath was getting more and more shallow as his face twitched in a set of emotions. Finally, he spoke in a modest tone. “Get out.”
Candid blinked before backing his head up. Rather than showing any signs of remorse, he just scoffed. “Gladly.”
With no delay, Candid marched out the door, leaving Opul with her jaw partially ajar. She glanced back at Droll, but the yak just dropped his head to face the floor. It took the dragon a moment of time before she realized that she getting her friend to return was the only solution at the moment.
“I’m sorry, Droll,” she began. “I need to get Candid.”
“No one choose Droll anymore. Go.”
Opul froze, but she knew she couldn’t make a choice without upsetting someone, making her realize it didn't matter who she chose anyway. After a sigh of exasperation, she took off out the door, running to the still visible griffon in the distance.
“Candid!” she called out. “You’re making a big mistake!”
The griffon stopped to face the dragon. “Oh yeah? Well I don’t care. I should’ve chosen better friends who wouldn’t try to steal things from me.”
Opul’s eyes glistened in tears. “What happened to us?”
Candid glared down at her. “You should know.”
Without even giving Opul a chance to react, the griffon marched away, leaving the dragon in familiar solitude. She hated that feeling even though she knew she deserved it, yet she didn’t think either of her friends deserved a feeling so low. All she wanted to do was fix it, but she didn’t know how. The only way would be if they talked out the issue and gave eachother a chance again, but she had no knowledge on how to make that a reality.
"Opul! Hi!" A gentle voice said from the distance. 
Opul looked up to see a maroon unicorn coming her way with a genuine smile for a change.
"Why are you looking so down?" the mare asked. "Did something happen since last time we talked?"
"Not exactly. This really has been more ongoing." The dragon sighed. "Candid and Droll are at it again. Only way to fix this is to get them to talk it out, I guess."
Thauma smirked. "Or I can use my breweries on them and brainwash them into interacting."
The dragon gritted her teeth but the unicorn just continued.
"Ha ha, I don't know how to do that on command. Hmm, maybe you leave them both a note, having them meet you at the same time."
“That’s a good idea . . ." She turned to face the direction where Candid had gone a while back before turning back to Thauma. "I've got to go. I think maybe I can still fix this."
The unicorn laughed. "When are you ever not fixing your friends' harmony?"
The dragon chuckled. "Well, believe it or not but it wasn't always me." The white non-pony's soft smile faded. "A while back, we had this other friend, Lenia, a light-green earth pony. She was the nicest filly you'd ever meet. She did a great job at helping each of us stay harmonious with each other. It's been really hard without her, but it's been far harder on Droll."
"He needs the extra company," the maroon pony nodded.
"It's the only thing I can do for him," Opul sighed. "Thank you, Thauma. We'll catch up some other time."
The unicorn smiled as she took off. "Good luck . . ."



“Would you care for a sandwich while you wait, dear?” a donkey waitress asked her.
“No, sorry,” Opul declined. “I can’t eat anything that’s not gems.”
“But dragons should be allowed to eat both.”
Opul sighed. “Yeah, they should be allowed. But I never got the chance to mix in normal food with my needed-gems diet when I was a kid. I never got used to eating anything else and now I can’t live off anything other than gems.”
“Well, is there anything I can do for you now?”
The white non-pony thought for a moment. “Could you play that song that goes ‘when they all see her come around, you know there’s something here to be found’?”
The donkey smiled before crossing the room to a jukebox where she changed the song to the familiar four-chord progression that Opul loved so much. She listened in peace as she waited, rocking herself back and forth with her eyes closed as she enjoyed the limited moment. It inevitably came to an end when she heard the sound of Candid arriving.
“Is this your writing?” He held up a note that contained the words that Opul used to recruit him.
She just gave a simple nod and a bright smile to him.
“Why does it look so ugly?” he followed up with.
Opul tossed her head. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I only had writing practice when I was three? I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a probable reason to me.”
Candid tried to shake his head, but Opul could tell he was amused, causing a subtle beam to slightly tug at her face.
Candid rearranged his position at the booth. “So what did you call me over here for?”
At the remembrance of her purpose, she straightened her posture. “Oh, I wanted you to meet with a friend of mine. I sure hope at the end of the day, you two can be friends too.”
Candid nodded his head before his eyebrows began to arch in suspicion. “Who is the friend-.”
“Sorry yak late!” Droll rushed in on the scene to Opul before he stopped abruptly at the mere sight of the griffon.
“Droll, please sit down,” Opul begged.
The yak slowly obeyed with his eyes still locked on the griffon, but as if trying to keep the weight balanced on the booth, Candid got up to leave.
“No, griffon, you stay!” Opul snapped in a playful, low-stake tone.
Candid groaned as Droll rolled his eyes, but Opul continued to try her best to resolve the situation.
“You two do this more often than I would like.” Opul looked directly into Candid’s eye. “You shouldn’t have to think you need to constantly be better than your friend. Just be happy that he has something. And speaking of being happy, Droll. What happened to you caring for whether or not your friends are happy?”
The brown non-pony shook his head. “Just not same.”
