Chapter 2: Omens
Hawk Tail puffed and sputtered as he climbed up one hill and down the other side. His legs were beginning to ache, and a heavy sweat broke out across his brow. The air was humid, thick, sickly, and all-in-all a general pain to walk through. The flies had started to attack every hard to reach inch of his body, and he swatted at them angrily with his tail.
While the Glittering Run was his favorite spot to stop and relax, it was terribly out of the way and inconvenient to travel to on hoof. It was even more so with the mare that was draped across his back. She had been silent during the few miles he had covered so far with the exception of the occasional grunt or moan. Sometimes, she would snarl in her sleep. More often, she simply whimpered. Whatever she was dreaming about, it must have been terrifying.
After spending the better part of two hours hiking through the forest, Hawk Tail finally came by one of the pickets his family maintained on the extreme edge of their property. He recalled not too fondly the memories of putting them up in the sweltering heat nine years ago with his father Red Tail supervising him. Why his father always had to pick the hottest days of the year to do heavy labor Hawk Tail would never know, but the presence of those pickets was very welcoming. It meant his house was barely a mile away.
Just then, the mare on his back gasped and jolted, lifting her legs off of Hawk Tail and nearly tumbling off his side. The stallion quickly shifted his stance and managed to balance her with a wing, looking back with more than a bit of worry.
“Hold on, Miss, are you—?”
He stopped. Her eyes were wide open and pained. Shrunken pupils against a sea of ruby stared at him blindly, eyelids twitching over glass.
Hawk Tail spiraled around and gently laid the mare down onto the grass. She was hyperventilating, and her frenzied eyes darted across the sky, seeing nothing.
“Gone!” she was screeching at the top of her lungs. It was an odd voice, very high in pitch and awfully cracked. “Gone, gone, gone! Gone!”
“Gone?” Hawk Tail echoed, bending down over her. He tried to place his head in front of her face to catch her attention, but her pained eyes didn’t seem to notice. “What do you mean, ‘gone?’ What’s gone, who’s gone?”
The mare only writhed, tears streaming from her eyes. “They’re gooonnneeeee!!!” she wailed. “Gone, and it’s all my fault!!!”
“What’s gone?” Hawk Tail pleaded with her, lightly shaking her shoulders. “Please, I’m trying to help you!”
The mare’s breathing slowed down and her frenzy seemed to decline. Her eyes darted across the trees above, but much more slowly now. Still panting, she moved her head ever so slightly so she could see Hawk Tail’s face.
There was no doubt this time; she had seen his face. He felt her eyes study him for no more than three seconds, but they were the longest three seconds he had ever known. “Who… who am—?”
The words fell dead as her eyes rolled to the top her head. With a prolonged sigh, her neck slouched back and her body went limp. Beautiful blue wings gently thudded on the ground, scattering a few loose feathers in the mud.
Hawk Tail watched her a few moments longer, his wings still opened at his sides, alarmed. He kept his eyes fixated on the mare’s face, looking for anything else she had to say or do. He wasn’t sure if he should be disappointed or relieved that she remained unconscious, gently breathing.
He wouldn’t quite say that she looked peaceful in her rest; more like a heavy weight had been lifted from her mind. Bending down, he gently slid his wing underneath her and managed to hoist her onto his back again. With a few last touch ups he had her securely held, and he began to walk again.
She shivered the entire way back to his house, whimpering softly every once in a while.
After a few minutes of walking, the trees began to thin out, and Hawk Tail soon found himself on the edge of an open field. The forest ended at the bottom of a gently inclining hill, wide at its base with a broad, flat surface at its crest. On top of that hill was a house, although cottage would be a better word for it.
It wasn’t large at all, and certainly wasn’t new in any sense of the word. Bleached and faded wood paneling made up the exterior, and old shingles kept the rain out, but despite its appearance it was a very sturdy house. Other than a few repairs that had to be made now and again, Hawk Tail had never noticed a leak or felt a draft within.
