He breathed in slowly, and then breathed out. In and out, in and out, in and out. For Sandbar, his world was quiet and calm. The school day was done, his homework was complete, and there was nothing he was needed for. So, he had taken himself to the side of the Ponyville Lake, and there, he'd simply found himself a nice spot, laid down, closed his eyes, and just relaxed. Again, his breathing was slow, and his expression through it all was one of pure contentment. There was nothing to bother him or cause him stress in this moment. He was simply okay. And that was the way for him for quite a while, until he felt the unmistakeable sensation of somebody giving his nose a little boop. Cracking one eye open, a smile soon came to him, for he now looked up into the loving gaze of Ocellus. The young Changeling leaned down, giving him a tender kiss upon his forehead, before finally breaking the silence between them.

"So, you doing okay?"

The young stallion nodded, taking a moment to give himself a quick stretch, followed by a yawn.

"Yep, just enjoying the peace and quiet."

Ocellus nodded, taking a seat beside him.

"I know. It's just so...nice right now. No work, no craziness..."

Sandbar chuckled.

"Careful saying that, Ocellus. Now we're bound to have something weird happen."

Of course, the young couple laughed together, which eventually settled into them just enjoying being in each others company. Another silence fell, and they gazed out together into the sparkling waters of the lake, the only sounds that of their breathing. But, after a time, they looked again to one another, with Sandbar giving his girlfriend a loving smile.

"So...back to Ponyville?"

Ocellus nodded.

"Yeah."

They both stood, and together walked along the edge of the lake, enjoying just a few more moments of peace before returning to the ever-active town. Leaving a long trail of hoof-prints in the sand behind them, the two eventually made it onto a more grassy area, and they soon saw the outermost edges of Ponyville quickly approaching. Eventually, however, the two's time of quiet was swiftly interrupted when, all of a sudden, a bright pink blur soon zoomed past them. They halted dead in their tracks, and saw, panting heavily, that Silverstream had arrived in front of them.

"Hi...guys! Great...day...today...right?" she declared, continuing to breathe heavily.

Of course, seeing her this way, the two soon glanced to one another, sharing arched eyebrows, before turning back to speak to their Hippogriff friend.

"Um...are you alright, Silver?" Ocellus asked.

But Silverstream just waved her off.

"What? Me? Sure! Of course I'm okay!"

The young royal then focused her gaze on Sandbar specifically, leading to some nervousness on his part. Then, before he knew it, he was shocked to find Silverstream leaping forward, embracing him in a tight yet friendly hug.

"Have I ever told you how great you are, Sandy?"

Sandbar, though understandably taken aback by this, glanced over to Ocellus, who was just as nonplussed on this unexpected display of affection as he was.

"Um...thank you?" the stallion responded.

Silverstream giggled, then parted from him, bearing a wide smile.

"Great! Just wanted to make sure my good friend knows how much of a good friend he is to me!"

She gave a little wave, then spread out her wings.

"Well...see ya!"

And off she flew, giving a great flap of her wings before shooting off into the sky. Where she was going, the other two didn't know. All they did know was that they had no idea what had just happened, as evidenced by their tone as they spoke again.

"Um...Ocellus?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Is Silverstream acting a bit more...cuddly than normal?"

"...Maybe she just had a bit more sugar in her breakfast this morning?"

They slowly looked back to each other, then, after an awkward moment of silence, just shrugged their shoulders.

"Well...it was nice...I think," Sandbar remarked.

Giggling again, Ocellus leaned in closer to him, prompting a smile on his part. Together, they resumed their journey, hoping that this would be the last strange encounter they'd have to deal with today. But, alas, this was Ponyville they were dealing with, and strange occurrences weren't about to let them go that easily. So, barely had they taken two steps into the borders of the town when, to their shock, another of their friends suddenly arrived onto the scene. It was Yona, and the young Yak female charged towards them, bringing herself to a screeching halt, stopping herself barely an inch away from them. Naturally, the two were taken aback and worried by this almost crash from their friend, but after recovering from it, they looked to her with curiosity.

"So...you doing okay, Yona?" Sandbar asked.

Yona smiled widely to them.

"Yona good, friend Sandbar! Truly Sandbar is wonderful friend for asking!"

Sandbar blinked to that, turning to Ocellus, who again had no explanation for him. Looking back to Yona, the pony soon saw her offer him what appeared to be an empty ice-cream cone. He stared at it for a time, before promptly accepting it from his northern friend.

"Um...thanks. Wha...what is it?"

