Chapter 14: What Happened to You?
“A toothbrush! My old one got blown up.”
I looked down at Ty with wide eyes, though I don’t think it should have surprised me so much. After all, he just showed up with a pretty serious wound on his shoulder, but he said it so casually—like it was just another mundane part of his voyage and not the result of what I could only assume was a terrifying brush with death.
The griffon and other hippogriff in the room seemed as bewildered as I was. “You got it,” said Gallus after a moment of uneasy silence, turning toward the door.
“I’ll go with you!” Silverstream chirped, following along beside him.
The door closed, and then it was just me and Ty. I couldn’t help cracking a little smile as they left. “Poor thing,” I said quietly with a dry laugh.
“What was that, Di?” Ty tilted his head.
“Not you.” I nodded toward the door.
“Oh. So I’m not crazy. There was some tension there.”
“Yup. Griffon’s got it bad. Told me so himself.”
That perked Ty’s ears. “You talked to him?”
“Yeah. He needed help with Sassy a few nights ago and it came up.”
“What did you tell him?”
It should have been a simple answer, but it gave me pause. This conversation about me giving dating advice would make a natural ramp into what we had talked about before he set sail. The question I was still torn over and hadn’t expected to need an answer for at minimum a few more weeks, maybe months. But here he was, staring me in the face, no doubt hoping I’d have made up my mind.
I wasn’t ready for that conversation so soon—if ever.
“I dunno, just some generic ‘go get her, champ’ pep talk,” I said dismissively. “You better hurry up and get down that ladder. Your smell could peel the paint off the walls.”
Ty chuckled and started downward, taking great care not to slip on the ladder. He planted both hind legs on a rung, and then quickly dropped his good hand to the next one. It required enough concentration from him that it put a halt on our conversation, and I breathed a mental sigh of relief.
In short order, Ty was safely in the pit, and I hopped down into it behind him, not bothering to close the hatch. He carefully climbed into the tub and sat down, while I tended to the taps and ran the water.
The silence persisted for a little while longer, the tub filling slowly around the filthy hippogriff sitting in it. Soot and grime started leaching out of the fur on his hind legs, tinting the water ever so slightly gray. We both seemed content with the quiet, though it looked like Ty was more entranced than thankful for it. He just sat there, watching the water pour from the tap with undivided attention. Like I wasn’t even there.
What happened to you, Ty? I wanted to ask, but I hesitated. I’d bombarded him with questions when we found him climbing the mountain; now that I’d had a little time to think, I was a little bit afraid of what the answers would be. “Which one of these soaps is yours again?” I asked.
“Huh?” He blinked, refocusing on me. Whether or not he registered what I said, he followed my eyes and picked up what I was putting down. “The purple one, Maneifier.”
I grabbed the bottle and shook it, about ready to dump a blob in my palm and go to work, but I stopped when I took a moment to actually look at his hair. It was a disaster. The usually flowing, swept-back mane had lost all of its character, weighed down by days of grit and grime. Strands stuck out in odd directions and clung to his neck like dried seaweed washed up on a rocky beach.
I set the shampoo aside and instead went to work on the rat’s nest, pulling out strands of hair between my claws. Almost immediately, I found a knot that refused to come quietly. “Ow!” he yelped. “Di, can you do that without ripping my mane out?”
“Only if you hold still,” I replied, taking another strand of matted, salt-caked hair and running it through my talons, teasing out more than a few tangles. Ty winced as it tugged on his scalp a little more.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if my mane was wet?”
“Yes,” I said, and he immediately started craning his neck to dunk it under the water. I had to put a talon on his forehead to stop him. “But it would absolutely ruin your hair.”
He glanced up at me. “How?”
“Wet hair breaks easier than dry. If I tried to untangle all that with it wet, it’d snap and fray like an old rope. You’d have split ends like crazy.”
“I appreciate the concern, but I just want to get clean.” He promptly dunked his head into the tub. I rolled my eyes while he swirled his mane around and then whipped his head back, splattering some water on the wall behind him.
I snorted. “If you were trying to be graceful there, it didn’t work.”
Instead of saying anything back, he lifted a wing, his mouth curling in a sly grin.
