//------------------------------// // Book Two: Prologue // Story: Myths and Birthrights // by Tundara //------------------------------// Myths and Birthrights By Tundara Book Two: Duties and Dreams Prologue It was an unusually cold summer day in the valley. Or, rather, it should have been day. Villagers gathered in small clusters in front of their little cottage homes, speaking in lowered voices and casting worried glances to the dark eastern sky. Marked only by the bells of the new clock tower, it had been three days since Sol had last crested the horizon, and with her absence, night reigned eternal across the sky. It had been a novelty, at first. Princess Celestia was a little late. This was in and of itself a little odd. Though the ponies of the valley knew little of the princess across the ocean, they knew she was always prompt in keeping to the almanacs Equestria printed. For her to not just be late but entirely absent was beyond imagining. The foals took to playing games at first, as they were wont to do. They scampered and laughed around the streetlamps, taking advantage their parents bemusement and the novel darkness to play games of hide-and-seek like never before. Ghost stories were told by the older colts and fillies, and in general, life attempted to continue as if nothing were awry. By what should have been nightfall, the mood had begun to sour. Parents corralled their little ones into the comfortable safety of their homes, kissing them on the forehead as they tried to keep their own fears in check. All prayed that in a few hours Sol would lift over the eastern rim of the disc and everything would return to normal. A few of the adults stayed up that night, and as what should have been dawn approached, they began to gather in the temple. They came in fits and starts, the faithful and the headstrong alike, all bowing in prayer to Faust and Celestia for the sun to return. The local Speaker, Faust’s priestess to the rural town, had a large, elaborate grandfather clock setup beside her lectern and peered at it with a sharp intensity as if by doing so she could will Sol to return. The clock rang five, and everypony swivelled in their seats to peer out the windows up at the eastern mountain’s edge. They clutched each other, staring, waiting, hoping for the tell-tale golden glow that would herald Sol and the return to order. By noon, panic settled in and the sense of novelty was lost even on the foals. They were as though struck blind and deaf, for Equestria lay two months beyond their shores and no news would be coming from those distant lands. Any message needed to be carried by ship over rolling sea and through raging storms. The only way faster was through the use of curulícum candles, and just two such candle pairs existed to carry letters between Equestria and Prance. Both were in the capitol, and the only messages that had been passed were entreaties for information, and silence received for their efforts. Not that any response would have reached anypony outside the upper echelons of Prance’s government. Equestria was, in effect, cut-off from the rest of the disc. Under such a heavy silence, even the queens of the old world came to realise the true fragility of their ordered world. With no other recourse, the ponies of Prance, and all the Old Queendoms, prayed. The churches and temples overflowed into the streets as they gathered, hooves clasped and head bowed in whispered prayers to Celestia, begging her to return and bring back the sun. They prayed and prayed, and when their voices grew hoarse and the words lodged in their throats they just held each other and wept until they went home to sleep. The next day, though it was impossible to tell with the moon sitting right above the disc, unmoving, cold, a silent silver sentinel with her face bereft of the ancient Mare in the Moon that all ponies had known for the last thousand years, they made their way back to the temples. Shoulders heavy with trepidation, Jardin Reves left her home, as she had the previous morning, and joined the slow, shuffling crowd. An average mare, remarkable only in her utter mundanity, she hadn’t done anything more than brush her bright orange mane so it wasn’t a tangled mess against her soft tan coat. Ears flat, head low, she disappeared in the crowd, just as she hoped. Unlike those around her, she was alone in the crowd. No wives or husband to offer a comforting touch. Her home had never known the sharp bleats of a foal. A home she’d inherited from her mama ten years earlier.   