Yona laughed heartily, then pointed to her gift.

"Yona get friend Sandbar an ice cream to cheer him up!"

Sandbar glanced down to the cone in his hoof, then looking back up to Yona, who looked around nervously before scratching the back of her head.

"Well...it was ice cream...until Yona drop it a block back while running."

Her smile returned, even wider than before.

"But it thought that counts, yes? Yona good friend, right, friend Sandbar?"

Seeing the expectant way she was looking to him, Sandbar suddenly felt like an insect under a microscope, being examined by eager eyes. Gulping, he forced a smile.

"Yeah, um...it's...really nice, Yona. I...really appreciate it."

It wasn't exactly a lie, as he did like the gesture, even though it hadn't really worked out as Yona had probably wanted it too. Yona herself, laughing again, soon gave Sandbar another of her infamous tight hugs, which, unfortunately for him, was even more rib-crushing than the one Silverstream had given him. With that done, Yona merrily ran off, leaving a confused and somewhat winded Sandbar behind her. Ocellus, who had been watching all this with uncertainty, helped her boyfriend get up to his hooves after collapsing from the aforementioned hug.

"Well, our friends certainly seem to be rather...forward in their liking of you today, sweetie."

Catching his breath, Sandbar nodded.

"Yeah...I just hope that all of our friends aren't going to..."

"Hey! Sandy!" another voice called out.

Sandbar sighed.

"Well...speak of the Devil."

The two of them looked up, and there, flying in from the sky, was Smolder. The young dragon looked to Sandbar, smirking and looking very pleased with herself. As she landed, making sure to look as impressive as possible while doing so, she strutted towards him, slapping her claw down on his shoulder in greeting.

"Hey there, friend! Pretty sweet day today, right?"

Sandbar raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah...I guess. A bit odd, all things considered...but yeah, nice."

Smolder chuckled, giving Ocellus a quick nod before getting her attention back onto Sandbar.

"Say, I was just thinking, you and me, we're pretty good friends, right?"

Though more than a little wary of his friends' behaviour at this point, Sandbar nevertheless gave a nod in acknowledgement of the dragoness' comment.

"Yeah...have been for a while now."

Smolder's smirk widened.

"And I was thinking, hey, good friends should do nice things for one another. You know, favours and stuff? Am I right?"

Sandbar paused, trying to see where she was going with this, but again, he gave a slow nod to her.

"Um...yeah?"

Here, Smolder reached behind herself, pulling out what looked like a few sheets of paper, presenting it to Sandbar and holding it up like it was some priceless treasure.

"Ta da!"

Sandbar squinted at the papers.

"Is that...a friendship essay?"

Ocellus, meanwhile, took a step to the side, trying to look behind Smolder.

"Where were you keeping that?"

Smolder merely shrugged her shoulders.

"Meh, not important."

Her smirk returned.

"What is important is that I've done our buddy Sandbar here a huge favour!"

Nervously, the young stallion accepted the essay, reading it over.

"Wait...is this the assignment Professor Fluttershy said she was gonna assign us...next week?"

Smolder nodded, looking proud.

"Yep! All done and in your name!"

She gave him a wink.

"Let it never be said that your good friends don't do anything for you, buddy!"

Another slap down on his shoulder, this one somewhat harder than the last. Sandbar grunted to this, but still smiled, trying to show his appreciation for what his friend had done. But, as Smolder was giving herself a metaphorical pat on the back, the stallion leaned over to his girlfriend, whispering to her.

"Sooooooooo...how likely is it that our Professors won't know this wasn't written by me?"

Ocellus shook her head.

"Nope. Never gonna happen."

Sandbar sighed.

"Yeah, thought not."

He looked again to Smolder, opening his mouth to speak, only to be kept from saying anything further when, all of a sudden, another voice called down to him.

"Yo! Sandy!"

Sandbar groaned, for he'd already guessed who it was, and he craned his neck upwards to see that it was indeed Gallus landing nearby. Smolder frowned to him, but for the time being simply watched as the blue Griffon walked over to his pony friend.

"Sandy! My bud! My compadre! My dude!"

Sandbar frowned.

"Gallus...you have never once used any of those words before. What's up?"

Gallus snickered.

"Oh, you know, just checking in with my number one friend!"

He sauntered over, taking hold of Sandbar's hoof, lifting it up and giving him a quick hoof-and-claw-bump. Sandbar, unimpressed with this, took his hoof back and raised an eyebrow at his feathered friend, just as the latter let out a cackle.

