Dual Discovery

by Jonny Manz

Epilogue - Dual Discovery

“Thank you, for everything you’ve done.”

Twilight tilted her head downward. “Hm? Whatever do you mean, Gallus?”

“Helping me and Silverstream re-discover what we had thought was lost, what you came up with to allow us to be together much more often. Y’know, nothing big,” Gallus replied, slipping back into his old snark for a split-second.

“Oh, she did the heavy lifting there, I can’t really take credit for that. As for the second part, I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Twilight said, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Sure, Princess, sure.”

At that point, Luster Dawn walked up to the two. “This is a really nice proceeding, Princess, and Guard Captain. I’m also really glad you’ll be accompanying me to Ponyville, Guard Captain – the School of Friendship seems like it’ll be really fun! Plus, I have so much to learn.”

Gallus raised an eyebrow at Twilight, smirking the whole time.

“What? Can’t a princess assign the best possible protective duty to her personal protégé?”

Gallus chuckled to himself.

“Oh wait! I just thought of something! Won’t you have to give up your position if you come with me, Guard Captain?” Luster Dawn exclaimed.

“No, he won’t, Luster Dawn. He will officially remain captain, and whenever he is in Canterlot on official business, he will resume his duties. For the rest of the time, I will name an acting captain to take over the duties. This arrangement will last for a year or so, to evaluate its effectiveness.”

“Oh, okay, that makes sense.”

In the background, bells started ringing.

“It looks like the ceremony is about to begin. Luster Dawn, you’d better go ahead and take your seat,” Twilight said.

“Alright, I’ll meet up with you after the ceremony, Guard Captain.”

The ringing reached a crescendo, as the trumpeters began to play.

“Ready to see your bride, Guard Captain Gallus?”

Gallus gulped, tugging at the collar of his tuxedo. “I kinda want to say ‘no’, but I know I should’ve done this a long time ago. So yes, absolutely.”

The doors opened, and in walked Silverstream, wearing a gown of flowing lace that accentuated her figure perfectly. It was easy to believe that Rarity had had a hoof in the making of it – harder to believe was that Yona, Smolder, and Ocellus had also assisted in the design. Gallus’s heart started thumping faster in his chest – it didn’t truly feel real before now.

The entire walk up to the dais only took a moment but to the both of them, it felt like an eternity.

Silverstream stopped, pivoted, and looked Gallus in the eyes, a gaze he returned.

Twilight smiled, looking at the two of them. “Fillies and gentlecolts, every creature, we are gathered here to celebrate these two creatures being joined in holy mare-trimony, the Guard Captain Gallus the griffon, and his bride, Silverstream the hippogriff.”

The rest of the ceremony flew by like a blur – the vows, the “I do’s” – though it was all they could do to keep their composure.

Finally, the part of the ceremony they had been waiting for happened when Twilight said, “You may now kiss the bride!”

Gallus swept Silverstream off her claws. Their beaks met and then parted, their tongues dancing an electric waltz of unremitting joy. Both would later admit that it surpassed even their first kiss.

---

“Alright, so you’ll be on your honeymoon for about a month, and then you’ll meet up with Luster Dawn at the School of Friendship.”

“Thank you so much for this, Your Majesty,” Gallus said, embracing Twilight.

“Yeah, thank you thank you thank you!” Silverstream exclaimed, joining in the embrace.

“Alright, go have fun, you two lovebirds!” Twilight said with a wink.

Gallus and Silverstream looked at each other and grinned, getting in the carriage labeled “Just Married”.

Twilight was watching, waiting for the carriage to take up, when a figure flew in next to her. “Oh, hey Spike!”

“Hey, Twilight. That was some wedding, huh? They sure do make a good couple.”

“They sure do.”

Spike scratched his chin. “Hey, Twilight?”

Twilight grunted, “Hm?”

“Gallus mentioned to me that he had been having a recurring dream, of the time that he and Silverstream broke up. Considering that Luna transferred that part of her powers over to you, did you have anything to do with it?”

“Hm, you know how, way back when, those stars just happened to break Nightmare Moon free from her 1,000-year moon imprisonment?” Twilight responded.

“Yeah, but what does that have to do-“

Twilight cut him off. “Well, remember how, at that point, the whole sky – the sun, moon, and stars, were under the control of one Princess Celestia?”

Spike’s eyes widened. “Wait, are you saying-“

“It was something Princess Celestia told me. One of her powers was foresight – the ability to read situations, see how they will play out in the future. Well, see how they’re supposed to play out. That came right away – what she developed later was a sense for when things could be trusted to play out on their own, and when they needed a little nudge in the right direction,” Twilight finished with a wink. “When I looked into Silverstream’s eyes, that was when I knew for sure that the time was right.”

“You know, you’re becoming more and more like her every day.”

Twilight just smiled from ear to ear.

With that, the carriage with Gallus and Silverstream took off, the cans clinking behind them. It would take them to their honeymoon, and then on to the rest of their lives. Lives that would be contented – because they would be spending them with each other.

THE END

“Geeze, what is it with Equestrian Royal Guard Captains marrying royalty?” Spike suddenly spoke up.

When Twilight looked at him quizzically, he continued, “Well, I mean, Silverstream is Queen Novo’s niece, so that makes her, like, a duchess, right? And then of course there was your brother and Princess Cadance, of course.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Twilight said, a candle being lit above her head. “I do believe I won our little bet, as they got married less than 6 months after Hearth’s Warming.”

Spike sighed. “Fine, fine, I’ll supervise the castle for a day, so you can personally oversee the reshelving of the Royal Canterlot Library.”

Twilight squeed.

Author's Note:

The scene before "THE END" with Spike and Twilight, I felt was necessary to explain some things.