“I know things have been hard, Droll, but you need to acknowledge what you still have rather than what you’ve lost. I mean, I would’ve done anything to have friends like you two when I was growing up. You can’t take eachother for granted.”
Droll and Candid looked at eachother, their faces seeming to drain of their anger, prompting Opul to smile and try to finish resolving things.
“So what if one of you is better than the other? The important thing is-.”
“Wait, which one better?” Droll asked.
“Me,” the griffon said as if it were a given.
“No, dragon like yak’s tricks better!”
“Only because you were the only one she saw before she saw mine.”
Opul interrupted with a exasperated exhale. “I don’t care which one of you is better! That’s not something that’s important for me to figure out.”
Droll’s posture straightened. “So dragon no know?”
“Of course not. And frankly-.”
“Then we need to figure it out.” Candid glared at Droll, and the yak returned the expression without a hint of reluctance.
“Yak agree.”
Opul growled. “You two-!”
“Stay out of this, Opul,” Candid snapped without breaking eye contact.
The dragon widened her eyes before she backed up against the chair, realizing that she would be voiceless through the rest of this exchange. If she tried to intervene, she feared that more friends would be lost that day.
Candid’s lone eye shot daggers at Droll. “There's only one way to figure out for sure who is better.”
The brown non-pony nodded. “Competition in community theater.”
“Why theater?”
“Scared?”
“No!” Candid launched back. “Theater it is.”
Droll smirked. “Yak and griffon take turns doing tricks. First to have trick be caught loses.”
“And the loser needs to do a crime and confess to Radiance.”
Droll widened his eyes . Opul wanted to tell the two how stupid they were being, but she saw how well that worked out last time. After a couple moments of pondering, the yak finally nodded his head in agreement.
“So it will be 8:00 or so at the community theater?” Candid asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Droll did not let his gaze avert from Candid’s face.
“If you’re late, you lose.”
“Better watch out then,” Droll said with a glare.
After returning the expression, Candid marched out of the restaurant, leaving Opul’s shock to decrease. When Droll got up to leave, Opul took her last opportunity to speak any sense.
“Droll, you can’t do this!” Opul begged. “If you tell Radiance you did a crime, he might put you in the community dungeon or worse!”
The yak gave a broken smile to his friend. “Droll have nothing else to live for. Either yak wins and have purpose or yak loses and no have to live like this.”
After a sigh, Droll left Opul alone at the booth, leaving her to realize that she just made matters worse and rather than losing a friend to strife, she’ll lose a friend permanently.



“Ideas, Opul!” she said to herself as she marched back and forth in her dumpster of a house. “How can you fix a problem that you’re not allowed to interfere in?”
She continued to pace with no solutions coming to mind, causing her eyes to tear up from the stress. Lives were at stake, and the pressure wasn’t making it any easier to think of a solution. She made two mistakes, but all of this could’ve been avoided if she just let Droll be happy showing her the magic tricks in peace.
“I know Candid wanted me to stay out of this,” Opul began, looking at the community theater just down the street from her house barely in view, “but that's never been my calling.”
Knowing she was pressed for time, she sprinted as fast as she could towards the closed theater. Upon arrival, she scanned the area for an opening to the locked place, but she didn’t find any entrances. She recalled that there were openings on the roof, but without a second wing, she couldn’t get to that level anymore.
She continued to search for options when she found a small opening in the base of the building that seemed to be cut through by something indescribably sharp. It made Opul nervous to think that such a blade would exist, but she took her opportunity to enter the building and fix an issue that might’ve already been too late.
As she traveled through the darkness of the auditorium, she heard the familiar sound of arguing voices echoing through the building. There must've not been a show today or else there would have been no way that her friends could be secretive.
Opul finally passed a corner to find the grand lit stage, seeing a yak and a griffon on separate sides in front of a partially creviced curtain. Each of the creatures were standing in front of their own series of items, exchanging different objects each time they had to come up with something new.
“You had that in your arms the whole time!” Candid yelled.
“No, yak no have it. Arms free throughout all until final.” Droll solemnly placed down an item before looking at Candid apprehensively to perform his trick.
Opul took the opportunity to sneak through the dark portion of the auditorium that was not lit. Despite her bright color, her friends were too distracted to look in her direction and notice anything.
Droll and Candid were still arguing over magic tricks when the dragon was able to slip behind the curtains and watch them through the slit in the middle. She began trying her best to figure out what to do when she saw different sets of magic materials behind the curtains. Instantly, she recognized these as the different supplies that either Droll or Candid was using to make their tricks work. After trying to study them to learn her next move, she looked up to the stage to see if her friends had caught on to her presence.
“This magic trick will reveal the truth of you,” Candid said.
The griffon raised up his talons before pushing the air in the direction of Droll. As if apprehensive, the yak backed up. Instantly when one of his back cloven hooves regressed, he was suddenly unstable, losing his pathing as if he wasn’t even standing on the floor anymore. He inevitably fell with a SPLUT, and when he got up, his whole back was covered in wet and brown dirt.
