The Balinor Chronicles

Chapter Three: The Seashore

This Chapter is Dedicated to Talkofthetowneva4

Although most common knowledge of the Herd starts with the Rule of Solaris, we are not here to listen to commonly heard tales. The Tales of the Celestial Stars really begins with two special unicorns in particular.

Derecho was a rather average colt of Terrenus's Herd. His coat was a red-brown, so closely resembling the clay found far beneath the soil. His mane and tail were pale brown, almost the color of dry, dead pine needles. His hooves and horn were formed of granite and the gem that resided on his forehead was. His brilliant Earth colors drew the eyes of Terrenus, and Derecho enjoyed the subsequent doting attention from the Elemental Stallion. Most of the time, anyway.

Unfortunately for Derecho's mother, the dirt brown Terran, Derecho was at the stage in which the colt begins to grow away from his mother, but is not quite old enough to be weaned, despite the foal's thought on the matter. This, combined with his inquisitive nature, made Derecho quite a hoofful for his mother.

Now, when you are young, but think you are wise beyond your years, you will of course test your limits, and do try to do things without a nagging dam at your side. For a colt, of course, the one thing you want to do is get away from your mom and have an adventure. There is no better place for adventure than an old forest, with tall trees, climbing vines and spooky shadows.

Naturally, Derecho had been warned about going into the woods – Terrenus's Herd always stayed on this side, and who knows what a unicorn from another Herd would do to you if they found you, and the woods are too big and you too small and you're sure to be lost in them. Most foals needed no more then these routine admonishments to stay away from the dark and imposing woods.

But if Derecho had listened to his mother, then there would be no story.

The colt carefully picked his way through the knee deep grasses. Every now and then he would look around to make sure that no one was following him or looking at him. He really needn't have worried. All the other unicorns were too busy grazing to pay attention to a lone foal on the edge of the forest (I bid you remember that most foals are terrified of the forest, and wouldn't dream of marching into it), and Terran was thoroughly and totally convinced that her son was still inside the Forsythia bush on the other side of the Meadow. So no one noticed the lone clay colored foal sneak into the shadows, and so no one was particularly alarmed when the foal didn't come out of the shadows.

Now you must be wondering if the Unicorns cared at all for their own. Well, of course they did, but the foals are constantly playing hide and seek and are never in the same spot for a long enough time to get a horn count on them. So the counts were taken at the end of the day, and Derecho planned to be back long before then. This was just a short trip into the woods, after all.

Enchanted forests are wonderful places to explore. The trees are so tall that they hold up the sky; the vines so numerable that they tie the trees to the ground; the shadows so spooky that you frighten yourself half to death before you realize that horrendous monster is just an ugly bush. And Derecho loved it. Now Derecho realized that all the trees looked the same, so he did a very intelligent thing that most young foals wouldn't have thought of: He walked parallel to the tree line, rather than going deeper into the woods. This enabled him to constantly keep the haven of the meadow in sight at all times.

Derecho was romping along, enjoying looking down every hole he came to when the thunder storm started. Or, at least anyway, Derecho thought that it was a thunder storm. A branch on a particularly old tree had died and finally snapped off, falling right in front of Derecho. Following the usual fight-or-flight reaction, Derecho took off in the opposite direction – leading him right into the thickest part of the woods.

A few minutes and several trees later, Derecho pulled up to a stop, and realized he had no clue where he was. He whinnied for his dam only to here his whinnies echo, echo, echo back at him. So Derecho wandered lost in the forest, until he caught a glimpse of another unicorn in the woods. He ran after the unicorn, calling for the snow white mare to slow down so that he could catch up. But the white mare stayed ahead, and when Derecho entered a small clearing, all he saw at first was a large white marble rock.

His second glance revealed a small filly standing knee-deep in the stream. She was a pale blue, with a slightly darker mane and tail. Overall, she was the same color as the stream, and with a pale sapphire stone and crystal hooves she looked like the river goddess. Her name was Izquierda, and she was one of the favored fillies of the Herd of Orcinus. Being a water creature, she had followed the stream deeper and deeper into the woods, and was now looking at the first creature she had ever seen that was not from the Herd of Orcinus. Unfortuantely, weeks of being brought up a proper young Orcinus filly had taken its toll"

"What are you doing here? This stream belongs to Orcinus," Izquierda started, and would have continued, had Derecho not interrupted her. "What am I doing here? What are you doing here? These rocks belong to Terrenus."

The two stood there staring at each other before Derecho gave a sheepish grin. "We do sound kind of silly, don't we?" Izquierda snorted. "Yeah, the Aoeleans, they live just on the other side of us, they claim the whole Valley just 'cuz its all covered with air."