"We close friends gotta stick together, am I right? Remember the good old days? You know, when you'd confide in me about your little secret crush on Ocellus and stuff? Oh yeah, good times."

Sandbar slowly looked over to Ocellus, and together, the pair shared the exact same "I am so done with this" look to one another. But, sadly, they hadn't the chance to voice their joint concerns, as it was now apparently time for Silverstream and Yona to burst back into the scene, coming by both sky and land respectively.

"Friend Sandbar like ice...er...almost ice cream, yes?"

Silverstream giggled.

"Oh, Yona! Everyone knows a good friendly hug from the most chipper friend of all is way better than an ice cream!"

Smolder snorted out some smoke as she looked to her two fellow females.

"Hey, what I did actually took effort! Do you have any idea how boring all that research was that I had to do for that essay?"

Gallus rolled his eyes.

"Research all you want, nothing beats having a dude-friend, right?"

Sandbar and Ocellus watched, seeing their four friends bicker among themselves, acting completely annoyed with one another in a way they hadn't seen since their first introduction to one another at the start of the school year. Naturally, they were worried about this, and so glanced to one another nervously before, finally, Sandbar just sighed.

"Guys...stop."

His words had been calm and collected, even though it would have been the easiest thing in the world to just yell at the top of his lungs right now. Even so, the words had done the job, and the four all looked to him, seeing the utterly tired expression he wore. Raising a hoof, Sandbar rubbed his temples a bit, then looked to each of his friends in turn before finally asking the obvious question.

"Alright...explain."

Realising that their very exasperated friend wasn't going to accept any kind of diversion or fake story, the four all looked to each other, silently hoping that one of them would be the first to step forward and say something to him. After a while, however, it was Silverstream who did the honours.

"Well...we were having lunch together a while back, and we started talking about a bunch of random stuff. And one of those random things was how our group only has, well...one pony in it."

Sandbar blinked, prompting the pink Hippogriff to elaborate.

"I mean, not that that's a bad thing, but it just struck us as, you know, a funny thing. You know, pony town and a mostly pony school and our group has...well...just you."

The pony in question raised his eyebrow further, which led to Gallus stepping forward next.

"Yeah, and one of us...okay it was me...just said out loud how neat it'd be to be the, you know, best friend of that one pony in our group."

Smolder sighed.

"And I may have possibly...probably...definitely gloated that maybe I'd be that best friend."

Yona hung her head.

"Yona take that as challenge and said she'd be friend Sandbar's best friend."

Silverstream, nodding to all of that, looked back to Sandbar, trying to force a smile.

"And...well...it all kind of spiralled out of control from there."

Sandbar looked over to Ocellus who, like him, seemed just as dumbfounded by this revelation as he was. The other four, perhaps realising just how ridiculous this situation was now that they'd actually said it out loud, winced briefly. Letting out the Mother of all exasperated sighs, the green stallion took a step closer to his friends, looking them each in the eye, and then just coming out and saying it.

"Guys...I have no best friend, okay?"

The other four nodded, and Sandbar continued.

"...I have five."

They smiled to that, but, rather than letting them off the hook that easily, Sandbar raised a hoof, stopping them from responding.

"Fighting over my attention and approval is silly...okay?"

They nodded, and he continued.

"We don't want this group fighting each other over something like this, okay?"

Another nod.

"Now...are you gonna say sorry to each other for all this?"

The four looked to one another, reaching out and giving each other shakes of their various claws and hooves.

"Sorry," Silverstream started.

"Sorry," Yona echoed.

"Sorry," Smolder grumbled.

"Sorry," Gallus finished.

Sandbar sighed again, albeit in a less tired way than before.

"Okay then...are we finished?"

The others nodded, and so started to move away, each carrying a look of guilt mixed in with pure embarrassment over just how far they'd allowed this trivial issue to get. But, realising that his friends would at least get over it after a while, Sandbar afforded himself a small smile, shaking his head slightly, before looking over to Ocellus as the latter spoke.

"Well...that was something."

Sandbar chuckled.

"Hey, we're a collection of six friends. Around these parts, that's bound to cause a ruckus every once in a while."

The two shared a laugh, and Ocellus, finally feeling relaxed after all this, leaned her head against her boyfriend's shoulder, incurring a smile from him.

"So...how much time do we have together before some more craziness comes our way?" she asked

Sandbar, poking the end of his chin, pondered that.

"Hmmm...I'd say about five minutes, give or take."

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