With their greater concerns, the villagers barely glanced at her, and none made the snide sneer of ‘poor spinster’ just loud enough for her to hear. Approaching the temple, Jardin spotted a few of the mares responsible for most of the hurtful gossip. As she passed, she heard one mare say to another, “What if it is true? What if Celestia is dead? Or imprisoned by some foul demon? It is Leviathan! The terrible serpent has awoken and, loathing the sun, has wrapped Sol in her endless coils, stealing away the light so that no-pony but her may enjoy the warming rays.” No sooner had the first panicked whispers of the idea been uttered than the Sisters of Names appeared in the village. They came singing a chant in the ancient language of Thuelesia. Though she couldn’t understand the lyrics, the sentiment carried was clear in the gentle refrain. Their voices were so calm and buoyant, seeming to reach up to touch the stars themselves on the high notes, and then grow low to settle around the anxious crowd like a comforting blanket. It was the prayer of Spiritus Domini Harmonious, and it was recited with such conviction that the villagers began to fall to their knees and weep. Jardin stepped off to the side, and whispered a private prayer. “Faust Invictus, wherever you have hidden, you are needed. Please, help us. Help return Sol to the heavens. Return your daughter to us. Please.” As with the thousands of others being issued across the disc in that moment, Jardin’s plea received no reply. She had expected none. If anypony would hear the goddess respond, it would not be a lonely, shunned florist. Rather than utter another useless prayer, Jardin watched the sisters. At the procession head, in her plain white robes, marched the abbot from the nearby monastery, a staff with six rings held aloft in her magic. With every rise and fall of the staff the rings chimed, creating a soft melody on which the chant could reside. Attached to the staff, just below the rings on the head, hung a simple lantern, its swinging light illuminating the way. For generations almost uncounted, the sisters and their monastery had resided deep within the valley. Built on a cliff-top part way up the mountain, the monastery’s lights could be seen for leagues away, far into the rolling hills at the valley’s mouth. It was an impressive monastery, with hundreds of sisters living within the long, tiered buildings hugging the white stone face. Over the centuries the sisters had dug a honeycomb network of tunnels and rooms into the mountain, using the stone they cut to form newer and greater additions to the external structure. Buttresses flew out like the wings of pegasi over the cliffside, holding the high walls up seemingly on the very air itself. To the villagers surprise, the sisters did not turn towards the temple or stop there in the wide square, but continued onward, leaving by a small path that was hardly maintained that lead into one of the valley’s smaller tributaries, ending in the chateau ruins Nopony within the village knew when the chateau had been built, nor when it had been abandoned, only that it long predated the village. Though left untended for countless years, the chateau stood in remarkably good condition. A proud structure three stories in height, powerful magic had been used in its construction and the formation of the long overgrown gardens, keeping the worst of time’s effects away. Shards of stained glass clustered beneath the broken windows, while birds and other small animals had long used the rotten furniture for homes. A thick coat of ivy clung to the entire structure, tendrils working their way through the blue tile roof, so that the entire edifice seemed almost to be a remarkably blocky hill. A haunted, frightening place, the villagers usually shied away from the ruins. That unusual day, spurred on by faith, or fear, or just unsure what else they could do, they followed the sisters along the overgrown path.   As they trotted, the villagers picked up the threads of the sisters’ songs, adding their own voices in uncertain, thready bursts that grew in confidence the closer they came to the chateau. Jardin found herself joining the chorus, the tune bringing a subtle warmth to her chest as it flowed up the valley walls towards the twinkling stars. Just as she crossed the invisible threshold between the village and the ruins, Jardin lifted her head and came to a stop, the next few words to the song lodged in her throat. There, just above the peak of the mountain, glimmered the Three Sisters; Alnitak, the Stonestar; Alnilam, the Chancestar; and Mintaka, the Luckstar. That night, Mintaka shone brighter than her sisters, and Jardin was certain the stars were watching the valley. Along the back of her ears floated a whisper, haunting and slow, filtering through the gap between songs. Jardin twisted her head to see who’d spoken, but found no-pony. Only another path, the dew soaked grass undisturbed and leading off towards the black face of a cliff. She started to ask the pony next to her if he’d heard anything, but found the words fade before they could be spoken. Nopony else was paying attention to anything but the song. Slowing a little, she cast a longing look down the path, caught between continuing with the villagers, or following where it lead. Again the whispers drifted across her ears, more insistent this time. Withers tingling, she left the procession and started down the path, her departure as unremarked as her initial joining. Quickly, Jardin lost her way, the path folding into the night at every bend, trees and shadow casting long, murky shapes. A warning in the back of her head told Jardin to return to the crowd. She