//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: A New Life // Story: Eternals // by Shaslan //------------------------------// The day was a quiet one. The air was heavy and the shadows stretched long and purple over the grass between the trees. Leaves rustled in the breeze, a thick, papery sound, and every now and again a bird would let out a single muted chirrup and then fall abruptly silent once more. Deer flitted here and there between the trees in the hazy twilight, a small herd coming closer together again as they approached a clearing. The lead doe stepped carefully into the murky evening light. There she paused, her ears swivelling independently of one another as she listened for danger. Evidently there was none to be found, as she stepped forward with a slow, graceful gait and moved into the dell. Her herd followed close behind; several daughters and grandchildren, an aged stag and a young suitor who hoped to oust him. As the does lowered their heads to graze, the matriarch and her mate kept careful watch. The fawns frisked together through the long grass, the crashing of their passage the only sound audible in the silent forest. The feeding was unusually good in this glade; long sweet grass and delicious white flowers that the matriarch had not seen before. The herd lingered, savouring the meal. The fawns eventually tired and lay down together to sleep. The adults dozed fitfully, one of them always wakeful and watching for danger. The matriarch slept least of all. The light did not change as they rested. Everything stayed as it had been when they arrived in the clearing — the sky a dull, heady pink, the shadows long and black, and the air thick and stifling. After an amount of time passed the matriarch roused her herd. She was ever mindful of the predators that dogged her family’s trail, and it was time to move on. The fawns bounced to their feet and chased each other once again. The fastest of them broke out ahead of the others and darted across the centre of the glade, his speed a silent challenge to his cousins. The matriarch watched his passage, a faint sense of pride in her old eyes, and saw him suddenly collide with an unseen object in the grass. The fawn crumpled and went down, and his grandmother gave a short sharp bark. The sound was a quiet one, only audible to those in her immediate vicinity, but the reaction it produced in the herd was immediate. Fawns fled to their mothers, the stags lowered their antlers, ready to defend, and all waited tensely for their cue from the matriarch. She hurried to the fawn’s side, his mother close behind her. They helped the shaken little buck to his hooves, and the matriarch pawed briefly at the hidden lump in the grass that had felled him. The grass was twined tight over the shape, clearly having grown over it, but the small dark shape that lay crumpled within had a smell to it that the doe knew meant danger. She lingered no longer and the herd melted into the shadowy forest as silently as they had come. The endless twilight stretched on. The grass in the clearing grew taller, nourished into a strange elongated shape by the constant weak light. Animals came and went from the glade between the trees. The trees shed their leaves randomly, each at a separate time from the rest. Occasionally something would brush against the dark bundle. A goat once dealt it a hefty kick as it hopped over, and for a few hours some fox cubs squabbled for predominance on the tiny hillock in the grass. More of the strange white flowers bloomed and turned their milky faces skywards. But the catalyst for change did not come until the wolves did. The pack was a small one, just a father and his two cubs, all the same shade of steely grey. They had been travelling for several days, having traversed the length of their territory in search of food, but prey was scarce. The father suspected the cause was the new predators from the east, great beasts made of tortured wood that howled and killed with an unnatural fury. But he led his children west, hoping that they would find sustenance soon. The glade was strangely peaceful, its heavy purple light seemingly a little more restful than the uneasy forest surrounding it. The cubs were tired and readily flopped into the long grass to sleep. The unusually pure colour of the white flowers stood out to their father, retaining their own colour in a world tinged an unnatural pink. They were somehow reminiscent of the white orb his own ancestors had once sung to. Moved by a strange instinct, he tipped his head back and let a few lilting howls float upwards. He was answered only by silence; there were no other wolves nearby. He lay down and rested his head on his paws, feeling his eyes growing heavy. The small sound of grass stems snapping jerked him back to wakefulness. He lifted his snout and sniffed suspiciously. Nothing. But the sound came again, and he whipped his head round to look at the centre of the clearing. He thought everything looked normal at first, but then he saw the ground twitching, the long stalks of grass trembling, and with a yip and a light nip on their hindquarters, he had his cubs up and running. It was not worth taking chances in these strange times. The grass rustled again, and then with a small grunt, a head was raised. The filly was very young, little