“Don’t you dare.” I shied away from it, but he slowly kept coming closer and closer. The cramped bathroom had few places I could escape to, and his wingspan could reach most of it. Cornered, with little recourse, I did the only thing I knew to do. “Stop it. Ty, stop! Do you not want me to help you—TY!”
A cold, wet feather poked into my ear, and I squealed.
“Graceful, huh?” he said smugly.
I slapped his wing aside with mine and pushed it back toward him, careful not to push too hard and risk stressing his already-seeping wound. “You’re being awfully bold for a griff in slapping distance,” I retorted, though the giggling didn’t help add any credibility to the threat.
“Fortune favors the bold.” He puffed his chest out for effect and winced, drawing my attention to the bandage wrapped around his shoulder.
The humor might as well have run down the drain with the bathwater. “Let's get that thing off of you.” I scooted back over to the side of the tub and started my work, unwinding the long strip of bloodied cloth. It took a little bit of work since he couldn’t raise his arm—the bandage was tightly wedged into his armpit—and the blood that had dried stuck it to the stitches.
“Oh, Poseidon,” I whispered as the bandage pulled away, revealing a long, gnarly line of stitches running across most of the length of his shoulder. A bit of fresh blood seeped from the middle where the sutures had been strained.
“How bad is it?” he asked, keeping his eyes averted.
“It’s…” The words failed me. Nothing adequately described how I felt about seeing him like this, so I settled on just describing what I saw. “It looks like the stitches held. It’s bleeding a little bit, though.”
“That’s good, I guess,” he said, punctuating his statement with a grunt as I took a washcloth and gently dabbed it around the lower edge of the wound, cleaning a bit of the blood from his fur. I managed to get a couple of wipes in before he stopped me with a groan of pain. “Can we just leave that part alone for now?”
“You could get an infection.”
“It’s been filthy for days, not like one more will leave me that much worse off.” His voice was taut with pain.
I looked back and forth between the wound and the tears welling in his eyes for a moment, and against my better judgment, the eyes won out. “Alright,” I said, dropping the rag, where the blood joined the dirt and grime in turning the water a murky brown. The first item on the agenda was shampoo, and I poured a glob of it directly onto his head from the bottle.
Silence took over again as I worked his mane into a lather. I’d grown used to the stale stench emanating from the tub, but the soap’s fragrance brought a welcome reprieve. His mane started to take on more of its typical shape, softening from matted bristles to flowing—if wet—locks as the salt and grease washed free.
After a minute or two, the weight of curiosity started to pull at my mind, but it was restrained by a tightening knot in my stomach. Gallus had mentioned that Eidothea was badly damaged, but I had no idea beyond that what actually happened out there. It made my gut turn over in a way I hadn’t felt since before the Liberation. A feeling I never wanted to relive, but here it was all over again. I needed to know, but I was terrified to ask. And besides, asking him point-blank like that was...
He’s been through so much. I can’t just ask him, can I?
Ty had zoned out again. I stopped scrubbing and watched him for a moment, and he didn’t seem to notice. Even when I fully pulled my hands out of his mane and rinsed the lather from them, he just kept staring straight ahead, hardly blinking.
“Ty?”
“Hm?” He blinked hard and turned his head slightly to look at me.
“You can rinse off now.”
“Sure,” he said, carefully leaning forward and dunking his head into the water. His mane billowed out when submerged, flooding the bath with another wave of filth and suds. I watched him closely, counting down the seconds before I’d have to reach in and pull him up if he started zoning out again while under the water.
Thankfully, he didn’t stay down long, lifting his head out of the water and letting a cascade of water dribble down his back. “That’s so much better.”
“I’ll say.” I pointed down at the pool of his filth filling the tub. “Let’s freshen that up.”
Ty nodded and pulled the drain plug with his good arm, and the soiled water began to lower, leaving behind a ring of grime. While the fresh bath ran, I went to the cabinet under the sink and dug out a loofah to scrub his body with, and when I returned, he was back to his trance—eyes locked on the spout, seemingly hypnotized by the stream of water pouring in.
I had been turned away for all of five seconds, and that was all it took for him to just… drift off. This time, fear swelled deep in my chest. Something was wrong.
“Ty?”
No response.
“Ty?”
I waved my talons in front of his beak, and that got him to blink. He turned to me with empty, unfocused eyes. “What’s up?”