Climbing up the hill, Hawk Tail looked around at the surrounding countryside. His family’s cottage stood alone, bordered by forest to the north and a small creek at the south end of the hill. Despite the abundance of land, there was only a small field on the flat plains to the east that had remained fallow for as long as he could remember. The last time it grew anything was immediately before Lanner was born. Hawk Tail could remember running through the stalks of wheat and corn, making them his own imaginary forest, since his parents wouldn’t let him play in the actual one. But those days were long gone now. Time and fate had stolen them from him.
Around the south side of the hill, just visible over the crest as Hawk Tail climbed it, was the town of River’s Reach itself. True to its name, it was built along a series of sharp horseshoe bends in the Glittering Run, just north of where the waters opened up into a series of rapids. The town was old, but in comparison to the Nymeran heartland, it was but a child. The oldest buildings that were still standing were three hundred years old, even if they were nothing but hollow reminders of the early days. Progress had overtaken them, and stylized houses nestled in the bends of the river, interspersed with stores and shops along cobblestone roads, were the new norm. River’s Reach had about one thousand ponies, but that only built a stronger sense of community among them.
Outside of the center of town that occupied the largest horseshoe of the river were many cottages built upon large plots of land, not unlike Hawk Tail’s residence. Most were solitary, with only a barn or stable as a companion, but there were a few that shared hilltops or were placed in between. Hawk Tail could name each and every one of his distant neighbors; those living on the edge of town frequently joined together to help with fieldwork, to raise a barn, or simply celebrate whatever the occasion may be. They looked after one another like family, and they were always welcome to strangers.
It was because of that hospitality and upbringing that Hawk Tail had brought the mysterious mare to his house. He would see to it that she was comfortable and well looked after before he went to see a doctor, not the other way around. She seemed to be a resilient mare, and other than a few scrapes and bruises the only damage her fall had done to her was her wing. Thankfully, Lanner was good at taking care of broken wings. Just like all things avian, she had a natural intuition that left her remarkably skilled in these situations. That was why Hawk Tail and his father usually left the care of fledglings and injured hawks to her, even if she was barely sixteen.
With a gentle nudge from his nose, Hawk Tail pushed open the gate to the low picket fence around his house. Before him was a large porch that wrapped around the north and east facing sides of the house, decorated with four rocking chairs and a series of perches for the falcons to rest. Not surprisingly, the perches were placed directly next to Lanner’s rocker.
A thin screen door covered in a mesh that had enough holes in it to defeat the entire purpose of it being there separated the deck from the interior of the house. Grabbing the handle with his mouth, Hawk Tail pulled open the flimsy door and carefully supported it with a wing as he walked inside. He immediately found himself in a large living room—or, at the very least, a room comparatively large to the other rooms in the house.
It was large enough to hold about a dozen ponies, but only half would have a place to sit in such an instance. There was a couch that could sit three placed against the center of the outside wall, with windows looking out onto the porch right above the headrests. To the left of it was a smaller single pony chair, its back against a hoof-carved wooden wall that separated the small mudroom leading to the deck from a hall that went further into the house. To the right of the couch was an impressive reclining sofa that was Red Tail’s favorite chair. When he wasn’t doing work around the house, he could usually be found sitting there, reading a book or the newspaper or simply anything. But he wasn’t there now.
Instead, Hawk Tail’s father stood with his back to the door, looking over several old portraits that hung from the wall. That worried the young stallion; his father only stood there when he had something important to discuss with one of his children and wanted to catch them as soon as they came home. He turned around as he heard the door clatter shut behind his son.
“Hawk,” Red Tail called as his eyes found the pony in question. There was no emotion in his voice, no derision or praise or anything, and it was the one thing about his father that drove Hawk Tail mad. Well, there were several things, but his father made himself damned sure that nopony could interpret his words in any other way than he himself intended.
Hawk Tail nodded at his father’s greetings and stepped into the center of the living room. “Did Lanner get a bed ready for her?”
“Yes, she did.” Red Tail moved closer towards the mare and studied her closely. Red Tail was a tall pegasus with a gray coat and a maroon mane and tail, well-muscled and awfully powerful. Years of hard work had left their marks on him with pale spots where scars had healed up with time. His right wing rested at an unnatural angle, a reminder of his earlier days with Nymera’s Royal Army. In those days he had served as captain of River’s Reach’s police force, but the same fight that saw him take down the leader of a group of bandit outlaws also earned him a shattered wing and nearly cost him his right eye. His eye had healed fine, apart from a mortifying scar that left its ugly mark in his brow and muzzle, but his wing was too broken to be set properly. The bone had healed enough for the wing to function, but Red Tail’s flight was anything but graceful.