more than a baby, her blue eyes wide and wondering as she stared around her. Her fur was a rich purple-blue, and her pale blue mane hung heavy across one side of her muzzle. She sat very still and stared around herself for a long time. Perhaps several hours. She looked closely at the trees and their long dark leaves, at the heavy shadows stretching unchanging across the ground. She stared up at the sky and the lilac clouds scudding uncertainly across it. A bird crossed the clearing and her head whipped around to follow it. Finally, she returned her attention to her own predicament. She regarded her body, entangled in grass. She moved a hoof, and blinked in surprise when it twitched. She repeated the motion several more times, and then set down in earnest to try and wrench it free from the grass. When at last it was clear, she spent another hour or so calmly regarding it, and then began the process anew with her second forehoof. After that, it was her wings. She spent another long period stretching the stubby digits this way and that, as though trying to grasp what they were, and then finally she came to her hind legs. Even when all her limbs were freed, she did not move out of the position she had been in. It was as though she did not quite grasp that she could move. It took another bird flying over to finally spur her to action. When it flitted by, she surged to her hooves in one fluid motion, then froze and looked down at herself in complete confusion. She took stock, and then began to gradually attempt movement. One hoof at a time, she moved cautiously away from the grassy cavern where she had slept, and picked her way over to the closest white flower. She stumbled many times and fell more than once, but each time she picked herself up and pressed on. Once there, she pressed her face into the flower and examined it from every angle. Then, compelled by some strange force she did not understand, she stuck out a small pink tongue and licked it. Her eyes went wide again, and once more she stood very still, trying to process this new sense. Taste. She hesitantly opened her mouth and then inhaled the flower in one gulp. She swallowed automatically and blinked again. Then her stomach rumbled, and her eyes went to the next flower. A few hours later, the empty stalks of the flowers nodded in the small breeze, and the blue foal lay on her back, wings extended, her belly round and full. She nodded drowsily, and slept. She was woken by a low huffing noise. Then came a wet nose pushed forcefully into her ear. She jerked awake and looked around wildly, unsure what this new thing could be. Two small grey creatures stood looking down at her, legs as stumpy as her own, their eyes as big and wondering as hers were. Their tails wagged. Her own twitched involuntarily in response and she turned in amazement to look at it. She looked back at the wolf cubs, and one dropped into a play bow. He bounced forward and stopped just before he touched her, and then jumped away, his tail high in the air and his sister in hot pursuit. The blue foal watched them go, her head tilting as she watched them tear around the clearing. They bounded back for her and paused again, inviting her to give chase. Hesitantly, she trotted forward, and, unsteady as a newborn fawn, fell flat on her snub nose. The cubs yipped encouragingly and the foal scrambled back her to feet. Undaunted, she pursued them again, breaking now and then into a faltering gallop. She carried her wings rigidly spread to either side of her, but they did little to help her balance. Little yaps and high-pitched whinnies mixed together in that strange pink twilight, and the three children played until they were exhausted. The little filly began to stumble, her eyes growing heavy, and the male wolf cub yawned. His sister turned tail and led the way into the trees, and he padded after her. The foal watched her new playmates leaving with a concerned expression on her face and whickered her confusion. The wolf cubs looked back at her and wagged their tails, and reassured, she followed, not pausing to glance back at the grassy nest she had emerged from. The wolves were fast, and unthinkingly she hastened into the trees after her new friends. They slipped away into the shadows, and she hurried in pursuit, only to be brought up short by the sight of a glowing pair of eyes. She swallowed nervously as the adult wolf stepped into what little of the dull light could filter down through the thick canopy. He was enormous, easily four times her size, and heavily scarred around the face and neck. His ears were little more than rags. She imagined for a moment the play-fighting of the cubs turned real, and swallowed again. The wolf pressed closer, sniffed her thoroughly, and then his mouth lolled open and a long pink tongue fell out. The foal flinched instinctively at the sight of those long white fangs, but then relaxed as her allies the cubs reappeared, gambolling around their father’s legs. The wolf blinked once at the filly, then turned his face away, evidently deciding she was not a threat. He padded away into the dark undergrowth. The cubs followed, and the foal once more followed them. They walked until she was exhausted, and raising each hoof seemed to take a herculean effort. The cubs were similarly lagging, and the three of them