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer for a few seconds, his eyes darting back and forth like they were searching for something in the room to reply with, only to come up empty. “I’m just… really tired,” he finally said. “Really, really tired.”
“Are you sure? You don’t seem like you’re all here.”
“Yeah,” he said, eyes downcast. “It’s been a week.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, getting back to gently washing the fur on the nape of his neck.
“Not really.”
More dirt came out of his coat, but his color was returning to normal. “Can you at least tell me what happened to your shoulder? It looks really rough.”
“I got shot.”
I froze. The silence following that revelation carried the weight of the entire ocean he’d just sailed across, and a shiver ran down my spine. “What?”
“Shot,” he repeated.
“With a gun?”
“Cannon, actually. There’s still a piece of lead inside my shoulder. I have to go back to the infirmary tomorrow to get it taken out.”
My head was in a tailspin. “What in Poseidon’s ocean were you doing to get shot?”
“We were checking out a fire and got ambushed. Pirates.” His words were clipped, like he wanted to be done saying them as quickly as possible. “They tried to sink us, but we got away.”
“Ambushed?!”
“Yeah.”
My hands trembled, and I took a shaky breath. It was so much to process all at once. What am I supposed to feel right now? Shock? Anger? Fear?
“Di,” he said.
I was the unresponsive one this time, only stopping when he lifted a wing and gently brought it to my chin, turning my attention back toward his face.
“Di, it’s okay.”
“No it’s not!” I blurted. “You almost died! How could that ever be okay?”
“I didn’t almost die. The ball isn’t crazy deep. It’ll come out fine.”
“And what if it hit you about six inches higher?” I pointed to his neck.
The words seemed to have an effect, a little flash of unease crossed his face, but his calm smile quickly replaced it. “It didn’t, though. I’m here, that’s all that matters.”
“I don’t know how you can be so chill about this. You got shot. Someone attacked you. Aren’t you upset?”
“You aren’t the first one to ask me that,” he said quietly. “Yes. I’m upset. It was terrifying, but I’m just trying to put it behind me. Dwelling on it doesn’t help anyone.”
I wanted to be angry. At him, at whoever his attackers were, at the Navy for sending him out there in the first place; but something about it felt… wrong. Like I was intruding somewhere that I shouldn’t. Forcing him to talk about it so soon after was just making things worse.
Guilt set in, and I decided to let it be. “I’m sure you went through a lot out there. I won’t push you on it, but if you need to talk about it at all, I’ll be there to listen.”
“Thanks,” he said, though there wasn’t much gratitude behind it, given that he didn’t even look at me. I started working on scrubbing him down again, working over the area between his wings. They were in bad need of a preening, though I didn’t figure that was happening tonight with how tired he was. It wasn’t like he was going to do any flying anytime soon.
“So,” he began, “remember what I asked you before I left?”
My stomach twisted. I knew what was coming. “Yeah.”
“Have you… you know, thought about it at all?”
“I have.”
He turned his head toward me slightly, watching out of the corner of his eye. “And?”
I took a breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know, Ty. I thought you’d be gone longer than this. I thought there’d be more time to think things over.”
“Ah, I understand.” He turned his eyes forward again. “Just forget I brought it up.”
“Don’t be like that. I’m not saying no—”
“But you’re not saying yes, either,” he finished for me.
My ears flattened. I wasn’t trying to reject him, but he was practically doing it for me. “I just need more time. It’s a big jump.”
He watched the faucet for a moment before turning off the water, and then he sighed deeply. “That’s fine,” he said.
“Ty, don’t—”
“No, seriously.” He held up a claw to stop me. “Not being passive-aggressive at all, it’s totally okay. I get it.”
I eyed him warily. “Are you sure you’re fine with waiting a bit longer?”
“Yeah,” he said with seeming earnestness. “We’ve got a good thing going, who am I to rock the boat?”
“It won’t take too long.” I tried to add as much sincere reassurance to my voice as I could. “I promise.”
“Cool,” he responded with lukewarm enthusiasm. “You done with my back?”
“All done.”
He reached around himself with his good arm and outstretched his palm. “I can handle the undercarriage.”
I gave him the loofah and let him go to work, turning to the cabinet to grab a towel. He made quick work of it, already rinsing himself off by the time I had the towel unfolded and ready. He pulled the drain plug and splashed a little bit of water over his back with his good wing to get the last of the suds out of his coat, then stood up.
