"Wind Whistler?" came the soft, high voice. The blue pony, who was standing at a window in Paradise Estate, turned her head to look at the other little pony. Then she turned back to the window, which showed the coming dawn in a series of brilliant reds. "Is something wrong?"
"There is going to be a storm today," Wind Whistler commented, avoiding the question.
Fizzy walked up next to her, glancing out the window for a moment before turning her crystal gaze on her best friend. "That could be fun. I mean, playing in the rain and splashing around and stuff."
Her efforts to bring Wind Whistler out of her contemplation failed, as the other pony simply continued to look out the window. "What are you looking at?" Fizzy finally asked. "Why did you get up so early, anyway?"
"Surprise, North Star, Masquerade and Paradise left this morning," Wind Whistler told her, the simple sentence rife with hidden information. "I did not see the others go, but they must have gone. No doubt they shall miss me when they arrive at Little Pony Point."
Fizzy looked at Wind Whistler in surprise, her confusion at where North Star - who was Wind Whistler's sister - and the other Pegasus ponies had gone suddenly clearing. Wind Whistler was one of very few left in Paradise Estate - which Megan and the others would discover upon waking.
Little Pony Point was the island between Dream Valley and Sunny Hollow, where the stallion little ponies lived. Little ponies lived a long time, and so their species could survive with babies being born only once every ten years - and those who had gone last calling-time did not go the next, for their babies were not yet grown. The three varieties of little ponies each felt the call in different years, the unicorns beginning a three-year cycle that ended with the pegasi. Fizzy had been too young to feel the call of her heart mate from Little Pony Point two years ago, but Wind Whistler . . . Wind Whistler should have gone.
"Why didn't you go?" Fizzy wondered, only realizing the tactlessness of her question after she'd said it and blushing. "I mean, d'you think . . . Something happened to him?"
"Him" being the stallion who was Wind Whistler's heart mate. The stallions arrived at Little Pony Point first, and sent out the call to the mare - often a pony whom they'd never met - who was their heart mate. Heart mates knew each other on sight, and spent the rest of the year-long calling-time on Little Pony Point together, first birthing and then caring for twins, a boy and a girl - each of whom was an exact copy of their parent of the same sex, and who would be until they reached full growth, at which point they would grow into a new coat color and choose a new name for themselves. Sometimes there was a third baby pony, although this was rare - there were only two among the current baby ponies, Baby Sun Dance and Baby Half-Note. It happened most often to regular ponies, which was why there were more of them than unicorns or pegasi, though not many more. When the year ended, the little ponies went their separate ways, always bringing back home with them one twin.
"There are many dangers in and around Ponyland. Something may have. Or he may not have existed in the first place. I was the only third baby pegasi in my calling-time. I may never have had a heart mate," Wind Whistler observed. North Star was not only her sister, but her twin, along with the colt-baby pony West Wind. And Wind Whistler had always been Wind Whistler, as Baby Sun Dance and Baby Half-Note would always keep their childhood names. She and North Star's mother was, surprisingly enough, Lofty, and Baby Lofty their younger sister. North Star had been Baby Lofty upwards of thirty years ago.
Fizzy, whose own mother Galaxy had left two years ago, didn't know much of anything about this. She'd been Baby Galaxy still when the older Baby Lofty had matured into North Star, and she tried hard to remember what her mother told her about the calling-time before she left.
"Is that possible?" she asked, confused. "It thought every little pony had a heart mate. I mean, wasn't Magic Star a third? And she went last year. So I guess . . ." Fizzy trailed off. If she was right, that meant that something had happened to Wind Whistler's heart mate. Which meant she'd just made everything worse!
"There was a stallion third born in Magic Star's calling-time - which was longer ago than I think you know," Wind Whistler smiled a little at her yet again confused friend. "Shady is Magic Star's daughter, and Baby Shady is her granddaughter. The newborn Baby Magic Star is Shady's younger sister." While Fizzy absorbed this, Wind Whistler continued. "I was never one of those little ponies who looked forward to the calling-time, but I still expected to go. Not knowing is - slightly disconcerting. If I had a heart mate, what happened to him?"
Not knowing what to say to this - although knowing Fizzy, this wouldn't last long - the two ponies stood watching the crimson dawn in silence.
Fizzy began to fidget. Finally, she just said, "Oh, stop worrying about it, Wind Whistler! It happened, other bad things happen too. But we would never have any fun if the little ponies just thought about the bad thing that happen all the time. It's not as though anyone's going to think less of you just because you didn't feel the call. Come on! We have breakfast to make, and then I feel like trying to catch lightning in a bubble."
The forest-green little pony danced in place, crystalline eyes sparkling at her best friend. Wind Whistler looked at her a moment before smiling, and Fizzy, seeing that her best friend wasn't locked in her contemplative melancholy anymore, nuzzled her before racing out the door.
"Come on, Wind Whistler! Breakfast!" Fizzy caroled down the corridors, receiving sleepy murmurs of protest from behind every door.
Wind Whistler laughed, and took off to follow her.