The Balinor Chronicles: The Celestial Herd
Chapter Fifty-four: In Which Nothing Happens
Raiden would remain in those mountains for a long, long time.
When he did return, sometime later, the positions in the Valley has changed somewhat. The Shifter's forces had spread out, searching for the Stallion of the Mountains. The Sentinels were hard at work keeping tabs on all of them, while the main Celestial army was hard pressed for fighters.
When he did return, he did not return all at once. He did it slowly.
There was a Twilight who swore he was a black Unicorn at a stream, thought it was Arioch, looked back later, and saw a wall of water heading towards him. Another swore he was stalking the Mare, only to discover that she was stalking the Stallion of Mountain, who in turn was stalking the Twilight. Another Twilight saw a black Sentinel on a cliff, made to approach, remembered the tales, and left the Unicorn alone. Unsurprisingly, this Twilight was the only one who made it back to the base unscathed.
The Celestials had their stories too, pretty much the same, except they weren't looking for Raiden (who wanted him?) and they thought they were following a Twilight, perhaps even Moloth or Arioch. They told how he would call the rocks on the tops of the mountains down to cover his trail; or changed the shape of the rocks themselves to hide entrances to caves. They spoke of how a river would dry up to let him pass, then flow just as strongly after he passed.
But he did return eventually.
When he returned he was greeted by Lorn, who led her rickety foal to meet his father. The colt, Arhennus by name, looked upon his father for one of thefew times in what would a long, long life. Raiden's stay in the herd was brief, for already Solaris was on the move. One his way back to the mountains, he was confronted by the Mare.