While I ruffled his fur and feathers with the towel, I didn’t really have much to say. Neither did he. Maybe he was just too exhausted to register anything. Luckily, Ty had a roll of gauze to rewrap the wound on his shoulder in the medicine cabinet. The climb out of the bathroom pit was quicker than the descent, Ty making his way up the rungs with care but minimal difficulty.
“Do you want anything to eat?” I asked as he trudged through the kitchen on his way to the stairs.
“Nah, I’m good,” he said, hobbling straight for the hall. I went to follow him up, but when he reached the door, he turned around to face me. “I think I’ve got it covered from here.”
“Are you sure? Won’t you need—”
“Nope, I’m all set. Thanks for your help, though. Goodnight!” The door closed forcefully—just short of a slam—and then I was alone.
He was upset. It didn’t matter what I said, no answer was the same as an outright no.
Because he didn’t listen to me!
I didn’t tell him no! That was his own fault if he couldn’t let me have some time to figure things out. Relationships are huge commitments. It was so unfair of him to put me on the spot like that!
I stormed through the den in a huff, but it was short-lived. I stopped about halfway to the door, guilt quickly overtaking whatever defensive anger I’d cooked up to let myself off the hook. Regardless of who was right, Ty was still hurting. He was probably traumatized, and then I hit him with… that.
I sighed, turning off the kitchen light. I still felt an obligation to stay over and make sure he was okay, but now it was clear that he didn’t want to see me right now. I’d give him some space and go back home.
The door opened in front of me, and in stepped Gallus, carrying a damp bag of groceries and wearing a bewildered, goofy grin on his beak. He didn’t even look at me, walking forward slowly with unfocused eyes and a rump covered in mud.
“What happened to you?”
When I walked into the apartment, I felt like I was floating. Beside myself. In a trance.
Had that just happened? Did I just hallucinate that kiss? I could still feel it, the faint tickle her beak left in my cheek feathers.
I didn’t need to pinch myself. It was real. She kissed me.
She kissed me!
I didn’t even notice the other hippogriff standing in the den until she waved her talons in front of my face. “You okay?” Diamond asked.
“Huh?” I blinked and pulled myself back to reality. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“I asked you if you got everything,” she said, gesturing to the small bag of groceries tucked under my wing.
“Oh, yeah. Here.” I passed the bag to her. She took it to the kitchen and dumped it out on the counter. “How’s Ty doing?”
“He’s in bed, probably knocked out already.” I thought I detected a hint of annoyance in her voice. “He’s clean now, at least,” she said dryly.
“Good. He looked like he needed it.”
“Yep,” she said, and the conversation died right there. I stood awkwardly for a moment, not sure if she was going to say anything. The silence dragged on for a few moments, Diamond busying herself with organizing the supplies I brought, and I started edging my way off toward my room.
“I think I’m gonna go turn in for the night.” I forced a yawn to sell my exhaustion—not that I would be sleeping anytime soon. “You have a key, right?”
“I was just on my way out.” Diamond looked up, her eyes darting back and forth between the couch and the hall leading to Ty’s room. “Can you keep an eye on him, help him if he needs anything overnight?”
“Yeah, for sure.”
She let out a sigh, like she really didn’t want to leave. Before she made it to the door, she stopped and surprised me with a question. “So, how’d it go with Silverstream? I’m guessing it went pretty well, if the look on your face says anything.”
“Really well, actually. I guess we’re a thing now.”
Diamond smiled wearily. “That’s good. I’m glad for you,” she said with the faintest hint of sadness in her voice, and then she stepped out. Every time I’d spoken to her, she seemed sure of herself. Barely an hour ago, she’d been unstoppable in her conviction to find Ty, but now she was downtrodden. All of her spirit gone. They must have had a pretty sobering conversation while I was out.
I locked up behind her, shut off the lights, and went up to my room, which was just as plain and barebones as the last time I’d left it. The more time I spent in that room, the more I felt that it wasn’t designed to be left plain. With just a bed and a beat-up old reclining chair furnishing it, the room screamed for more pizazz. Even for me, with zero sense of interior design, I could tell something was missing.
