//------------------------------//
// The Runaway 
// Story: Mum's Diner 
// by Golden Tassel 
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The boy who had found his way to Mum's Diner, unable to speak but encouraged to tell his story, scribbled across the tabletop with chalk. He drew a small house, filled and surrounded by several stick figure ponies, and a large house with only a couple stick figures in it. Unfortunately, who any of them were, where this was, or what any of it meant was lost on the ponies who had taken him in. They asked questions and made guesses, but the longer it went on, the more chaotic and incomprehensible the chalk lines became as he tried to answer.

To Chrysanthemum's changeling senses, the boy's frustration had the flavor of raw pepper seeds growing hotter by the second. She reached out a hoof an gently pat the boy on his shoulder to interrupt him, and he looked up at her, his eyes already welling with tears. "It's okay," she said as she pushed a plate of cornmeal biscuits toward the boy. "We'll figure something out."

The boy took a few deep breaths then started to eat. He took curious nibbles at first; the biscuits were dry and bland, but he was starving and quickly set to devouring them.

Chrys let out a small sigh in relief as her senses cleared. She glanced over at Day. His head was tilted and his eyes darted around the table; he was still trying to piece together the boy's story. Everything was a puzzle to him, but this one was difficult to even begin without something to anchor it—a "corner piece" as he would describe it to her.

"What if we start with something simple?" Chrys proposed. Day and the boy looked up at her while her horn lit up and she grasped hold of the chalk in her chartreuse aura. She cleared a small area on the table and drew a circle with a few lines radiating out from it.

The boy looked at the drawing and after a moment held up his hoof.

Chrys mirrored the boy's gesture. "The sun?" she asked. After he nodded she drew a crescent shape, and he turned his hoof to the side. Day followed along and asked, "The moon?" Again the boy nodded. He was smiling, and for the first time in a while, Chrys sensed the sweet flavor of joy. She passed the chalk back to the boy. He thought quietly for a moment, then drew a small stick figure and tapped his hoof to his chest. This is me, he told them. He drew a larger stick figure next to himself and brought his hoof under his chin with a small looping motion. Chrys and Day repeated the sign, and after a pause Day guessed, "Is that your mother?" Again the boy nodded. This is my mother.

They continued this way, slowly building a vocabulary of hoof signs. Chrys was able to keep up with the simple words and some short phrases, but Day quickly outpaced her as he and the boy started building sentences and moving too fast for her to catch the individual signs. All the same, she was happy to see the two of them communicating and even more so that her empathic senses, for the first time in a long while, tasted only calm coming from Day.

Eventually, Chrysanthemum excused herself. Tired, she signed. "I need to go back to bed." She paused as she got up from the table, though. "What about your name?" she asked.

The boy blinked and chewed his lip, seemingly unsure how to answer.

Lucky Day tapped his hoof to his chest. "I'm Day."

The boy made the sign for "sun" and moved it in an arc. Day.

"And I'm Chrysanthemum, or just Chrys for short." She could tell from the boy's bewildered expression that he had no sign for that. She chuckled. "It's a type of flower."

His eyes lit up and held up one foreleg straight with his other hoof on top of it. Flower.

"And how about you?"

He chewed his lip again, then looked to Day and made a series of gestures: looped under his chin, drew his hoof out in a line from his lips, tapped his chest, and raised his hoof straight up.

"He says his mother calls him . . . Sunrise?" Day said, making a guess at the last sign. The boy nodded enthusiastically.

Chrys smiled and gave him a gentle pat on his shoulder. "Welcome to Mum's Diner, Sunrise. When you get tired, Day can set you up with a place to sleep, and I'll help you get settled in the morning. Okay?"

Good night. Thank you, Sunrise signed.