//------------------------------//
// Chapter Three 
// Story: Children of the Night 
// by Dark0592 
//------------------------------//

Turns out there was a whole load of nothing, except for their cave, in the area they were in. They came to a unanimous decision to make their way to the pass about halfway through the day, after a few fly-overs they found that it wouldn’t take nearly as long as they had originally thought. So they fashioned a few rucksacks and canteens out of whatever they could find and filled them with water and their food, Gari’s ability to manipulate matter going further than just cookies and milk helping out a lot.

Even so, it was nearly midnight when they all met up there, the pegasi having flown to scout it out.

“Maggie, Fly, is there anything of note directly past it?” Gari asked.

“I couldn’t see anything in the dark, but Fly said he saw something.” Magpie said, turning to the colt.

“Well, it looked like a big beacon of light. I also saw some movement, but I couldn’t tell what it was. By how constant it was, though, I think it might be water.” Fly reported.

“Alright, let’s head towards the water then, do you remember the way?” Gari asked. He nodded and pointed in a direction. She nodded and started walking in that direction. The others followed closely, Fly quickly took the lead when they started weaving around obstacles. They walked for about an hour until they heard the sound of water.

“Finally, I’m exhausted!” Nightlight exclaimed, charging in the direction. Nightshade stopped her, though. “Hey!” She protested.

“It’s a water source and it’s very late, lots of forest predators are nocturnal.” He rationalized. The group was split between agreement and disagreement, but at that moment there was a distant howl, followed by one that was closer.

“You’re right, we should be careful and check it out before charging in.” Gari agreed. Everyone was spooked into compliance and they cautiously made their way to the sound of the water.

Lucky for them, there weren’t any animals there. What was there, though, was a massive waterfall.

“Alright, we should all drink our fill, fill our canteens and fan out to find some form of shelter.” Gari said. She was happy to find everyone agreeing, she was starting to get the hang of making good decisions. in groups of two or three, they all fanned out with torches. They all quickly made their way to where a second torch had been lit and both were waving, signalling that something was found.

They all arrived to where Nightshade and Magpie had found a wooden structure.

“What is it?” Nightlight asked.

“It looks like a tribal hut, and a big one at that... It doesn’t look like it’s been used in decades though.” Nightshade said, walking around the front of it.

“I’ll go in and knock on a few things to make sure it’s safe.” Gari said. Everyone gave her a surprised look.

“Wait, what? Don’t be stupid, you could get hurt!” Spirit exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, I’m an Alicorn remember? I can take a lot before I get really hurt.” Gari retorted. She was actually terrified, but she couldn’t bring herself to risk one of her siblings. She wasn’t the oldest, but she felt like their big sister now that she was an Alicorn. It didn’t seem like any of the others liked the idea, but they didn’t argue as she stepped into the large hut/shack/whatever it was.

As she said, she stepped heavily and constantly knocked on walls and poles. Luckily nothing broke, but it was close. Lots of creaking and cracking. It was pretty dusty too, and if she wasn’t an alicorn she’d probably get sick from all the mold and crap everywhere, but the more she looked the more she saw potential.

“Well, we can’t sleep here tonight, but we can clean it out and fix it up and live here for a while.” She told the others when she came out. Unintentionally adding to the effect, she shook herself and flapped her wings a bit, which created a cloud of dust around her. “Oh now that’s just gross!” She exclaimed, jumping into the stream. The others started laughing, and when she came up she started laughing too.

For that night they created a makeshift tent using branches from the trees around them. The nights were getting slightly warmer, or that might have been the fact that they were sleeping under the moon instead of in a cave.

---

As Gari and Spirit prepared breakfast the next morning, which consisted of mashed berry jam in bundles of sweet tasting leaves, something that had been nagging all of them finally came to light, sort of. The bundle Gari had in her magical grasp suddenly turned into a cookie, startling her and Spirit.

“Oh well it’s about time.” Nightshade mumbled to himself with a chuckle. Gari gave him an odd look.

“We’ve all been wondering how you’ve had such good control of your magic for like this entire time. You used to turn stuff into cookies or milk at least once a day.” Spirit said without looking up.

“Maybe it was because of her being an alicorn?” Moondancer suggested.

“Then she would still have control, her wings didn’t fall off. Perhaps it was because your magic was weak because of all the magic you used up bringing us here.” Nightshade suggested. They all thought about it and came to an agreement that it was the most plausible. Breakfast, and a snack, thus prepared they ate.