Silverstream could help with that! I’d seen her dorm room at school, absolutely covered in completely useless decorations; paper streamers hung from the ceiling, under an array of cheap glow-in-the-dark star stickers. She even had a palm tree in there. If I breathed a word to her, she’d jump at the chance to turn the room into a chaotic mess of color and excitement.
I looked around at the space and frowned. Letting Silverstream just go wild on it would probably make me wake up with a headache every day, but if we made it a project together? She could come up with ideas. I could… keep her a little more grounded than she would be otherwise? It was worth a shot, anyway. And we could work together to put everything up! That sounded awesome.
I lay back across my bare mattress and stared up at the empty ceiling. I’d been in a relationship for all of ten minutes, and here I was getting all sappy and heartfelt. What would I be like in a week? A month? A year? Would it last that long?
Ten minutes was all it took for me to think about how soon it might end, and the smile on my beak soured. I could still feel the disturbed feathers on my cheek where she kissed me, and that was all I could think about?
I shook the thoughts from my head. I wasn’t about to go back to moping, not when things had just gone right for once. Everything was great! I just got a kiss from Silverstream. Silverstream!. We were going to go on dates! She’d probably kiss me a bunch more times in the next few days! I’d get to kiss her too!
Smolder was never going to believe it when we got back to school in the Fall. I could already see the look on her smug scaly face.
For once, negativity was easy to banish from my mind, and I was back to bliss in a moment. Silverstream kissed me. Life was good.
But if we’re going on dates, how am I going to pay for them?
I sat up and frowned. Until my next paycheck, I was practically broke. If I hadn’t bought that stupid clay pot sitting over in the corner, we could have gone to a nice restaurant later this week. Or I could have bought her something nice. Maybe she would like large, unwieldy pottery?
Or you can use it for its intended purpose, numbskull. It might not get me paid this week, but once I had a batch of wine to sell? That’d probably net me a quick two or three hundred bits, easy. Maybe even more if supplies were running low. In addition to my pay from the Navy, that’d set me up nicely.
Would Silverstream be okay with me doing illegal things for money, though? Surely not. In fact, she’d probably be really upset by it. She was royalty. Royalty! If it came out that she was involved with a petty criminal, that’d be the end of our whole relationship, if I ever saw her again at all. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.
But I’d never afford royalty on an enlisted griff’s salary.
Or maybe I wouldn’t have to. Silverstream’s family had to be loaded, being related to the Queen. All she had to do was ask and she’d have all the money she ever needed at her clawtips. I could get in on that gravy train if I played my cards right.
But that was pathetic. What kind of self-respecting griffon expected his date to pay for everything? And so I was back at square one. How to pay for a royal girlfriend? A tall order for a recent street urchin like me. I was fresh out of alternative ideas that didn’t involve underground markets. Play to your strengths, I’d learned as a cub. If you have a skill, use it.
Silverstream didn’t have to know. After my shift tomorrow, I was going berry picking.
“Ok Silverstream, let’s do this,” I said to myself, stepping forward. My palette was full of fresh blobs of paint. My brushes stood at the ready in their cup. The canvas I’d started a couple of weeks earlier awaited with its partially dried lines of blue, yellow, pink, scarlet, and… whatever that confusing mishmash of colors was that I had started the painting with. The beauty of oil painting was that even with a couple of weeks' hiatus between sessions, the paint was still a little wet and workable.
The first order of business was to cover up some of that big streak of scarlet running top to bottom down the center. That had been a mistake, painted unconsciously while I was thinking about Gallus and his past traumas, how they were a huge fault coursing through him.
I took up my widest brush and loaded the bristles full of white, using sweeping horizontal strokes to cover the stripe. Since it hadn’t fully dried, the red started to mix into the white, forming an interesting gradient fading from pink in the center to white at the edges. The effect was nice, like a sunset in a hazy white sky, but what did it signify now?
I stepped back and scratched my chin just behind my beak, pondering the latest developments from the canvas. Pink fading to white was a color of softness, something tender and pure like a carnation’s bloom. A lot like a certain conversation from the night before.
Of course! Our newfound feelings for each other. What had been my frustration with Gallus and his strange behavior was replaced with a sweet, tender moment that bore the promise of something greater. The color was there, subdued and ready to serve as the backdrop for bigger and better things to come.
The symbolic meaning settled into place and I grinned, though I held off on a celebratory fist pump since my arms were busy with the palette and brush. For now.