could hear the song still, and with it she had a guidepost back to the safety of the herd. At the edge of a sparse glade she almost gave into that voice. Heavy wingbeats banished any such thoughts under a more pressing, and primal fear. Heart smashing against her chest, she ducked into the deepest of the shadows, eyes scanning the star studded sky. Within it she pictured the griffons of old, torn straight from the picture books of her youth, with armour glinting in the moonlight and curved, razor sharp beaks beneath cold, flashing eyes. Out of the velvet tapestry of the night descended five pegasi. It had been years since Jardin had last seen one of the tribe, few making their home near the mountains. The valley was so unimportant that it didn’t even have a weather team, the cycles of nature left to sort itself out. Swooping down, it wasn’t until they landed, hooves kicking at the soft ground to arrest their momentum, that Jardin saw how much larger these pegasi were than those she’d known as a filly, with wings to blot out the moon and stars. None had the lean build or blunted wings for quick turns in the forests of the western Raven herds. Each stood taller than the largest stallion in the village, their heads held high and eyes darting upwards in expectation. All mares, they wore a variety of clothes, from broad sashes and capes emblazoned with their own cutie marks that draped over their flanks, to nothing more than small, round hats. The closest of the group had a steel peytral about her neck, and armoured greaves snug above her hooves.   “They are late. Why are they late?” The furthest of the group spoke in a sullen whisper. “We all agreed at the last meeting to be here together. Have they forgotten?” The mare figeted and wrung her hooves. A wide brimmed bonnet, white flowers tucked into the band was pushed back to show her startling bright aquamarine eyes. Over her soft yellow coat hung a loose matching green dress. In the moonlight, she glowed like freshly forged bronze as she paced back and forth near the edge of the glade, her intense gaze fixed towards the valley’s entrance. “Hush, Posey, they will either be here, or they will not. Fretting will solve nothing on the matter,” the mare closest to where Jardin hid said in the clipped, eastern accent of Stalliongrad. Or, perhaps from further north. Jardin had never been very good at discerning accents. Every movement clinked with the shifting of metal against metal. Beneath her peytral was a suit of well-fitted plated-chain mail. Her greaves, though embossed, were clearly more for function than form. And along the leading edges of her long wings flashed silvery blades. Jardin gaped at this mare, not just because she was nearest, and thus the easiest to make out. True pegasus wing-swords were unheard of outside of museums and private collections. They stood in display cases only, prized center pieces or irreplaceable heirlooms. But, something about this mare told Jardin that, not only was she proficient in the blades, she’d put them to use only recently.     Adjusting her flowing, dragon and flower embroidered robes, the third of the group pouted at her fellows. “It won’t be long now. The mistress has found the old castle and goes to confront the usurper.” She had an even thicker accent than her armoured companion, but from the east, Neighpon or Canton perhaps. This mare was all elegance, as if she’d stepped out of an eastern painting. Her every move was precise and controlled, and each turn of her head weighted for beautiful effect. She did not belong in some out of the way woods, but in the ballrooms of queens, conversing as an equal with duchesses and princesses.   “So, we five are all that remain?” asked the fourth with a long, forlorn sigh. By far the plainest looking mare, she wore a simple set of saddlebags and hooded cloak that blended perfectly into her ruddy brown fur. Her dirty grey mane was held into a simple tail by a matching ribbon. A short mouth-knife, like the kind used by earth pony sailors, strapped to her left foreleg was the only thing that marked her as unusual, aside from her size, though she was, by a good few inches, the shortest of the group. “From dozens to this?” “It has been several centuries since we last gathered, that our numbers have dwindled is no surprise, Maia,” spoke the final member of the group, her voice surprisingly sharp with the distinct nasally twang of Hackney, but with hints of another dialect that Jardin could not place. Unlike her sisters, this mare wore nothing; not a dress, nor blades, nor even saddlebags. With her back to Jardin, little could be made of the mare’s features beyond her purple coat, almost black in the night, and bubblegum pink, frizzy mane. “Are we certain that they just aren’t running late? We can’t just write them off as… destroyed.” Posey exclaimed, wringing her hooves and giving her fellows pleading glances. Focusing on the mare in the elegant robes, she asked, “What about Tianguan? Or Asper? You spoke to them not long ago, Tian, didn’t you?” “Tianguan made up her mind to confront the usurper directly on