“Alright, first of all we need to clear the air in there. Wind Whisper, lead all of us with wings and we’ll blast the place with a rush of wind to stir up and blow away all of the stuff in the air, you’ve always had a knack for it.” Gari said when they finished.

“You should go in and open all the windows and stuff first, we can work on something to cover our faces for anything that’s left.” Spirit said. Gari nodded and quickly dashed around the inside, making sure every possible opening was open. Spirit had started having the others weave leaves into mouth covers as Wind led all of them, Fly-by-night only because the sun wasn’t quite up yet, into a high dive. They gained lots of speed before holding their wings out to bring them to a halting stop right before smashing into the building, then he beat his wings forward with a tremendous force. 

All of the wind power and force built up by all of them followed the force of his wingbeat right into the hut. It was as if somebody had just pushed onto a dusty old fire stoke, a cloud of dust and whatever else was in there poofing out of the other side.

“Wow, that actually worked.” Gari said, landing with the others.

“Wait, you didn’t think it’d work?” Tingle asked.

“Well, I dunno. I half expected the thing to just fall over.” Gari shrugged. Spirit rolled her eyes and passed her a mask.

“Well let’s get in there and see what we can do. Can’t be that bad if it’s still standing.” She sighed. They all put on the makeshift masks and entered the building.

“Well, it certainly looks livable. If we could set up some sort of hose we could clean it up even quicker, and if we found a way to cut wood we could fix it up easily.” Nightshade said, his voice slightly muffled by the leaf mask.

“With some magic we can make the hose work, not sure how to cut wood though.” Spirit said, kicking around a bit.

“We’ll figure it out. For now we should get all of the bad and broken stuff out of here. We can burn the wood and maybe there’s some things we can use.” Gari said. She then turned to her siblings and looked them over, they were all looking back as if expecting something.

“Um, once we get it cleared out a bit we can try to clean it up more...” She continued, not sure what more to say. They all kind of stood there for a little bit before Nightshade turned and started looking around. Magpie quickly followed and the rest behind her as they all got to work clearing and searching.

“I’m not cut out to lead us...” She groaned to herself.

“You’re doing well enough, as much as I hate saying it...” Spirit said, having heard her when she was searching a nearby cabinet.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gari asked. Spirit didn’t respond and moved on to another area, tossing some unidentifiable ceramic into a big pile they had started throwing junk into. 

After a few hours of it they were all getting hungry, so Gari and Spirit started on lunch.

“Hey, now that it’s bright out I’m gonna go up and see if there’s anything to see.” Gari said when she finished setting up a soup similar to the first one.

“Fine, I’ll watch this.” Spirit replied. Gari nodded and shakily, though much easier than last time, took to the skies. She was flabbergasted by what she saw. There was their waterfall and hut, but that was just the tiny little corner of the massive mountain range they were in. Their waterfall extended up into a series of falls, though theirs was cut off from the rest somehow and was probably the smallest.

To the north was a series of majestic spires and walls, it looked almost like an ancient city. To the east was a forest of massive trees, much bigger than the ones surrounding it. It gave her a strange feeling, neither good or bad. To the west was the source of the waterfalls, rather close, and she had a very good feeling about that place. They would have to go explore it first, should they explore it at all. They were to the south. Her reconnaissance finished she landed cautiously.

“Anything interesting?” Nightshade asked, him and Magpie having joined Spirit.

“A few things, though I’ll tell everyone at once. How’s the soup coming along?” Gari asked.

“Pretty good, I would love to have some of those rare spices we had back at the castle... But I’ve made do with what we have. I think it should be just fine.” Spirit explained with a smile. Gari nodded. She looked back at the house. It was kind of empty, though empty in a good way. There wasn’t debris and filth everywhere now.

“Candlelight, Tingle and the other unicorns have been brainstorming to figure out how to use magic to get water from the stream to the hut easily so we can clean it out.” Nightshade said, noticing where she was looking.

“Good, I can’t wait until we can actually live here. It won’t be the same, but it’ll still be nice. I’ve always wanted to live on my own with a family I can call mine.” Gari said happily, looking up at the sky.

“Ours.” Spirit interjected.

“You know what I meant, Spirit. I know it’s not my family.” Gari said with a laugh. Spirit stuck her tongue out and continued stirring the soup, which was very slowly starting to bubble. It would be done soon.