Before I could ponder what the next addition would be, a knock pulled me out of my flow. “Come in!” I called over my shoulder. The door opened behind me, but I didn’t have to turn to see who it was before the quiet, nasally voice clued me in.
“That’s pretty,” said Terramar.
My first instinct was to throw down my painting supplies and go hug the stuffing out of my brother. After all, it had been a few weeks since he’d been up from Seaquestria, but the painting supplies occupying my arms put a pin in that. Instead, I greeted him with a smile. “Thanks!” I beamed. “I think I’m onto something with this one.”
“What’s it about?” he asked.
I hesitated, not sure how much I should share. Given that it hadn’t even been a full day since things with Gallus had escalated, I still hadn’t told anyone about it. And I knew that if I told Terramar, the whole family would know pretty much instantly. Heck, he might just fly straight off to find Dad and tell him all about the new griffon he’d have to haze.
No, I would break the news at my own pace. “A happy conundrum,” I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie, but it excluded most of the truth.
“Nice.” He was clearly not super interested in continuing the conversation about the painting. “Have you seen Dad anywhere?”
“I think he’s still at work. I’ve heard about some pretty crazy stuff happening with the Navy right now.” I took a look through the shade panel wall. Even on their wide-open setting, they left the outside looking slightly murky, but I could tell the sun was heading for the western side of the sky. Mid-afternoon. “Why?”
“Mom wanted me to give him some stuff,” he said.
“What kind of stuff?”
“Some papers he needs to look at.”
Legal papers. This wasn’t the first time. “I don’t see why she had to send you up here to do her dirty work.”
“I was going to come up for a few days anyway. The weather is too nice to spend all summer underwater.”
Missing the point as always, dumb face. “Well good, I like having you with me instead.”
“You know you don’t have to choose one or the other, right?” he said, his brow creasing as he tried to put on his best convincing face. “I go back and forth between Mom and Dad’s places all the time; it’s actually kind of nice.”
“I know,” I said tersely, crossing my arms. “But I shouldn’t have to.”
He sighed. “Silverstream, you know that’s not how it works anymore.
“Why not? Seems pretty simple to me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I scoffed at him. “Oh really, I’m being ridiculous?” My hackles raised, sending a furious tingle up the back of my neck. “She’s the one who just threw Dad out like it was nothing. She’s the two-face who thought she could tear our family apart while I wasn’t even here and that I’d be fine with it.”
“Come on, don’t—”
“You can save whatever script she sent you with,” I spat. It wouldn’t have surprised me if there actually was a script hiding in his saddlebag. “I told her. She can see me when she stops being awful to Dad and comes up here on her own.”
“But—”
“Nope,” I cut him off, extending a wing to point toward the door. “End of discussion.” He opened his beak, but I shushed him before he could say anything. “End. Of. Discussion.”
Terramar sighed, and I made a point not to look in his direction until the door closed. Only when the latch clicked home did I allow myself to let out a breath. A little white-hot nugget of anger deep in my chest seethed, hissing and spitting, but it was a footnote in the larger chasm of emptiness that I just wanted to forget.
I looked down at my palette and brush, then up to the painting on the easel. My vision escaped me. The ideas I had about where to take it were gone, overtaken by my mother's sneering face.
“Thanks a lot, Terramar.” I needed to clear my head. Unceremoniously, I put my palette and brush aside and left the house, setting off on a long flight up the coast with no destination in mind.
I wasn’t sure how long I flew, or how far. Had it been an hour? Mount Aris had disappeared into the distance behind me, all signs of civilization gone. Sandy beaches stretched out before me to the horizon, but they offered no solace. My wings burned with exertion, but they didn’t distract me from the ache in my chest. I was alone with my thoughts and all the anxiety they brought with them.
Being alone is probably the worst thing I could do right now.
The realization hit me like a wave, and I pulled up into a hover. I didn’t have to be by myself. I had the best distraction in the world at a little apartment on top of Mount Aris, and that was right where I was going to go!
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Let's go! Great chapter as always! Thanks again for letting me help edit this thing. I love this story.
TERRAMAR DESERVES A HUG
TY DESERVES A HUG
SILVERSTREAM DESERVES A HUG
DI DESERVES A HUG
GALLUS DESERVES some money AND A HUG
So Sky Beak and Ocean Flow have THAT kind of relationship in this story? Love the chapter, it's good knowing Di cares for Ty.