her return, and elected to travel to Equestria. She won’t be coming, or ever seen again, most likely.” Tian shook her head, robes drifting about her in a painted cloud with each motion. “As for Asper…. I assumed she would come with Acamar.” “A dragon attacked her village last year.” The armoured pegasus’ wings trembled with barely suppressed anger as she spoke. “She and the beast felled each other. Her descendants performed a sky burial.” The others sagged with the weight of loss and grief, Posey wiping tears from her brilliant eyes. A short silence settled on the group for a few minutes, each of the pegasi retreating into their own thoughts. Jardin was tempted at that time to make herself known, but the same whispers that had brought her to that place also told her to remain hidden. “Do you think that the others are correct? Is it really the mistress at last?” Posey asked, her gentle question not so much breaking the silence as making it swirl into noise, like a leaf falling onto a mirror smooth pond. “Is the time of prophecy at last upon us?” Acamar snorted and began to pace. “I don’t put my faith in the mistress, or prophecy. If she is real and has at last come, then good. If not, then so be it.” “She will find us,” spoke the fifth mare with iron certainty, bobbing her head so her mane frizzled about her head. “And we will be as we were always meant.” “Zana, there is no guarantee that she will restore us as she will Luna,” Tian said gently, trying to soften her sister’s exuberance. “Regardless, she needs to make haste. This night has gone on for far too long. Our sisters grow tired and weak. They need rest. Sol and Selene may be able to stay in the heavens for weeks unending, perhaps months or years. But no single star has a hundredth the energy of our cousins. Not even the Firestar.” A snort broke from Acamar carrying a playful grin in its wake. “Best Sirius never hear you say as much.” “Pah!” Tian exclaimed with a sharp laugh. She puffed out her chest to the sniggers of a couple of her sisters. “I have no fear of Sirius. Nor should any of you! She hides in the heavens still. The great and mighty Sirius, afraid of a little fire and fall. But not us. We all chose to fall. Well, except you Zana.” The frizzy maned pegasi dipped into a little bow. “You know I would have, if Luna had but asked. I don’t hold any anger for what she did. Nopony else could have attempted to the little dreamer.”   “You may not blame her, but I am not so forgiving,” purred a voice from the shadows gripping the forest. The gloom bulged and took new form, a mare seeming to coalesce rather than simply walk into the light. Her dark coat and feathers blacker than obsidian on a starless night. The five mares went rigid, eyes flashing with a mix of fear and rage as they spun to face the latecomer. Acamar dropped into an aggressive crouch, the blades on her wings shining, but it was the plain mare that drew the most attention, silvery fire alighting along her wings as she jumped to her sister’s side. “What, no hugs for your only other sister on the disc?” The question hissed like water dancing on a scalding pan. Hips swaying in a seductive roll, she strolled around the clearings edge, almost seeming to corral the others to its center. The moonlight playing off her obsidian coat took on a sinister sheen with every step, heightened by the devilish grin she wore and the glow in her red eyes. A shiver like ice water beneath her fur worked its way down Jardin’s spine. While all the pegasi carried themselves with an air of strength, this one had such a dangerous aura about her that it choked the air in Jardin’s lungs. Tian and Maia both took wary stances, falling closer towards their battle-ready sisters, and then Posey bounded forward with a piercing shout. “Algol! You live!” She exclaimed in the breath before she crashed into the dark coated newcomer and swept her into a spinning hug. “I thought Wynn and the Elements of Harmony had destroyed you! How is this possible!” “Destroyed? Ha, the Elements of Harmony are too weak willed and dulled to kill. Nay, they merely locked me away beneath the earth where our sisters’ lights could not reach me.” Her voice turned darker still, all affectation of mirth stripped bare by her accusatory tone. “For fifteen hundred years I languished in the dark with only the spirits of the dead as company. And all through it I wondered, ‘Where are my sisters? Why have they not come for me? Why is all blue and black?’ Why was I abandoned?” Releasing her sister, Posey backed away in shock. Trembling, Algol turned her back on the other pegasi, and stared deep into the shadowed place in which Jardin hid. For just an instant they locked eyes, and the chill spread deeper into Jardin’s bones.   Jardin tried to shrink further into the shrubbery. The sense of intruding upon the profane gripped her. Those ruby eyes held her fast, however, pinning her to the spot with dread. She wished she’d never left the procession. “We are sorry, Algol. We didn’t know.” Posey’s voice was soft with the pained truth. “If we had known… Wynn swore that Faust awful oath, and then with the war and the ice… When the Elements of Harmony emerged from the north and you were no-where to be found, we thought you dead. You were not abandoned. Not by us.”   