“Naturally brown, huh?” Candid said, scolding him arrogantly.
The yak said nothing. Instead, he stood proudly against the griffon and flicked his hoof. Instantly, Opul heard some sort of light scuffling on the wooden floor, going from one side of the curtain to the other. After a brief moment of that sound, the quiet sound of wires sounded, causing a few gallons of orange paint to fall directly on the griffon’s head.
Droll beamed at his friend, but before he could open his mouth, Candid snapped at him with an angered “not a word!”
Candid picked up an item from his pile and clicked a button. After a brief sound of fidgeting electronics from behind the curtain, Opul began thinking that the scuffling on the floor was just random machines placed there. The dragon began studying all of the materials she saw, trying to come up with a solution to what fate awaited the loser of this battle.
“Go ahead, Droll,” Candid said. “Make a fool of yourself. It’ll be the funniest thing you’ve done in a while.”
Droll took a deep breath before he took something from his pile and waved it around. He glared at Candid as if expecting him to see something happening, but nothing was taking place. From behind the curtain, Opul was no longer hearing the scuffling from earlier when Droll had performed his previous magic trick.
“Get on with it!” Candid roared.
Droll began to breathe loudly as he struggled to make something happen, but after nothing occurred for a brief set of moments, Candid continued his taunts.
“If you can’t make anything happen, I win.”
Opul tensed as she realized she was nearly out of time, alerting her that this was her last chance to do something. She went through all of the different materials before getting an idea.
“Griffon do something!” Droll yelled. “Yak will catch it.”
“Fine! You want to see an awestruck magic trick? I guarantee this will be better than anything you can possibly have planned!”
From in front of the curtains, Candid began to maneuver with his buttons at his resources, but instead of him being the only one, Droll began to dig through his resources as well, copying the griffon’s lead in trying to find the best resource. From in front of Opul, the sound of moving parts began to echo in her ears, causing the dragon to put forth her last ditch effort with no concern of what would happen next.
Without thinking of the consequences, Opul dug her claws into whatever machine she could find that was moving. When she had a good grip, she pulled it out, but immediately when it came loose, broken wires sparked violently in front of her. The wires she had pulled out were connected to the base of the stage, holding it up, but without it, there were no support beams.
 As if on cue after her realization, the sound of wood began to break ahead of her. Without any time to think of it, Opul rushed out of the back of the stage as it collapsed behind her, leaving behind many cases of debris. When she turned back, she noticed the base of the stage collapsing all around as well as the lights from the ceiling falling down. 
Opul saw no sign of her friends. She stared in horror, imagining that what she just caused made her lose both of her friends instead of just the one. Her breath grew shaky until the wooden planks began shuffling in two separate spots and the heads of a griffon and yak all covered in sawdust emerged from the top to look at eachother in shock.
Although the dragon was relieved to know that they were alright, a new fear settled in when she noticed the scowling expressions between the former friends, both appearing to have the desire to rid eachother of their disrespected lives. The white non-pony stared in fear, not knowing what would happen until Candid’s gaze appeared to size Droll up all over his torso and face. The longer the griffon’s eye moved back and forth to see Droll’s appearance, the more his face began to spread in a smile.
“You look-,” Candid began, “-absolutely ridiculous.”
Unable to contain his laughter, Candid began to snicker, which turned into boisterous laughter that filled the whole room. Rather than put on a look of fury, Droll’s scowl began to ease up into a light-hearted smile before he too began to giggle in the same pleasure that Candid was in. Opul watched in mesmerization as the two continued to laugh for many moments at the absurdity of the situation.
Finally, Droll’s laughing died down before he let his head drop in shame. “Opul right. Droll and Candid no take friendship for granted.”
The griffon sighed. “Yeah, she was right. This whole thing is just stupid.”
“Yak sorry for whole day. Droll sorry for acting like this.”
Candid pursed his lips. “And I - may have - had a 100% chance of acting like a total jerk today too.”
Droll’s eyes traveled up to Candid’s face emotionally. “Candid and Droll still friends?”
The orange non-pony frowned for a moment before he looked away in deep thought. “Well, if I don’t die after today from my injuries, then yeah, we’re friends.”
Immediately, Droll smiled and spread his arms for a hug to which Candid denied with a simple “no no.” Without leaving it at that, Candid held out his talon, allowing for Droll to shake it with his cloven-hoof.
Opul was watching in delight when Candid finally brought a serious note.
“But really though, we have been working with toxic magic tricks and maybe have lung problems or something from all this sawdust. I think we might be in trouble.”
Droll widened his eyes at the thought. “Maybe griffon and yak go to hospital.”
“The hospital is closed for tonight!” Opul called out from her position across the room.
Candid and Droll both snapped their gazes over to Opul, but the dragon simply just continued.
“Candid, when I found you there earlier today, the guards said that they were guarding the place for tonight and making sure that no one got in or not.”
Droll lowered his face in fear. “But griffon and yak could die. Droll and Candid need to go there.”
Candid smirked at both of his friends. “Well, then I guess we’ll just have to break in ourselves.”
















Cold