Silverstream's parents are rarely explored, as far as I've seen, so it was great to see that they are featured here.
But man, I thought Ocean Flow and Sky Beak being divorced was an idea only I had. Interesting to see another person think of the same.
See, he's overthinking it again. Sil barely even thinks of herself as royalty, and indeed seems to spend most of the time treating it as if it's just an amusing footnote to her life. So it's not like she's really going to care one way or the other.
Besides, I admit I've not gone on a lot of dates myself...but I've been on enough to say with confidence that it's the humble and inexpensive dates that tend to be the more memorable ones.
See, it's for that exact reason why I don't talk publicly very much about my own love life (or lack thereof, but we don't need to get into that
)
Hopefully Gallus isn't in the middle of any wine-making at the moment.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure how it'd go down if and when Sil does find out about his plans for that. One part of me thinks Gallus is right and she'd be upset about it, but the other part of me can't help but wonder if she'd want to join in, seeing it as a chance to socialize with him and just not really giving the legality issue much thought.
Besides, sounds like Sil could use the positive socializing right now. Speaking of...kinda wondering how accurate her version of the story is, and how much might be bias, especially considering her strong feelings over it...
I worry about Ty. Definitely some PTSD going on there, but I fear he's too proud to acknowledge it currently. And poor Di's uncertain how she can help, if she can help, the situation, as many ultimately do.
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Nah, I've seen lots of people who're of the opinion that Ocean Flow and Sky Beak are divorced, or at least at odds with each other about how to move forward post-Storm King and it putting strain on the relationship. It's even been debated among fans whether or not that was the intended interpretation from the show's one real exploration of the two characters. But yeah, it doesn't really get explored to any great depth in most fanfics, partly because it is such a touchy subject, and that the show seemed to convey that, whatever was going on, Ocean Flow and Sky Beak at least had an understanding about it and at least weren't on bad terms with each other...or at least had no issue staying civil with each other, and I think most didn't want to do anything that might trample that image.
But that said, I think it's a plot point worth exploring, particularly how it'd affect Silverstream specifically, so...might as well explore it and see where ya end up here, I think.
There are only two things I know in life, two things! (1) Birbs look cute when they do the kissy-kissy. (2) In 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer's table.
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See, my take on Silverstream's royal status is that it's not made clear how far down the line she is. It's only been confirmed that she's the daughter of Queen Novo's sister, so third in line if we go by primogeniture succession.
However, that's a best case scenario, in the show Silverstream says she has several cousins, and it's implied she has several aunts and uncles so she probably doesn't make a huge deal of her royal status because she's rather low on the royal lineage regardless.
Yeah, I actually feel like the minority in NOT thinking they're divorced. I just think they're of two different races/cultures and happily make it work living a distance apart, Sky Beak's obligation with Mount Aris while Ocean Flow lives in Seaquestria. It's not like their kids have to choose one parent/place over the other, and it's depicted in the show that Sky Beak and Ocean Flow make decisions together for Silverstream.
I guess because some people expect married couples to live together under one roof no matter what, that there is an assumption that a couple living apart implies a strained relationship in someway.
Damn, I wanted fledgeling relationship interactions but only got PTSD. Isn’t that exactly how life is sometimes. Can’t wait for these seeds to germinate or for these berries to ferment would be more accurate.
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To be honest, I'd probably be one more inclined to look at the Ocean Flow/Sky Beak relationship more positively like that too, more often than not. But I can also see and appreciate the story potential of exploring the full depth of the divorce angle too, so if you got a story angle that'd fit with that...might as well explore it.
You’re back!! It’s been so long and yet it’s like you never left this story. Seeing the update to the story was really exciting. It’s like a work of art. Sometimes it takes time
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Love you bro
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I WANT TO GIVE THEM ALL HUGS SO BADLY DUDE BUT THIS STORY WON'T LET ME
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I love the complexity that developed in Ty and Di's relationship. It's actually my favorite beat of the whole story! There's love there, but it's being held back.
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There isn't enough exploration of Sky Beak and Ocean Flow in this fandom, and I'm glad I have a prime opportunity to do so now. The divorcing couple angle was borrowed from the unspoken implications that we saw of them living separately in Surf and/or Turf. We never did get a look at how Silverstream felt about that, so incorporating that into this story felt like a very natural inclusion.