Red Tail must have thought about this as he saw the mare’s injured wing. He tested it with a hoof, feeling for cracked or splintered bones. “Lanner said you found her near the lake?”
Hawk Tail nodded. “We were chasing down Ricky after Lanner accidentally let him loose. He led us on a wild ride to the east, and I happened to look down as we crossed the lakes.” He looked at the mare’s colorful mane and tail and chuckled lightly. “If she hadn’t been so colorful I probably would have missed her entirely.”
His father did not chuckle at that, nor did his demeanor change in any perceptible way. He simply returned her wing gently to Hawk Tail’s back and began to listen to her breathing. “She has a fracture along her wing-arm, between the crest and the shoulder,” Red Tail stated. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the joints in the crest are sprained as well. Lanner will need to take a look at them; I’m no doctor.”
He began to walk down the hall that branched off from the living room, but rather than turn right at the end of it and proceed towards the stairs, he pushed open the door and nodded inside towards the large bed in the center of the room.
Hawk Tail furrowed his brow. “Your bed, dad? Why not the guest bedroom upstairs?”
The older stallion shrugged. “Judging by how she’s made herself comfortable on your back, the guest bed is probably too small for her, and much harder. She looks like she needs this one more than I do, at the least. Besides,” he said, pausing for a sad sigh, “this bed’s been too large for me for sixteen years.”
Hawk Tail briefly touched his father’s wing with his own before slowly walking over to the bed. The room was nice, and he had always envied it as a colt. Positioned beautifully in the house, it was in the corner that the porch wrapped around, and windows both opposite the headrest and to the right of the bed looked over the wooden frame of the porch and into the scenery beyond. The only decorations inside the room were a few pictures of family and friends, a dresser full of clothes that Red Tail rarely used, and a weapon rack holding a few swords and Red Tail’s prized possession: an old black powder rifle he used in the army.
Grunting, Hawk Tail platformed his wings towards the bed and gently rolled the colorful mare off of his back. With her weight taken off of his shoulders, Hawk Tail sighed in relief and rolled the knots out of them. He then looked back at the unconscious mare sprawled across the bed covers and helped fold her limbs back by her sides.
“Has she been like this since you found her?” Red Tail asked.
“For the most part,” Hawk answered. Then he bit his lip and gave her another worried glance. “Except for one point on the walk home.”
Red Tail raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Hawk Tail said, almost to himself, “I had just gotten to the pickets at the edge of the property and she suddenly… woke up.”
“Did she say anything?”
Hawk Tail shrugged his shoulders. “Gibberish. She was wailing that somepony was gone and that it was her fault, but I couldn’t get a straight answer out of her. She looked terribly confused when she saw me, and then she fainted again.”
“Hmm. Didn’t know you had that effect on mares.”
“Dad!” Hawk grumbled.
Red Tail smiled lightly and touched his son’s shoulder. “Go get something to eat and drink, and then relax. It’s already noon, and I feel confident that you’ve done enough work for today.”
Hawk Tail nodded. “Where is Lanner, by the way?”
“She’s out,” Red Tail told him. “I told her to get some food from the market. We have another mouth to feed now, and who knows how long she’ll be with us.”
“That’ll be good. I’ll give her as much time as she needs,” Hawk said, before quickly adding on, “for her sake, that is. Her wing took a beating coming down, and I’ve no idea where she’s from.”
“Perhaps she’s from one of the neighboring villages. Daybreak or the Golden Glade? Either of those are close enough to River’s Reach.”
Hawk Tail shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re the northernmost village; I don’t know what she would be doing in this area if she’s not from here. I think she’s from beyond the mountains.”
His father’s eyes narrowed. “There are bad things beyond those mountains, Hawk. I hope for her sake she isn’t from there.”