A shudder worked it’s way through Algol, and she ground her teeth together. “It hardly matters now. What is done can not be changed.” A flick of her wing dismissed any further apologies or discussion. The gesture did not seem to relax Acamar, Maia, or Zana, but a relieved smile crossed Tian’s face, and Posey brightened and went to Algol’s side. As Posey’s wing was extended across her back, Algol asked, “Why are you here? The mistress is to appear in Equestria. Isn’t that where you belong? With her and the lavender screams?” Tian and Maia both attempted to caution Posey, but before either could intercede, she said, “Our sisters have already aided in the Nightmare’s escape, and soon her madness will end. We are here to see the root cause, the madness itself, is contained.” From a pocket in her dress, Posey withdrew a large, pure blue diamond the size of her hoof. Algol’s eyes locked onto the gem and widened in horror.   “You would consign her to an existence of grey nothingness?” The question seethed from Algol, growing into a near howl that shook Jardin in her hiding place. She tried to shout a warning too late. Algol lashed out as Posey tried to form a response, striking out with the bladed tip of her feathers. A scream filled the night. Gem falling from her hoof, Posey staggered away, a brilliant line of crimson flowing from her eyes. “I am sorry sister, but I can not risk your stare.” Algol scooped up the gemstone and then cast it into the waiting dark of the woods in a single, fluid motion as Tian and Zana caught Posey, Acamar and Maia taking a defensive position on either side of the huddle. “I wish it could have been different, but your tongue is green with poisoned words.” “Algol, she is you sister,” Acamar bellowed. She lept into the air, twisting into a short dive, starlight flashing off the blades along the edge of her wings. A dark flash cast her back and tumbling towards her sisters.   “Aye, you are. And that is why this brings me no pleasure.” Algol took a deep breath and dark malice flashed within her ruby gaze and on her voice as she advanced on her sisters. Starting as a dreadful whisper that chilled the soul, it rose and rose; and with dreadful purpose, Algol began to sing. A curse upon your House. A curse upon your House. A curse upon your House. From the depths I do return, Guided by vengeance are my wings. I call upon the decay and pestilence. Send the pox upon my kin, carry it across the wind. Spread the boils upon their skin. Sores and pus weep with their sin. ‘Til rent of fur and mane as was I! A curse upon your House! Behind the Demonstar, a black buzzing cloud appeared, twisting and writhing, ten million green eyes a-glimmer within its depths. High overhead, the sky crackled, and in the west, hidden behind mountain and tree, a rainbow glow began to grow. The five sisters stood their ground, Tian and Maia combining their power to conjure a shield of shimmering blue that rang like a bell beneath the blow of the cloud. “Sister, please!” Posey reached out a pleading, bloody hoof, but Algol was lost, consumed by ancient rage and lost to her spellweaving. “Don’t do this!” I call on upon the dark and twisted things. Send the beasts, send the fell, claws from sky and fangs from hell. Freeze ’er marrow with ‘er knell, drag ‘er bones down the well. ‘Til lost of dreams as was I! A curse upon your House! Living shadows leapt up around and within the shield, formed into giant, monstrous wolves. The battle that ensued was brief but intense in its primal ferocity. Magic flashed, kicks were met with teeth and yelps of pain, and trees were uprooted by a bleak wind. Jardin blinked, unable to follow what had happened, knowing only that the sisters lay on the ground, pinned beneath the heavy shadows. “The mistress will find you, Algol. She will know of your betrayal. It will echo in her soul, no matter how you try to hide the truth,” Tian snarled, struggling in futility against the paw pressed against her back. “Good. Then maybe she will finish what her sister started, and the Demonstar will at last know peace.” Algol lifted her head and stared to the west, where the rainbow in the clouds grew closer and brighter. I call upon the scourge and the storm. Tear their flesh from the bone, sunder their spirit from its home. Broken down all alone, torn away from their throne. ‘Til they are formless as was I! A curse upon, A curse upon A curse upon your House. Bands of aether swept down from Algol’s outstretched wings as she sang, entwining about her sisters and lifting them out of the shadow’s grasp. No matter how they struggled and fought or what oaths they gave on furious breaths, the tendrils could not be broken. Violent, violet magic swept down the bands, and when it reached the pegasi they spasmed and screamed. They screamed in such terror and pain that Jardin could no longer watch and had to look away. She did not see the final moments of the sisters, and