stumbled on in the wake of the father wolf, any divisions or differences forgotten in the commonality of their sheer tiredness. Finally, the father called a halt. He led them into a thorn bush that grew so low to the ground that only the infants could get through unscathed. The cubs at once collapsed into a snoring heap, and after examining them, the foal copied them. The wolf sniffed the pile of sleeping bodies once or twice, as though accustoming himself to this new addition, and then lay down beside them and busied himself pulling the thorns out of his own fur. Life with the wolves was very simple. There was no day and night — not that any of them really missed their absence, having never known either — so life was divided by periods of sleep. After their long sleep, the two cubs and the foal would wake to the sound of retching, as the father vomited up his catch in a disgusting red paste in front of where they had rested. The wolf cubs would salivate with delight and fall over themselves to get to it first, but the foal, after sniffing it the first morning, wrinkled her nose in distaste and retreated to eat the sweet pale-green grass. She learned quickly that the tallest and most moist stalks grew best in the gaps between trees, where the pale purple light from above the canopy filtered through most strongly. After they had all eaten until they could eat no more, they would lie still for an hour or two, digesting. When their bellies felt a little less heavy, the father wolf would nose them all into action, and pad slowly off. Then they would walk, and walk, and walk, placing one hoof after the other. Sometimes they would pause to nap or play in between, but mostly they would walk, until the father wolf called another halt for them to have their long sleep. Always they travelled in the same direction. West. The foal got the sense, from the father wolf’s urgency and the way he would occasionally look anxiously eastward, that they were heading away from something, rather than to anywhere in particular. The foal was content with her newfound foster family. Her wolf cub friends were exuberant and affectionate, and the heat of their bodies made sleeping a lot less lonely. It felt better and more familiar to be with others. She did not fully understand why they were travelling, but she was content to accept it as the way things were. She was just glad to be with someone. The cubs and the foal were sleeping in their usual tangled pile when a low, urgent woof from the father roused them. They blinked sleepily but obediently got to their feet. The father wolf huffed again, and nosed at the blue filly. She moved forward as he asked, unsure what he wanted. He pushed her slightly away from the wolf cubs, and then nudged them back into the shelter of the raised tree root they had all been sleeping beneath. Confused, the foal moved to follow them, but he blocked her. She blinked and tried again, and once more he blocked her, whining in apology. The wolf cubs whimpered their uncertainty to her and she whimpered a little herself. What was happening? The father growled urgently to his children, impressing upon them the need to stay here and stay hidden, and then he returned his attention to the foal. He nudged at her wings until she understood and folded them in. Then he scooped her up in his jaws the way she had seen him do with the cubs so many times. She voiced her discomfort at being separated from the others, but the father wolf was implacable. He ignored her mewling and trotted away at a brisk pace, much faster than the foal or the cubs could go on foot. The foal could only watch as the gleaming eyes of her two friends faded into the dark. She stretched out a sorrowful hoof as they vanished. The wolf moved quickly beneath the trees, in a more urgent frame of mind than the foal had yet seen him. He slipped into a long-paced lope, that tireless gait that wolves the world over can maintain for hours and hours at a time. She bounced in his mouth as he hurdled a large root, and winced at the tight feeling of his teeth pinning her wings to her sides. As he loped on, she felt her eyelids grow heavy despite her confusion. She had been in the middle of her long sleep, and she was still very tired. She let her eyes slip shut and the smooth rocking of the wolf’s motion soothed her troubled soul. When she awoke she was falling and the forest floor was quickly rising to meet her. She squeaked in distress and instinctively flapped her stubby wings, which unfortunately did nothing to slow her fall. She hit the damp leaves with a gasp and looked up at the father wolf, who was yawning, trying to stretch out his jaw muscles after so long carrying her. When he saw her looking, he stopped and rumbled a low, reassuring growl and licked her muzzle once or twice. She had seen him comfort his own cubs in the same way dozens of times. She neighed again, trying to ask what they were doing here. She wanted to go back to the wolf cubs. The father wolf sighed and looked down at her, and then pressed his cold wet nose to her fur once. Then he turned tail and bolted. The foal’s eyes widened in disbelief as she watched him go. She shrilled out one long note, the betrayal in her voice clear. Had he brought her all this way just to leave her? But why? She had thought the family had