"We're moving on, dragon." Nightglow spread his wings, cutting through the dull grey mist cloaking the valley.
The smaller pegasus blinked his eyes and shook his head, sending a spray of dewdrops into the fog. "Aww, right now? It's not even dawn!"
"'Ponies who stay soon become prey,'" his father quoted. "Come on now, up up up!"
Baby Nightglow sat up with a reluctant sigh. A pegasus and a unicorn--he couldn't tell who--drifted through the mist and were greeted with groans and yawns as they woke the other ponies.
As his parents looked towards the ponies grouping in the middle of the meadow, Baby Nightglow was struck with a thought. He trotted towards the tiny waterfall. Suddenly, a shape materialized out of the mist . . .
"Oof!" Baby Featherfall gasped as the purple pegasus collided with her. "Who--Baby Nightglow? What are you doing?"
Baby Nightglow untangled his legs, tripping over Baby Featherfall's colorful tail a few times. "I was just--ouch!--going to take a last look at the waterfall. You know . . . to . . . say goodbye."
Baby Featherfall looked at him curiously. "It's just another place."
He shuffled his hooves. "Yeah . . . I know. But . . ."
"I'll go with you," Baby Featherfall offered, coming to a decision. "Maybe we can slide down it one last time."
"Okay!" Baby Nightglow began trotting again and Featherfall kept pace. "It might be too cold on a morning like--" Suddenly his hooves met empty air. "Whoooooa!"
Baby Featherfall managed to flap into the air as she saw Baby Nightglow somersault out of sight with a splash. "Baby Nightglow?" Her tiny pink wings strained to keep her airborne. "Are you okay?"
More splashing. Baby Nightglow pulled himself over a fog-shrouded bank. "Uh . . . I found the stream." He began to laugh.
Baby Featherfall landed, giggling. "The fog makes it sound farther away," she said, playfully dabbling a hoof in the water.
"There's the waterfall," Baby Nightglow announced. "We're just a little downstream."
The pink filly gazed upward. "It looks different with the fog pouring over it," she said thoughtfully.
"It'll be even more fun," the other baby laughed, scrambling up the enbankment. "C'mon!"
Shrieking with delight, they sailed over the edge. "Let's do it again!" laughed the colt.
"Well . . . maybe one more time," Baby Featherfall agreed, shaking the water from her wings.
Twenty minutes later, Baby Nightglow and Baby Featherfall tumbled over the waterfall yet again.
"We should get back," the pink pegasus giggled. "Moonbeam will want to get going."
Baby Nightglow snapped his tail to dry it out. "Yeeeeah, I guess." He grinned. "We'll come back someday!"
"What if Moonbeam wants to go somewhere else?" Baby Featherfall said practically, carefully watching the ground to make sure she didn't trip over obscured stones.
The purple colt frowned, then brightened. "When we're grown-up, we can go anywhere we want," he said.
"I don't know if being grown-up is that easy," Baby Featherfall ventured.
Baby Nightglow thought of his mother. "Yeah, maybe you're right."
They walked in silence for a while.
"Hey, shouldn't we have reached the herd by now?" Baby Nightglow asked after a few minutes.
Baby Featherfall looked around, staring hard into the greyness. "We're going in the right direction." She turned in a slow circle. "I think."
"They were in the middle of the valley," Baby Nightglow said. "But kind of spread out, so there should be somebody near us. Let's keep walking."
After a hundred paces, they stopped.
"I know it wasn't this far," Baby Nightglow worried. "Where is everyone?"
Baby Featherfall reared. "Mommy!" she called. "Mommy!"
Silence.
Baby Nightglow could feel every contraction of his heart. "Mommy! Daddy!" His voice faded into the fog. "Mommy, it's me! Please come find me! Please . . ." He looked at the pink baby pony. "Where are they?"
The foals huddled together. "I think we're lost," Baby Featherfall whispered.
Baby Nightglow swallowed a sob.
The pink pony's ears pricked up. "Shh! Do you hear something?"
The colt raised his head hopefully. "Is it--is it them?"
"I don't k--" Baby Featherfall froze in mid-sentence. The ponies stared as a mist-shrouded something glided past them. Something that walked on two legs. Something that swiveled its head with every step, searching without eyes. Raal.
It paused only a few feet away from the foals, intently sniffing the air, cocking it's head this way and that before slowly turning towards them. Hesitant, it seemed to almost peer into the fog before taking a careful step forward. And another. And another. Frozen, Baby Nightglow stared at the delicate sworls of black fur covering the sleek leg inches from his face. It was easier to focus on than the claws further down. With a ripple of muscle, the leg lifted . . . ebony claws dangled in front of his eyes. He's going to bump right into me. Help! But the creature paused, its long neck twisting as it scanned once again, then turned away and loped into the fog.
"It didn't find us," Baby Nightglow gasped after a minute.
"We were--we were too low for it to notice." Baby Featherfall was trembling. "It never looked down."
"Thank the Rainbow," Baby Nightglow sighed.
Silently, swiftly, the pink baby rose to her hooves. "Let's get out of here."
Baby Nightglow hesitated. "How will the herd find us?"
From across the valley came the shrill scream of a dying rabbit.
"They'll find us alive," Baby Featherfall said decisively, tossing her colorful mane. Without another word, Baby Nightglow followed her into the fog.
Sunshine stood tensely, watching Nightglow leap onto the wind with Tempest and Thistledown. The blaze of noon had burnt off the mist, and they were easily seen, specks of purple, silver, and pink outlined against a flawless blue sky. Her good wing quivered involuntarily. That's where I should be . . . looking for my baby. Not down here. Useless. She wasn't sure whether she meant her wing or not.
"Sunshine?" Glimmer shifted her weight from hoof to hoof.