wished she could forget the sound of their tortured voices. Lightning crackled off the valley walls until it was drowned out by an approaching roar of primal magic. The night gripping the valley was banished by a rainbow hurricane, the sky whipped into a frothing, spinning nexus. Multi-hued flames fell on the forest and distant town. Staccato bangs washed over Jardin, carried on the howl of the rising winds. At the center stood Algol. She spun and laughed, wings stretched wide, five gleaming orbs around her; her sisters nowhere to be found. It took Jardin a moment to realize that the shimmering opal balls were the pegasi. Like a spinstress, Algol drew threads from the orbs of singing energy. Around and around her she spun and weaved the threads until they hung in the air, suspended like spiderwebs. Faster she worked, rising onto her hindlegs, wings darting in and out, drawing forth new threads and severing old strands. Her breaths quickened; the song long subsumed beneath the maelstrom in the heavens. An eye opened in the clouds. Jardin saw the stars, saw them glow brighter than ever been before, and knew that they were watching back.   Through the eye descended a column of blinding light. Pulled by some unseen force, it crashed into the woven threads and Algol. Black against a silver sheen, Algol stood triumphant, then all the valley collapsed into a void. No light. No sound. And then the dawn broke. Jardin lay frozen beneath the bushes for several minutes staring up at the golden glow alighting on the mountain tops. Her heart hammered in her chest as if she’d fled a manticore. Sweat covered legs trembled as she forced herself up and glanced around the little vale. The quiet, secluded sanctuary was transformed. Thick swaths of blackened, burnt grass and stone stretched out from the central point to the trunks of trees. Five crystal menhir stood in a ragged semicircle, marking the final places of the pegasi. And before them, at the precise spot of the final blast, rested a small, dark blue form. “I was beginning to think that you had been left pale white,” Algol said right next to Jardin’s ear. A yell breaking from her dry throat, she spun and found herself nose to nose with the abyssal mare wearing a predatory grin Algol with casual ease. In a tight arc, she circled around Jardin, ruby gaze taking in everything. Jardin had never felt so naked or vulnerable before, and trembled. She tried to back away. But Algol would not let her, keeping pace, a soft click of her tongue showing disapproval. “I-I—” A hoof flashed up, forestalling any excuse or arguments Jardin could offer. What they would have been, what she could have said eluded her like she were casting a net to catch smoke. Mouth dry, she backed up further until she hit a stout tree. “Do not worry. My words are gold and white.” The grin shifted to something approaching comforting, but there was a wrongness still. An intangible air of violence just at the corners of the mare’s eyes. “If I’d wanted to kill you, I would have done so already.” She stepped back and with a motion of her wing for Jardin to follow, went to the heart of the vale. Jardin glanced to the side, to the path she’d taken, and for a fleeting instant considered running. But no earth-bound pony could escape a pegasus. Any such attempt would only cause anger. Anger she doubted she’d survive. If Algol could so easily kill her sisters, what could she do to her? Trembling more with each step, Jardin approached the magic’s epicenter. And there, amid the ash and cooling slag, was a filly. She could not have been more than eight, or perhaps nine. The edges of a cutie mark could just be made out on dark blue flanks. She would have seemed dead, if not for the slightest puff of breath. Jardin shot a questioning look at Algol. “W-Who? How?” “She is… my friend.” Algol clicked her tongue and winced, reaching down with a wingtip to brush a lock of the filly’s silver mane away from her face. “No, friend is too imprecise. She and I are bonded. You would not understand, mortal as you are. I can not remain, and she needs a caretaker.” “What?” Jardin took a step away, heartbeat quickening. Each thump shook her chest and constricted her throat. Another flick of Algol’s wings and in a swirl of magic an ornate mane broach appeared. With the most tender of care, she slid it next to the filly’s ear, pinning it in place. “This is why I called you here.” Algol shot a sideways glance at Jardin. “This is why I sang the song of black and green. Somepony has to watch over her. Keep her hidden, keep her safe. Someone who is not I.” Swallowing the growing lump, Jardin understood this was not a request. Her gaze dipped for a moment to the feathers stained with Posey’s blood, tacky edges all that gave away the grim crime committed. Yet, she still almost said no. The refusal filled her mouth, burned in her chest, even as it made her gut twist and turn. But, the filly let out a yawn. She stretched, tail swishing in the ash, and rolled over, a back hoof kicking at the prodding of some dream. “I will do this.” Jardin said, and the nervousness melted away.