accepted her! She had thought she was one of them! But he did not slow his pace or look back, and then he was lost among the shadows from the trees. The foal stared in the direction he had gone, her eyes huge and luminous. She sat very still and huddled her wings up around her shoulders. She hoped he would come back soon. She hoped the wolf cubs would come gambolling out from some thicket where they had hidden and do that funny open-mouthed tongue-lolling expression to show that it had all been a joke. She waited, patient and hopeful, rubbing one hoof uncertainly against the other. She waited, but no one came back for her. She was right back where she had started. Sitting in the pale grass under the gloomy purple-pink sky with the trees stretching out their leafy fingers above her head. All alone. Her head drooped until her horn almost touched the grass. Her mane hung low over her face and almost hid the tears that were crowding in her eyes. She raised a hesitant hoof to touch one and then looked at it for a moment or two. Then — her ears pricked. A sound! A branch cracking under the foot of some animal. She turned, hastily blinking away the water in her eyes. Any second now, the wolf cubs would come bursting out of the undergrowth. Then everything would go back to normal. Another crackle from the twigs this creature was crushing, and the filly’s ears went back against her head again. The wolves, cub or adult, would never walk so heavily. This was something else. She stood up and got ready to run. But she lingered for just a moment more. She was reluctant to leave the spot where the wolf had last left her, just in case he came back. The creature pushed through the bracken and came into a pool of pale pink light. The foal stared, amazed. She was young and still confused by this strange new world, but she knew enough to recognise that this creature looked just like she did. She trotted eagerly towards the pony and let out a small neigh of welcome. To her shock, the pony flinched at the sound, looked around wildly, and then shrieked at the sight of the foal. The foal winced and lowered her head again, looking up from under her heavy forelock. The pony seemed to collect herself, but still stared in seeming horror at the filly. She made a few unintelligible noises and her horn flared into light. The foal had never in her short life seen light like this. All she had known so far was the dark and velvety comfort of the woods, and she shut her eyes against the glare. The pony made more noises, and cautiously touched the foal’s head with a hoof. The foal opened her eyes again and smiled shyly up at the larger pony, and dared to lean a little into the caress. The pony withdrew her hoof like it had been burned, but then hesitantly returned the smile. The stranger’s coat was a rich, dark-velvet pink, a lot like the colour the heavy twilight turned the dark leaves. Her mane was a paler colour, lying long and plush against her neck. She had a horn, still lit with a nimbus of light, but more pleasantly dimmed now. The foal peered curiously to see the mare’s sides, but strangely enough she had no wings. It seemed the similarities were not entire, then. The mare made more of her strange noises, her mouth opening and shutting, and the foal watched the motion, mesmerised. The pony stopped, and seemed to be waiting for a response. Not wanting to disappoint her, the foal obligingly flared her stubby wings and whickered. The pony smiled down at her, her confusion becoming something more akin to kindness, and she patted the foal’s head again, less cautiously this time. Then she turned her attention to the clearing around the foal. She walked slowly past the filly, looking this way and that into the shadows, calling out quite loudly. The filly trotted after her, looking with interest at the pink flower that seemed to be part of the pony’s flank. She tried to reach up to touch it, but she was a little too short. The attempt did regain the pony’s attention, though, and she smiled down at the foal again. The foal beamed back. She liked making this stranger smile. The wolves had never smiled, and the interaction with this pony somehow felt much more nuanced already. The pony looked around them once more, sighed, and folded her legs beneath her. She gestured to the grass beside her with her horn and the filly smiled even wider and hastened to take her place. Before she lay down, she paused to carefully look at how the stranger had arranged her legs, and then did her best to copy. The result wasn’t quite right, but it made the mare laugh, a sound that so delighted the foal that she laughed too. The mare made her horn and her saddlebags glow, and produced a blanket. The foal watched in amazement as this strange new thing was carefully tucked around them both. She sighed in contentment when it was done. She had never felt so warm and safe. She leaned into the dark pink fur of the mare, and gave another small sigh. She thought she understood now why the father wolf had run so fast and so far to bring her here. She ought to be with this pony, who was so warm and so kind, and so much like her. She cast one last shy glance up at the pony, who was scanning the dark trees around them with a suspicious gaze. The foal was delighted when the mare did not vomit up the foul red paste, but instead