The yellow pegasus blinked in surprise. The grey unicorn had avoided her since the botched healing attempt. "Uh . . . yes?"
"I'm sure Baby Nightglow will be all right. I can--I can feel it."
Sunshine raised her head, staring after the pegasus scouts. But how? He's out there somewhere, all alone!
As if reading the pegasus' thoughts, Glimmer added, "Baby Featherfall is with him."
Sunshine could not stop a tear from escaping. "She's only a baby pony. She can't take care of my little colt."
"But she's also a Rainbow pony," came a soft, musical voice from behind. "The Light shines upon her, even through the rain."
Sunshine turned to find a white pony with deep purple hair watching her. What was her name, now? Oh yes, Droplet. I haven't spoken two words to her since we met . . . too busy running from raals. Raals . . . "The Rainbow won't save them from a predator's teeth," Sunshine replied distractedly.
"It will be all right, Sunshine," Droplet repeated comfortingly, nuzzling Sunshine.
"They'll be okay," Glimmer echoed. She glanced after the flight of the pegasus scouters, now lost in the mist. I hope.
The distant stars cast a cold light on the foals as they stumbled along.
"I'm tired," Baby Nightglow sighed.
"Me too," Baby Featherfall replied, but her pace didn't slow. We have to get to safety. Wherever that is.
"We've been walking for hours," Baby Nightglow continued. The filly didn't reply. "Let's climb on that big rock and see where we are," the colt said.
"We know where we are; we're LOST," Baby Featherfall said, but she spread her wings and struggled, half flying, half climbing, onto the huge granite boulder as the purple colt did the same.
Rolling plains stretched to the distant horizon, covered with scratchy, determined wisps of wild grass and dotted here and there with such wildflowers as could survive the burning glare of the sun in the day and the cold stare of the moon at night. An occassional boulder, half darkened with moon shadows, rose with an ominous majesty, apparentally tossed at random into the fields by some impossibly strong force. A cold wind ripped across the flatlands, bending the yellowish grass in rippling waves.
"Have you ever seen land like this?" Baby Featherfall asked.
Baby Nightglow shook his head, too tired and overwhelmed to speak.
"Me neither." The little Rainbow pony cast another glance at her friend. He does look tired . . . maybe we shouldn't have left the forest, she thought. But there were raals in the forest . . . "Why don't we stop here?" she suggested.
"Here?" It would be a relief for his throbbing hooves, but . . . "What if something comes after us?"
"Well, we'll have to sleep sometime," Baby Featherfall said with practicality. "And if we stay up here, I don't think any raals will find us . . . they look on the ground for food." How ironic that the only safe hiding place was on top of a boulder in a field, in plain sight. She hoped very hard that there were no pumas nearby.
Perhaps with similar thoughts, Baby Nightglow said, "Let's look for a rock with an overhang or something. Then we'd be high enough to hide from raals and hidden from any other hunters too."
Unless they hunt by smell, thought the pink pegasus, but there was little point in worrying about things they couldn't change. "That sounds like a good idea," she said. "Let's try that rock over there." Please, Rainbow, protect us . . .
The moon gave Tempest's silver coat a glowing sheen as he glided over evergreen forest and scraggly meadow. A strong gust of wind swelled under his feathers, trying to lift him towards the boundless sky, but he leveled himself with an impatient twist of his wings. Not tonight.
He scanned the ground, looking for the faintest sign of life--a flicker of movement, an echo of voices . . . or of death--a gathering of crows, a smear of blood. So far he had seen only nightbirds, crying indignantly as he swept past, but he knew the foals were somewhere down there . . . dead or alive. Probably dead. Tempest had no illusions; a pony separated from his herd was an easy meal, especially a foal. If the foals had stayed in the valley . . . but they had found nothing.
Well, that wasn't quite true. He had spotted a faint but unmistakeable imprint of a raal's five-clawed foot near the stream (and nearby, the remains of a rabbit), but why mention it? Surely the foals had left safely or there would've been . . . evidence. Besides, he wasn't sure how Nightglow and Thistledown would've reacted to the news. Nightglow had become progressively more distraught as they searched, unsurprisingly. Thistledown, though . . . her eyes seemed as hard as stone as they swept the valley again and again, and he could feel the challenge in her stare, daring him to give up.
Not that I would suggest such a thing, Tempest reflected. Not so early as this . . . Hey-o, what's that? Shifting his wings, he angled downward. The dry, brittle stems of prairie grass and wildflowers shattered beneath his hooves as he landed in a swirl of dust. Cold here at night, but I'll bet it burns in the day, all right. Well, let's see . . . He looked around. Something had moved down here . . . probably too small to be a pony, but . . .
As Tempest stepped forward, a jackrabbit burst from under his hooves and raced across the field, in the perpetual panic that all small, defenseless animals share. The stallion snorted in disappointment. Well, it was almost time to return to the valley and meet the others anyway . . .
"Baby Featherfall! Baby Nightglow!" he called, just in case. His blue mane danced wildly in the cold wind as he stood, head cocked . . .
The two foals huddled together in exhausted sleep, somewhat protected from the chilling breeze by the outcropping of rock that extended cave-like around and above them. Baby Nightglow stirred in his sleep, then stuggled to sit up. So . . . tired . . .
"Uh? What're you doing?" Baby Featherfall muttered, gazing at him with sleep-hazed eyes.
"I thought I heard my daddy calling me," Baby Nightglow said slowly.
The foals sat in silence for several minutes, straining their ears against angry howl of the wind sweeping across the rocks.
"It was a dream, Nightglow," Baby Featherfall said at last.
"I guess." The foals lay down on the cold rock once more and immediately fell back into a tangle of confused dreams.
Not far away, a silver pegasus leapt into the sky.