Unlike most other locations in town that night, the bowling alley was actually quite busy at the moment. This was mostly because of a big bowling tournament happening to take place there that night, which occupied roughly half of the lanes available. Then the more usual range of nightly bowlers had taken up nearly all of the rest after that. But there was still one last lane available for Gallus and Smolder at the far end of the building, and they happily took it.
Finding good bowling balls for them to use was a bit tricky though, because due to how many bowlers there were tonight, they had fairly slim pickings of the scant few balls remaining. Smolder eventually found a good ball that fit her grip nicely, but Gallus, bearing a bigger paw than her, had a harder time. There were a few good balls to choose from, but the holes where a pony’s hoof would hook into to carry it all seemed to be too small for Gallus’s talons.
Most he couldn’t even wedge his paw into at all, at least not enough to safely carry (as demonstrated when he narrowly missed dropping one bowling ball on Smolder’s tail). Not even just sharing Smolder’s ball would work for him. Eventually he settled on the literal last ball he tried as “good enough,” on the grounds that his talons at least could slip inside. It was still an uncomfortably tight fit and he wasn’t terribly happy about it, but it was the best option he had so he committed to it.
“Right then,” Smolder said as they got ready to begin, “Who’s bowling first?”
“Does it really matter?” Gallus asked, knocking their two balls together where they sat in the ball return. “It’s not like either of us are going to get any more or less of an advantage by going first.”
“Well, we still gotta figure it out,” Smolder pointed out. She held out one paw, claws curled into a fist. “Here, we’ll rock paper scissors for it.”
“All right,” Gallus said, mirroring the motion before proceeding to bounce his fist in the palm of his other paw. “Rock, paper, scissors, GO!” They then splayed out their playing moves before them.
“Paper beats rock,” Smolder declared, slapping her spread palm over Gallus’s clenched fist.
Gallus frowned. “Best two out of three?”
Smolder rolled her eyes. “Fine.” They proceeded to do it again. “I thought you didn’t care who went first?”
“Less talk, more you losing,” Gallus instructed. “Rock, paper, scissors, GO!”
“Rock beats scissors. Though you said you wanted me to loose, feather butt?”
“Daaaaaarn—okay, one more time. Rock, paper, scissors, GO!”
“Draw.”
“All right, all right, rock, paper, scissors, SURPRISE ATTACK!”
Gallus tackled Smolder suddenly and they both tumbled to the floor and wrestled about for a moment.
Smolder still won though, succeeding in pining one of Gallus’s forelegs behind his back. “Gak, all right, uncle, uncle!” he crowed irately.
Smolder released him smugly. “Right then, glad we settled that,” she remarked while strolling casually over to the ball return.
“Yeah, yeah, hope you bowl a gutter ball,” Gallus bleated as he sat himself behind the scoring table. He hummed appreciatively though as Smolder bent over to scoop up her ball. “Though I’ll admit the view’s pretty good from over here.”
Smolder immediately straightened and shot him a look. Gallus merely raised his eyebrows at her, unrepentant. Rolling her eyes, she turned her attention back to the lane, gearing up to throw her ball. Once she was satisfied she had taken aim, she swung the ball forward and released, and she and Gallus watched it roll down the lane.
…and both started to lean to one side as it proceeded to veer somewhat off the intended path.
Still, it stayed out of the gutter the whole distance to the ten pins at the other end and knocked over seven of them, leaving two still standing on the far left and one still standing on the far right.
“Ooh, a split,” Gallus remarked, noting down her score. “Good luck getting a spare now.”
“Oh, we’ll see,” Smolder said as she waited for her ball to roll back into the ball return. “I like my chances.”
Indeed, her second bowl stayed on course better and slammed into the two pins on the far left, one of which bounced into the remaining one on the right, knocking it over too. Smolder turned around to give Gallus another look of smug victory.
Gallus frowned. “Lucky,” he relented as he jotted down the spare on Smolder’s frame.
“Well, you did wish me good luck,” Smolder reminded teasingly as she joined him at the scoring table. “I’d like to see you do any better.”
“All right,” Gallus said, accepting the challenge as he let her take his seat. He popped his knuckles confidently. “One strike coming right up.”
He scooped up his ball, frowned to himself as he remembered the tight fit but shrugged it off as he proceeded to position himself in front of the lane.
“Hey, you’re right, the view is good from back here,” Smolder suddenly quipped.
Gallus responded by giving his rump a brief waggle to Smolder’s cackling amusement before focusing on his bowl. Then, having taken aim, he started forward, swinging his ball forwards, and released.
…Or would have, if his talons hadn’t become wedged within the grip.
The heavy ball remaining stuck to his paw then, its momentum and weight instead flung Gallus unexpectedly forward, sending him stumbling into the lane itself before faceplanting and sliding a few feet down the smooth alley.
Smolder jumped up. “You all right?” she called, concerned.
“Yeah,” Gallus grunted as he worked to sit up, not an easy feat on the slippery lane floor. He held up the ball still stuck to his paw. “My talons are just stuck in the grip!” he proceeded to try and pull the ball off, only to realize how stuck it truly was. “Really stuck,” he added, shaking his foreleg up and down in hopes it’ll shake the bowling ball off and free his talons—it instead remained stuck right where it was.
“Hold on, I’ll come help!” Smolder said as she raced forward to catch up to him. After she noticed she was suddenly jogging in place though, she remembered the alley floor was just as smooth and slippery for her as it was for Gallus in time for her feet to slip out from under her and crash onto her back.
“Still waiting for that help,” Gallus remarked flatly as he sat and watched her pick herself up only to slip and fall again, this time onto her front. “No hurry.”
Eventually Smolder remembered that she had wings and wisely flew over to the stranded griffon instead. Hovering over him, she then grabbed the ball stuck to his paw and yanked. This, unfortunately, did nothing except inadvertently drag Gallus further down the lane. She found this was pretty easy to do, considering the slippery floor.
“Yeah, that’s pretty darn stuck all right,” she relented and flapped around to Gallus’s other side. “We better get you back up to the front desk. Hopefully they can help us pry the thing off of you.”
“Well, before we do that then,” Gallus remarked, motioning for her to wait a second. Turning to the pins still ahead of him, he managed to scamper the rest of the way down the alley so to swing his ball like a club at them, knocking most of them over. “Ha! Take that!”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re all very impressed, Gallus,” Smolder assured wearily before grabbing him by the bowling ball and flapped back towards the other end, sliding the griffon easily back up the lane.