produced dried hay and flowers from her saddlebags. They tasted delicious — ten times better than even the sweetest of the long pale grasses. She had expected to eat in her usual manner, until she could eat no more, and was rather put out when the mare floated the remaining food away from her and back into their wrappings. She pouted, but followed readily enough when the mare stood. Much as she had the previous night, the mare paced around the clearing, looking behind trees and at the grass as though she expected to find someone there. The foal watched a little impatiently. Her mind was still on those tasty little pink daisies in the saddlebags. They waited there for several hours. The mare made more noises, and looked anxiously around, and when the foal looked up at her uncomprehendingly, she sighed in frustration. The foal felt anxious too by the end of it. She wanted to please her new companion, but she couldn’t quite grasp what was required of her. She almost missed the simple companionship of the wolves. There was something else troubling her, too. The presence of the pony who looked so much more like she did than the wolves had made her conscious of…an earlier companionship, one very different to anything she had experienced here in this new place, and although her new mind could not quite formulate the words yet, the absence of this other companion buzzed dimly in the back of her mind. Quiet where it should not quite be quiet. Now that the constant presence of the wolf cubs was gone, she heard it buzz a little louder, and she hurried to where the pink mare was nosing around in some bushes, to press against her legs and try to banish the sudden feeling of loneliness. The mare appeared startled by the gesture, looked down at the foal, and her expression of surprise melted into another warm smile. It seemed that the mare eventually tired of looking around the tree trunks, and with a final sigh and a resigned smile at the foal, she led the way into the trees once more. The hazy twilight was the same as always as they plodded on through the forest. The mare’s pace was slower than that of the wolves, and the foal found she had a little extra energy to explore now that the pace was not so punishing. She stuck her muzzle into crevices, under leaves, in between branches. She found a great many insects and one startled frog, which charmed her so much she spent a full ten minutes trying to copy its hop, before the mare firmly called her onwards. When she grew too tired to keep going, instead of pushing her on like the father wolf would have done, the mare calmly enveloped the filly in the glow from her horn and floated her up onto her back. The foal rode there in splendour for the next two hours, comfortably cushioned on a wide platform made of the mare’s back and saddlebags. It was lovely not having to keep forcing herself on, hoof after hoof, and she watched the trees pass them by one at a time. She rolled over onto her back to watch the trees upside down, and giggled to herself at the memory of the frog. Then she looked up beyond the trees, at the pinkish-purple sky that appeared and disappeared between branches as they passed overhead. And there to her shock, she saw a light. At once she sat bolt upright. She squinted further into the sky, and picked out another, and another. They were only dimly visible, but there they were. Stars. Her stars. Her own stars. She let out a deep breath she hadn’t realised she had been holding. This more than anything yet had pulled her out of the daze of sensory input she had been in and impressed upon her the reality of what had happened to her. She began to recall who she had been, once. A slow, peaceful smile spread across her face as she watched the barely-visible lights flicker between the leaves. They were just as beautiful from down here as they had been before. But so different! Where she had perceived their raw energy and magic was now only visual input. They were quieter this way, but still lovely. A new thought occurred to her, one that nearly made her fall off her newfound friend. Where was her moon? She scanned the sky frantically, but saw only the same endless pink. Where was the sun? Where was the other one, her other self? She felt the panic constraining her lungs, and suddenly, in a reaction completely beyond her control, she sniffed, hiccuped, and then burst violently into tears. The mare stopped at once and pulled the sobbing filly into her forelegs. The blue foal felt the warm embrace and let out a thin, reedy wail. What had happened to her? Why had they decided to do this? The crushing reality of her situation was pressing in on her all at once, and she had no idea how to deal with it all in her newly limited mind. She was all but blind! She could feel nothing, taste nothing. She had no access to any of her power. She could only see the tiny bit of the world that she was in. She was constrained by the new walls of her body. What could she do? She was utterly powerless like this. But the mare was stroking her mane tenderly, and despite herself, the foal was comforted. She knew rationally that she was terrified, but all her physical senses were telling her that she was warm and safe. She burrowed her nose into the crook of the mares foreleg. The sobs turned into sniffles, and finally subsided.