The duo was silent for a moment, and Izquierda stared at the rocks in the stream. "Ya know, we could share it."

"Share?"

"Yeah, you know, we could both own it."

Derecho stared stupidly at her for a minute, then glanced at the rocks and the stream.

"Sharing sounds good."

As I am sure you, the listener of this tale can presume, the friendship between Derecho and Izquierda took off. As the pair grew, their comradeship turned into friendship, and their friendship into love. They meet often by the stream, and soon knew the woods like their own homes. They were careful not to let their friends know where exactly they went to every other day, and they lived for those moments alone with each other. Derecho had turned into a fine young stallion, envied by all the others his age, for the attention from Terrenus meant that Derecho could have almost any mare he wanted in the herd.

Now, as Izquierda grew older, she became more agile, more graceful, more beautiful. Her pale coat color drew the attention of Orcinus, and with the wisdom that comes with age, Izquierda knew that when her dam consented and allowed her to chose a mate, Orcinus would be the first in line. And who can say no to the leader of the herd?

So with this in her mind, Izquierda met Derecho in the woods that day, and with this in her mind she asked him to be her mate, and with this in her mind they did the sort of thing that you need a stallion and a mare to do right.

Derecho, when he left the meadow, left behind his best friend, Tourmaline. Tourmaline, was not stupid, but he was the kind of unicorn who would do anything that was asked of him by Derecho, and he was incredibly loyal. However, on this day, his curiosity had finally gotten the better of him, so Tourmaline followed Derecho into the woods, and Tourmaline saw Derecho meet a pretty young mare, and Tourmaline knew that some things were best kept a secret. So Tourmaline stayed in the background and watched.

Izquierda left behind her best friend, Mariah, and her older brother, Corundum. Corundum was very protective of his beautiful younger sister and was concerned with where she went so often. Mariah felt abandoned, for she was the type of unicorn that always needs someone by her. So Mariah and Corundum followed Izquierda, and they saw her meet with a handsome brown stallion and they was what happened nest.

Now, Corundum, as I believe I have mentioned earlier, was perhaps almost overprotective and, in his mind, saw a Terrenus Stallion rape his little Izquierda. So Corundum dropped his head and prepared to charge, and his glittered ominously.

As fate would have it, a small breeze blew. Derecho and Izquierda were too preoccupied to notice the scent on the breeze, but Tourmaline did, and Tourmaline was a true and loyal friend. So Tourmaline did what needed to be done and leapt out and charged Corundum himself.

War, and fights had never been in the Valley before. No blood had ever been drawn, and the thought of using the horn as a weapon had never happened before now. But it is easier to get up to a charging speed with your head down, and it occurred to Corundum that his horn was very sharp, and so was a splinter, so his horn would have the same effect on this naughty Brown as a splinter would have on your skin. Tourmaline merely copied Corundum, and I'm sure you can guess what happened from there.

Two pieces of rock, each traveling at 30 miles per hour and over 500 pounds of pure muscle behind them will collide at a speed of over 60 miles per hour with a combined pressure of over 1000 pounds of muscle. This much force, meeting at a sharpened point can have a very damaging effect and for the first time, blood was spilt in the Valley.

Mariah saw everything and ran to Orcinus; Derecho and Izquierda quickly guessed what happened and just ran. Unfortunately, nothing in the Valley is faster than an Elemental Stallion, and they didn't get too far before Orcinus showed up.

Despite the protestation of Terrenus, Orcinus exiled Derecho to the Mortal Realms, or more specifically, the land of the Mortal Realms. Orcinus took Izquierda back and placed her beside him as his mate.

And as rumors fly faster than the wind, all the Herds talked and wondered. Wondered who was right and who was wrong. Wondered if love was worth lives. Wondered if blood was now the only way to fix things. Wondered if it would happen again. Wondered if they two had learned their lesson….

But love cannot be broken, so when Orcinus, Lord of the Sea, drops his head to graze, Izqueirda sneaks away and nuzzles Derecho, who has all four hooves planted firmly on land. Their loving embrace cannot last long, for as Orcinus lifts his head to see where his favorite mare went, Izquierda must slip back to his side. And as Time progressed, for it even marches in the Valley, Izquierda bore a colt. Derecho's colt.

Surfdancer was a firey chestnut, with a mane that was a pale color that had almost a green tinge to it. His gem was a pearl and his hooves and horn were coral. He runs ahead of his mother to meet his father, and tries to linger behind before running off behind his dam.

Even today, this meeting of Earth and Sea is called the Seashore, and the waves retreat back to Orcinus's side. The oceans are full of the lover's tears. The substance called Seafoam still rides in before the waves and lingers on land and is considered the truest mixture of earth and water that ever existed.