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You never know with her. She could go either way between a cinnamon roll who never broke a rule ever, or she could be like "Crimes? Crimes."
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In this house, we go from dealing with heavy consequences from traumatic events to a couple of goofy birds who may kiss in the near future in a very short span of time. Fledgeling relationship moments are coming, and oh BOY am I ready to write them!
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Regardless of how Silverstream thinks of herself, everyone else is bound to think differently. She may not feel self-important, but the world around her seems to think she is important. Gallus included.
As for Sky Beak and Ocean Flow, having them still together but living apart is entirely within reason, but I'll level with you here. It makes for a more juicy dramatic storyline if they are at odds with each other, so that's the way we're interpreting the canon for this story.
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Thank you so much! I did get a bit rusty in the long break, so I had to take some extra time to make sure this chapter was up to par with what came before it. Glad to know it was worth the wait!
Small question, how do you pronounce Diamond's nick name? Is it Dee or Die?
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"Die", or to make it sound less morbid, "Dye"
Dunno why it took me so long to finally read this but AWWWW, it’s so good and getting juicer and juicer between the two love birds, while at the same time more problems begin to arise. Gallus thinking he needs to please Silver through money isn’t too surprising considering how griffin society is all about income. All I can imagine now is Silver accidentally gets drunk and Gallus has gotta get her home and take care of her without her dad finding out… god could you imagine a drunk silver stream.
I do home Silver gets to make peace with her mom and something tells me Gallus and his lack of parents is gunna play a big part in that.
It’s amazing that I came into this for Gallstream and you’ve managed to make an equally as interesting pairing with Ty and Dye. They’re relationship is definitely more complex then their younger counterparts and this war against the pirates is just complicate things. Most of all though I hope Ty gets the help he needs, he clearly needs it.
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Ayyy I was wondering why you hadn't commented! Glad to have you back
Drunk Silverstream is such a fun idea that may or may not show up in the story at some point! No matter how that plays out, writing it would surely be a blast.
This right here, this just made my entire week. Ty and Di's subplot was a rather late addition to the story. I think it was during chapter 5 that I started getting the idea to develop them more. Originally, Di was only supposed to be a minor character who might appear once or twice, a background relationship for Ty (who was also only intended to be supporting cast). But then I started to really enjoy the scenes I wrote with them, and then before I knew it, I'd spent the better part of three whole chapters in Ty's head and put him into the position to fully bring our villain into the picture.
To say I care dearly about Ty and Di is an understatement. I absolutely adore them and the storyline I've built around them, in fact I'd even say moreso than Gallus and Silverstream, who were the nexus of the entire story in the first place. I guess it comes down to the fact that they belong to me. When I'm writing for our main lovebirbs, I'm borrowing characters created by someone else. Characters I love, to be sure, but they aren't my own original creations. There's an extra, more personal dimension in my connection to Ty and Di. Seeing them be received as well as the canon characters—the entire reason we're all here in the first place—it just...
It feels good :)
Uuuuugh, the pain of getting up to the last posted chapter when you’re really enjoying something.
11279213 I work slowly, but rest assured I am still working! The next chapter will be coming soon :)
*Copperhead Road intensifies*
Ty's theme:
The recruiting sergeant marched away
From the Inn near town at the break of day
Typhoon came too with half a ring
He was off to be a sailor to go fighting for the Queen
In a far off war in a far off waters
To face the foreign soldier
But how will you fare when there's lead in the air
Oh poor Ty what'll happen to ya?
Well the sun rose high on a jagged land
Where the thin red line made a military stand
There was sling shot, chain shot, grape shot too
Swords and bayonets thrusting through
Poor Ty fell but the day was won
And the Queen is grateful to ya
But your sailing's done and they're sending you home
Oh poor Ty what'll happen to ya?
After looking at the lyrics so I could adapt it to the story, I've become convinced that Gallus is going to wind up being on a deployed ship before the story is done.
Whether it's on purpose, or on accident.
At minimum, he's going to face down, and fight some pirates. I'm guessing when they're attacking the city.
$20 says that Gallus is going to return to Equestria/griffon empire with a significant scar or wound.