The one after was just for fun.

Comments

[AstralFlare42]

“Hm, you know how, way back when, those stars just happened to break Nightmare Moon free from her 1,000-year moon imprisonment?” Twilight responded.

Twilight cut him off. “Well, remember how, at that point, the whole sky – the sun, moon, and stars, were under the control of one Princess Celestia?”

“It was something Princess Celestia told me. One of her powers was foresight – the ability to read situations, see how they will play out in the future. Well, see how they’re supposed to play out. That came right away – what she developed later was a sense for when things could be trusted to play out on their own, and when they needed a little nudge in the right direction,” Twilight finished with a wink. “When I looked into Silverstream’s eyes, that was when I knew for sure that the time was right.”

That would explain a lot

[lillytheomegawolf]

Totally worth the read.

[Great White Prime]

Great story!

[Yordna]

This was a cute story. Well done.

[Jonny Manz]

Alright, replying to comments which I really should have done a while ago

10077479
Yeah, right around the time this was written, Faust essentially confirmed that it was Celestia moving the stars like that to free Nightmare Moon.

10077534
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed your trip through the story!

10078216
Thank you for both your comments! Yeah, that was by far both the easiest and most satisfying part of the story to write.

10083825
I certainly hope that's meant in a good way (and looking at your followup, I'm going to guess it was - either way, thank you very much!)

10099080
Indeed - I figured it would make sense, what with Silverstream sticking around and becoming a professor (I feel like, being around academia, even academia of a specialized sort, will inevitably expand your vocabulary and vernacular), and Gallus - well, like I say in the story, Twilight appears to be rubbing off on him.

[semillon]

Hi! You asked for a review to go with your submission, and as one of the judges for the contest, I'm here to give you one!

So I like that first flashback/dream that you open up with. The way that Gallus and Silverstream are very clearly lying to each other hurts in the best way. I would have really loved to know more about why Gallus was breaking up with her, though. I understand that it was because they didn't have enough time together, but the way that Gallus talked about it didn't really give me the impression that he was unhappy enough to be doing this.

You overexplain things at certain points—this might be something that you want to watch out for in the future. For example,

Every time he thought of his achievements, there was a part of him, that just felt so empty. He knew he had friends – they were almost like family to him - and a great boss in Princess Twilight, but there was that part of him, always gnawing away at the edge of his consciousness, that was… lonely. It was a specific kind of loneliness, as it was nowhere near as severe as the loneliness he felt throughout his early years, but it ate away at his heart all the same. He tried to push it out of his mind, to tamp it down in some dark recess, but it always seemed to find a way to come to the fore.

The first two sentences here are enough to get the point. It's always better to be efficient with that sort of thing and move on to the next interesting beat instead of lingering on the idea that Gallus is lonely for too long.

Great, now he was thinking about exactly what he hadn’t wanted to. Well, hopefully she had found some creature to settle down with, someone deserving of her.

There would be a lot more emotional impact if it the reason for Gallus and Silverstream's breakup were either more intense or just more clear. The way that I see it, A) we don't get to see the good times where they were happy as a couple other than that kiss before Gallus leaves for the guard, so we don't have a good idea of what the two have lost and B) because they seemed to have broken up amicably, so there isn't a particular reason (past awkwardness) that they can't get back together amicably. The emotional stakes here aren't very high, and because of that it doesn't feel very surprising when Gallus and Silverstream end up together in the end. It's a comfy story for sure, but the catharsis that you were going for with the third chapter doesn't hit very hard when the ending is already so telegraphed.

It is interesting that they have different memories of why exactly they broke up, but in both it doesn't feel like they broke up for much reason. If they really loved each other, wouldn't it be exactly in both of their characters to try and make long distance work? Did they try at all? If they didn't know that they loved each other and figured that it would be the logical decision to make, I feel like I'm not getting enough of that, because it seems like they had really strong feelings either way and did not want to be doing this.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret taking this teaching job for a second, and I really hope Gallus doesn’t regret his position in the guard, but I do wish it could have worked out for us. It was... it was just too much of a strain, being apart so much of the time.”

Here would have been a perfect place to either flashback or have Silver monologue a little bit—as a reader, I only have her word to go on that being apart was a strain, but if I had been shown here or earlier just how much of a strain it was, then my heart would be breaking a whole lot more.

Long distance sucks. I think this story could have been a lot tighter and heartwarming if we had been shown just how much it sucked for them being apart.

So this is definitely a nice story—you execute on what's promised in the cover art—and there are cute parts to this, but in the end a lot of the drama doesn't feel very dramatic and that's what prevented the emotional arc in this story from really feeling like the characters' past decisions had terrible consequences.

Don't get me wrong though, that third chapter is cute. There's a little bit too much exposition for my liking, but having the two of them fondly reminisce on their past while sitting inside the box is a cute thing. I can totally see where you're coming from with Gallus's revelation towards the end as well—I can feel my heart soaring as I read his dialogue and when they embrace, it feels great.

I'm glad you entered this contest, because I enjoyed myself reading this. Thanks for submitting and if you have any questions or anything was unclear or confusing please don't hesitate to PM me.

[Great White Prime]

Quick question: was Silver's family and Queen Novo at the wedding?

[Betsy]

Spike sighed. “Fine, fine, I’ll supervise the castle for a day, so you can personally oversee the reshelving of the Royal Canterlot Library.”

she may be ruler of Equestria now but she'll always be our nerdy book horse we met in season 1 <3

[Yoshifan30]

Awww this was a really nice story and yes I can't believe they got married they do make a great couple and yeah that explain how Twilight does have the ability and everything good job Twilight this was a pretty good story keep up the good work