//------------------------------//
// leaving the forest 
// Story: No. Not there. She's not on the moon. 
// by waste 
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They slept unwell and the three of them all share drawn hollow faces. Sunlight is a rumour falling through the insignificant breaks of forest. They break their fast with powdered milk and a single tin of beans shared between them. More than half their water is used so the group travel lighter. The shotgun's safety is stared at. She snaps off the safety.

They step out from underneath the massive root and Hayden would mutter “too tall ma it’s too tall mama. I'm really scared.” She tells him not to be scared, and that she’s here, nothing can get to him. Hayden holds her hand tightly. Luna then extends her wing over Hayden for a few seconds, she murmurs something.
“What did you say Luna?”
“I told you not to be afraid little one. Don’t be afraid.”
“Thanks Luna”

Hayden gives Luna a tight squeeze and her face remains impassive. There is affection and gratitude in his grasp but Luna chooses to ignore it. Luna wonders why she even committed to this small act of kindness. The mother wonders how this pony manages to surprise her.
They step out with the mother first and the smell of burnt gasoline haunts a root sixty feet from them. They walk towards it curious. The fire had crumpled into an ashen complex. Hand or foot prints made in the blackened remains. Frayed wind slips through and takes some of the ash. There is no further sign of intrusion apart from a single spent casing on the ground next to the old campfire. She picks it up then checks the compass for south. She leads and they follow.

The colossal trees are hazed shadows in the distance after three hours of walking. They collapse and the mother and son have smiles on their faces. Luna thinks they’re glad to leave the fear behind but she’s not sure with these two.  The sky is a slate of blue, the clouds like stains. The blue and white drips on the company’s skin, a blinding sun hidden behind pale dense clouds. 

They take their packs off and then the pair would fuss over what Luna carries. They take it off then all lie down and stare at the sky. The mother breaks out a tin of peaches for each of them, then would open a packet of cream crackers. Hayden saved two of the massive fruits from the slabs of treeline behind them. He would bring them out, split one in half and give Luna a half. They say grace. Luna is neither frowning nor smiling.

“Mama”
“Yeah”
“These clouds are strange. These clouds are different”
“They’re bigger aren’t they?”
“Yeah. They move really fast as well ma. They’re really fluffy as well”
“What you think Luna?”

There is mild amusement and concern merged into the mother’s voice.

“Good”
“Is it like this at you’re home?”
“I suppose it is”
“Is your home nice?”
“It was. I don’t know now”
“Were you scared last night?”
“Yes”
“You don’t talk much do you?”
“No. I don’t talk much”

Luna moves till the mother is centred in her vision. The mother tilts her head, still splayed across the ground. What move you going to play human? The mother doesn’t look surprised but expectant and weary. She’s predicted that this was a long time coming. Hayden stays in the common silence children retreat to when adults argue. 

“Is that your problem?”
“I don’t have problems”
“Well. Is that why you’re upset? You don’t like others?”
“Others don’t like me”
“Okay”

Their voices slip out into the abandoned world only heard by a silent child then wrung out in the wind. The mother sits up then would smile meekly. “Okay. Its okay” she said to Luna. A voice firm, unbiased. She talks as if willing a deaf person to speak.  

“Has this happened to you before? You ever saw our kind?”
“No. You’re very alien”
“Why aren’t you scared of us? Or interested in us? You’ve never eaten or seen this food, it could’ve killed you. I could’ve killed you. We speak the same language and you’re not even concerned. You don’t even know what I’m holding in my hand”
“Does it matter. Should I say a stick? What should I say, what should I do?”
“It’s a weapon to kill others. It’s a shotgun”
“Well, then it’s a shotgun. What else needs to be said?”
“You’re hurt Luna. I can see it in how you talk and how you don’t want to talk. You’ve been hurt and you’re hurting now. Now you think you’re entitled to not care. I don’t want to weigh in and say things but that’s how it is.”

When Luna moves her head to observe far off things in her mind, the mother is fearful. God knows what those eyes have seen. Hayden spits out fruit seeds into the long grass plain they all lie on.

“We need to hope a little”
“Pardon?”
“Have a little faith that things will get better.”
“It probably won’t”
“But believe it will. This goes for you too Hayden. If you believe it sometimes you don’t need things to get better. Sometimes that’s all we can have. That isn’t a bad thing is it?”
“I don’t know. I know I can live without it.”

The mother takes her cue and stares at the sky. Already grey clouds scrawl themselves together. Hayden remains silent biting chunks out of the fruit. She wonders about Hayden and if he’ll either make the bad choices she or Luna has made. She wonders if he’ll ever understand that were the only choices to make. The frigid sharp smell of grass occupies the small silence they share.

“Thank you for making my son less scared. When you put your wing around him. Thank you”
Then the mother drinks the syrup from the tinned peaches. Luna does the same.

Rain clouds boil somewhere at the horizon, the tortured thud of thunder and the promise of a storm. “Too quick” she said, as the storm tore at the sky. Already the air seems damp or charged with something and the mother keeps staring at the storm willing it not to break over them. Urgent words are thrown from her mouth and it gives them the energy to fumble on what they carry.