//------------------------------// // Chapter 15. The Breakup // Story: The Land Before Hooves // by Moon Flame //------------------------------// “Its dry.” Dashie decided to just say it. Petri made a long sigh. “Are you sure?!” Littlefoot asked de-hearted. Rarity approached the longneck and the Wonderbolt flier. She had felt it for a while now - Littlefoot had been winding up the closer they got to the valley. - She was never able to intervene before Dashie displayed the level emotional intelligence she had come to expect from the brute pony by now. “I just told you Littlefoot, the valley is all dried out! Gone, kaputt!” “Me saw some habitants down by Tundering Fall.” Petri tried to save the situation. The tail of Littlefoot laid still against the ground and bent in a manner of sadness. The herd all looked at each other. “I know It's hard to keep up hope...” Twilight had to cut her inspirational speech short. The ground rumbled by the running of the heavy longneck. Rainbow Dash and Petri looked at each other as if to say This was all your fault Littlefoot passed a canyon with round walls. Twenty years ago this was the place where he saw his mother as a cloud in the sky. Littlefoot. Or was it all happening now? Littlefoot! The passage lead Littlefoot to a tunnel, the same one he ran through when he was a child. This time he had to duck to fit through. Littlefoot saw the light at the end of it. It sent memory lanes through the eyes of the almost adult longneck. The young longneck exited the tunnel. He saw the cloud in the sky in the shape of his mother. A gap opened through the shape and revealed the sun. Its beams gradually lit up the place of dreams, with more food that one could ever eat and more water that one could ever drink. The face of disbelief beamed from the longneck. It widened into a large smile with watery eyes of pure happiness. “Cera, Spike, Ducky, Petri, Over here!” “Littlefoot, you found it! Yep yep yep! “We did it! We did it together! A small smile formed on the face of the young adult Longneck, his eyelids half closed. The beautiful memory coursed through Littlefoots’ hollow bones and filled him with happiness. As he was looking over the valley now, it seemed as if that was all Littlefoot had - Memories. Duckys’ face widened in disbelief before falling into despair. “Oh no. No no no no no...” Littlefoot kept smiling creepily. Hooves sounded behind him. “Is this it? We came all this way, for this!?” “Rarity, silence.” Twilight whispered irritated. No longer were the meadows green. No longer did the river flow all the way. The Thundering Fall was at a level were it merely left a small creek. The large trees had been replaced with dry trunks forming ugly ensembles across the centre of The Great Valley. The eyes of Littlefoot wandered in shadows. His smile slowly lowered into a frown. “Why haven’t the sharptooths’ moved in yet?” He sulked. “There are some green parts down there, look.” Ducky pointed her claw toward a patch of green with some creatures gathered around it. “As long as we share the food we’ll survive.” Littlefoot turned tail and muttered. “You share.” The others watched in bewilderment the longneck walk away. “Where are you going?” Fluttershy asked trembling. Ceras’ annoyance senses registered a deja vu. “You’re leaving us AGAIN!?” “You can come with me.” The voice of Littlefoot was bland and devoid of hope. “What do you mean, ‘can’? We just got here!” Dashie blasted. “I mean not to be insensitive, but you cannot be serious mr!” Rarity said femininely. “To be perfectly honest with you Littlefoot: I believe you got your head soaring higher than a lost pegasus.” Apple Jack scolded. Littlefoot stopped. He stared into the air a couple of seconds. “There is nothing for me here.” “What do you mean?” Twilight asked understanding. “I like you Twilight, but tell your ponies to stay out of this.” “Stay out!? But we need you!” Dashie exclaimed. “Tell me to stay out.” Littlefoot heard the defiant voice of Petri behind him. He turned his long neck around and faced him. “Me know why you want to leave.” “I’m not leaving. I was always here.” “Then why are you walking away?” “Cause it's over.” “Life is never over.” “Can’t you see? This was how it would always end: Us coming home to an empty valley with no families or food. All we did as children, everything only led us here. We never thought ahead, ever.” Littlefoots' voice sounded bleak. “Excuse me, Littlefoot, but you’re talking crazy.” Pinkie Pie said disgruntled. “Remember who that came from.” Dashie foreshadowed. Petris’ agreeable stare gained an angry depth. “You're talking to yourself.” “Maybe.” Littlefoot motioned the valley residents. “You go down, Petri. You go down, Ducky. You go home to your families, either that or follow me. I have no family.” “No.” Petri shook his head. “Its not that either.” The air between the apatosaurus and the pterodactyl became dense. Petris’ eyes shrouded with guild. “Me was the one who convinced the others not to follow you when you left the valley fifteen years ago. Me did it because me thought you missed other longnecks but now me know me was wrong!” “Wrong?” “You believe you search for something, but all you ever did was avoid. Avoiding us, avoiding me!” “No.” “Avoiding your father!” ‘Father’ left an ominous echo in the air. “You know nothing about me and Bron.” “Me know you love your father!” “No.” The flier shook his head. “No.” Petris’ eyes widened. He took a huge breath. “Because you cannot BE HIM!!!” By now Littlefoot was so angry he was shaking. He instinctively placed himself in an agressive sideways position. “How do you know? You never had a father.” “You cannot hurt me Littlefoot.” Petris’ eyes swelled with tears. “Not this time.” “Then why are you crying?” “Because me LOVE you! But if you walk through that tunnel me never want to see you again!” The flyer was in a complete fury. Littlefoot was taken a back. “Fine! I’ll go, you stay. I’m not a child anymore. I don’t need any of you.” “Me should have gone with you fifteen years ago, after you LEFT us with not so much as a whisper of when or why! Me should have told you how you've forgotten EVERYTHING that brought us to The Great Valley after