Without further explanation, Red Tail gestured with a wing for Hawk Tail to leave. “I’ll watch her while you eat. Don’t worry about it. I can see the way you shift from hoof to hoof while you’re standing there. Calm down; she’s not going anywhere, and even if she is, I’m fairly confident you can find her again.”
“Right,” Hawk Tail replied, shaking his head as he left the room. He gave one last glance over his shoulder to see his father drawing the sheets across the sleeping mare before dragging over a stool to sit by the window and wait. The colorful visitor sighed as she felt the covers around her before passing into an even deeper realm of sleep.
Hawk Tail hoped she was comfortable. It was the least they could do for her.
The kitchen was on the opposite side of the living room, where only a couch placed perpendicular from the wall separated the dining table and china cabinet on the opposite side from the rest of the house. There was a wood oven centrally located in the kitchen, with a stove on top and many cabinets and drawers placed around it. The wood detailing of the cabinets was old, worn, and unpainted, only covered in a light layer of varnish. A window along the right side of the room led out to a spacious patio that ended in a railing thirty feet away from the wall, and was equally as wide. The door to this patio was placed between the kitchen and the dining table.
As Hawk Tail began to nose around the pantry, the door opened and was immediately followed by the thwumps of multiple baskets being dropped on the floor and counter. He turned around to hear Lanner squeak as she tried to balance a basket full of eggs on one of her hind legs.
Smiling, Hawk Tail fluttered over and liberated her of the impending mess. Gently setting them aside, he began to pick up the groceries that his sister had thoughtfully deposited on the floor. “I see you decided to handle this all yourself?” he teased her.
“Shwmuthpng khurts err fuhthawek!” Lanner proclaimed.
Hawk Tail grabbed the sack of potatoes she had clutched between her teeth and set it aside.
“Shopping carts are for the weak!” Lanner shouted with her mouth cleared.
“It’d be a real shame to be the first pegasus to die because she was taken down by a sack of potatoes,” Hawk Tail joked.
“Shut up!” she squawked, glaring at her brother. Setting aside the groceries she kept balanced on her wings, she turned again to Hawk Tail. “How is she, anyhow?”
“Doing better, by the looks of it,” said Hawk Tail. “Dad’s letting her use his room for the time being.”
“Did she wake up?” Lanner asked, her eyes brimming with excitement.
Hawk Tail sadly shook his head. “She woke up and said a few things briefly on the way back, but—”
“Oooh! Whatdidshesaywhatdidshesay!?!”
“But,” Hawk Tail emphasized, making sure Lanner knew she was interrupting him, “she didn’t say much. Gibberish mostly. I still don’t know who she is or where she came from. Then she fainted again.”
Lanner’s enthusiasm deflated. “Aww… well, we just gotta wait until she wakes up, right? How long could that possibly take?”
“Don’t tempt the gods!” Hawk Tail said with a little more force than he intended. “I have no idea when she’s going to wake up again. I don’t even know if she’s going to wake up again.”
“Well that would suck,” Lanner bluntly stated. “But we just gotta give her time then. I’m sure she’ll wake up soon enough!”
“We can only hope. Now,” Hawk Tail said as he began to organize the groceries, “go and tell Dad that you’re home, and then bring the milk, eggs, and butter to the larder out back.”
“Righto!” Lanner chirped. Flaring her wings (and inadvertently smacking Hawk Tail on the back of the head), she bounded over the mess of groceries and disappeared around the corner. Hawk Tail could hear her exchange a few muffled words with their father before she came back, gathered up the perishable goods, and went outside to the larder.
Hawk Tail watched her fly out of the corner of his eye as he dug through the cabinets for a clean plate to make his lunch on. He found one nestled in the back, and with the fresh groceries he sorted out the materials to make a filling cucumber sandwich. Layering everything together, he couldn’t resist taking a bite before he sat down at the table.
Through the windows on both sides of the corner the kitchen and dining room filled, Hawk Tail could see the faintest shimmer of a rainbow on the southern horizon. The previous day’s storm was finally receding from River’s Reach, taking all its troubles with it and leaving a beautiful parting gift.
He wasn’t a superstitious pony, but it felt like a good omen to him.