your mother died!” Littlefoot raised his tail higher. “Mention her again.” Petri swallowed his cry. “I get that you miss your parents, your grandparents and other longnecks. Ducky and me longed you when you were gone. If you weren’t so obsessed with what you don’t have you’d realize that! Did you know that Ceras’ father died after you left?!" “Pinkie Pie told me...” “...Did you know that she mourned him, every day, without you there to comfort her?!” Cera walked grinning up to the longneck and spoke confidently. “Don’t listen to Petri. I know how it feels, and you are right. You don’t need your father.” Something snapped inside Littlefoot. He turned his heavy body around and raked the threehorn with his tail, sending her crumbling. The ponies gasped in disbelief. Ducky was still looking out over the valley, seemingly blunt to everything that was happening. Cera rose to her feet. “So you want your decision to be easy? Fine!” She readied herself. Target acquired. Ready. Set... But the longneck was already gone. Poderic saw his siblings gather around his mother. After making sure that none of them had seen him he turned his attention back at the cherry that was growing above. Using his tiny wings he started jumping. On the third try he managed to grab hold of the cherry, but it wouldn’t loosen from the branch. The tiny flyer looked back as he dangled, feeling the panic grow inside him. Poderic put his tiny feet against the barren bush and pulled. His white teeth growled. There was a snapping sound. Poderic felt himself plummet. He landed on his back. The cherry went rolling against the ground. The flyer licked his beak and marched proudly toward it. As Poderic was grabbing it something hit him at top speed. Poderics’ older sister had the cherry in her mouth, four of her brothers following her. Three other sisters went around to flank her. Poderic paddled his tiny feet and flapped his wings. He gained in on her. He followed her around the trunk of the bush, dodging several siblings along the way. One brother managed to take the cherry from his sister. Poderic switched target. He used his head to ram his brother, sending the cherry flying again. This time Poderic grabbed it midair. He only managed to hold it for a couple of seconds before his siblings piled on top of him. The red cherry was tossed back and forth before sailing over to the barren bush. Poderic realized he had foreseen the path of the cherry before his siblings. This would be his last chance. This time he would swallow the juicy thing the moment he got his hands on it he decided and rocketed. The ground rumbled. Something big was coming their way. A large shadow closed in over both the bush and the cherry. Silence fell, apart from the disappearing longneck and the demolished bush. Beside it laid the cherry, mushed into a mixture of jam and sand. His siblings shrugged and flew back to his mom. Poderic remained frozen. His right eye twitched. His claws were stale and mid-grabbing, seemingly reaching out into cherry heaven. Littlefoot ran, like he had done most of his life it seemed. He thought about those birds he saw back there. Were those the same kind he saw when he wandered the mysterious beyond after his mother died? Was this the way it was always going to end? Him alone, searching for a better place? His head filled with memories. “Name’s Bron. What’s yours?” The grown longneck asked. “Littlefoot” “No kidding. That’s funny. They called me Littlefoot when I was young.” The memory shifted. Littlefoot had his head lowered with the sound of the grown longneck coming from behind. “Littlefoot. We have to talk.” A lonely tear fell from Littlefoots’ face. “Where were you? All this time, where were you?!” “Oh Littlefoot, your mother and I knew we were going to have a hatchling. You see, we wanted to raise you in a safe place. So before you were even an egg I went off to find a new home for all of us. When I got back the earthquakes had changed everything." The sky turned orange red. A longneck was fighting a sharptooth in the middle of a raging earthquake. Littlefoot ran up to her. “Mother!?” She looked down on him, her panicked eyes urgent. “RUN!” The nightmare flashed. The Sharptooth was flying through the air. The young longneck watched the monster land on his mothers' back before biting her neck. I’m running mother! I’m running! The voice of his father sounded again. "It took me so long to find where the nest had been, and nothing was left but a crack in the earth, as deep as a mountain is high. As I searched for your mother, and the young one I knew had been born, the great circle rose and fell many times.” Littlefoot looked up at the great circle. “I kept searching. And then, one day I met a group of young longnecks, wandering in the wilderness with no grown ups to protect them. At first I hoped one of them was you. But I soon realized that wasn’t the case. But they came to depend on me so I stayed with them, took care of them.” The memory was infused with a boost of pride. “And then some others joined up with us. And then some more, and some more. In time, we were a herd.” Littlefoot looked up at his father in awe. “You mean... You’re the leader, of a whole herd!?” The dream came to a sudden halt when Littlefoot found himself stepping on air. He slid down a sand slope and gasped as he hit the ground. He groaned and looked up. The sun patched through the silhouette of a longneck. His eyes adjusted. “Father?” The silhouette turned out to be the mountain shaped like a longneck. It was looking down at him with sad, disappointed eyes. “You!” Littlefoot grabbed a rock with his tail and flung at the mountain. “YOU WEREN’T THERE!!!” He grabbed and tossed another. “YOU... WEREN’T... THERE!!!” Littlefoot slipped on a rock and fell on his face. As he tried to rise it felt like his strength was condensing out of him. For fifteen years Littlefoot had survived the mysterious beyond alone. He gave himself three days, at most. Without his friends there was no survival, with his friends awaited existential loneliness, for himself and for them. Littlefoot had no choice but to just accept the fact. His life was over. Then I’ll stay here. I’m all yours, great circle.