Chapter 7
Her efforts had not been for naught. Though she tumbled over a great expanse of sharp, abrasive talus, Scootaloo did not black out. Every muscle in her body was tense, and she was tucked so small that she felt like she could tear her own head off.
A sharp protrusion struck the base of her neck, skinning the right half of her face and forcing her out of crash position. With her eyes still squeezed shut, Scootaloo frantically searched the flat surface for something to grab. The boulder was still sliding at a good pace, and if she were to fall off the leading edge…
It tipped to the right, throwing her roughly to the ground. Scootaloo tried to scream, but only managed a soft whimper with what little air that was left in her lungs.
After a moment, Scootaloo realized that she wasn’t moving anymore. Though her head was still spinning and throbbing, the ground beneath her was completely still, save for a few tremors as the last of the big boulders touched down and rolled to their final resting place at the base of the rubble pile.
Curling into a ball again, Scootaloo started counting.
She lost count at eighteen.
Her right eye was crusted shut. It opened with a sickly squelch, and stinging pain radiated across the right half of her face as she worked her sore jaw.
The rock that last hit her stood on its side like a great tablet, as tall as a two-storey house. The edge facing her was like a sharpened blade. About an inch from her back, a large stone cone jutted out of the rubble.
Scootaloo tried to speak, but all that came out was a string of staccato giggles. Raising one hoof to check the state of her face, she instead rubbed her wound full of sand.
The giggling grew into a guffaw. She rolled onto her back with pained tears streaming from her eyes, but she couldn’t stop.
When her maniacal laughter finally died down of their own accord, Scootaloo struggled onto her feet.
The world that had been so still just a moment ago was suddenly careening out of control. The battered filly fell immediately to her knees and emptied her stomach onto the jagged rock pile.
When she finished, her mouth was full of blood. Scootaloo spat a few times and ran her tongue over her teeth.
I guess it’ll grow back.
Her adrenaline-fueled tremors were replaced seamlessly by shivering. Blood trickled over her eyes, and the only way to stave off dizziness was to lay her head down.
I’m going to die here.
The stones were cold as ice. Scootaloo closed her eyes, but there was no stopping her hot tears. And why should she try? There was no help on the way, and nopony to witness her final moments. Why shouldn’t she cry, if it made her feel a little better?
Dad, I should have listened. I’m sorry.
She wanted to yell, to bring down another rockslide and end it all, but her throat was parched. The frothing creek roared indefatigably, almost within reach. She covered her aching ears and waited for the end.
Over long minutes her thirst grew, and though her chest felt like it was split open her lungs did not rupture suddenly, nor did her heart burst. The gap in her teeth stopped bleeding, and her face scabbed over. She was feeling sleepy now, but the chill of the valley kept her alert.
Finally she looked to the creek. It was downhill from where she lie; the slope itself was not especially steep, but the big, sharp rocks that she would need to cross looked rough enough to file down her hooves and her legs too.
Where’s a rusty horseshoe when you need one?
She couldn’t help but giggle at that thought. If there was ever a contest for silliest elderly mare impression, Rainbow Dash could win gold, silver and bronze.
Scootaloo stood up again, being careful not to move her head too much. Taking short steps in quick bursts she stumbled across the rocks, zigzagging downhill towards the roaring flow.
The rocks bent her legs this way and that, always threatening to snap those long bones that now felt as brittle as dry twigs. She felt sick to her stomach again, but there was nothing left there to purge. The world heaved under her hooves like water in a bottle falling end over end.
At last her hooves skidded across a big wet boulder, flipping the filly painfully onto her bruised back. Scootaloo’s scream echoed across the valley. She continued to scream until the flat rock disappeared from beneath her.
Liquid ice rushed over her face and her chest and her legs, through her nostrils and into her open mouth. The rocky bottom of the shallow stream was every bit as uneven as the rest of the valley. The water chilled her to the core, and every bit of pain bled into a uniform numbness. She sat in the middle of the stream coughing up water, her back stiffened against the powerful flow. Then she lie down again, completely submerged and skimming the bubbly water with a slack jaw. Cold seeped through her eyelids and her skull, freezing her forehead. The choppy current hitting the top of her head made her feel strange, as if she was going bald.
Finally, she needed to breathe. Her mane clung to her neck and face, but she now feared dizziness more than cold. She moved at a snail’s pace through the water, and though she slipped constantly on the water-slickened rocks and fought incessantly against the current Scootaloo didn’t feel anything. She heard neither the wind nor the roar of water, and her thoughts were as sluggish as her body.
I’m not thirsty anymore. I don’t hurt anymore. I should get to shore.
She planted her front hooves firmly on the sloped flat rock that first sent her into the icy stream. They found purchase, and her back hooves followed. Without shaking herself dry she lay down with the tip of her tail trailing in the current and closed her eyes.
I’m not thirsty anymore. I don’t hurt anymore. I’m at the shore. Now who has my rusty horseshoe?
I bet Rain brought boots.
Scootaloo jolted awake, completely alert as if electrified. The canyon came into sharp focus. For the first time she noticed the spots of white and yellow and black decorating the rocks around her. Every sharp edge was inlaid with tiny crystal faces that sparkled even in the dim light. The valley was not flat, and the smooth parts were not smooth at all. For a moment she couldn’t tell where she was, until she found the sky again between the mighty walls around her.
Tiny abrasions stung her legs and face and sides, but her body felt so distant that she couldn’t bring herself to care. The rock beneath her had turned red, and blood still flowed freely down her front legs from long, shallow cuts running from knee to ankle.
Step by step she climbed back to the crash zone, holding her head low and steady. Her right eye was less swollen now, and she was able to see quite well. The front half of her body still felt weightless, but through her heightened focus she managed not to fall.
She found a flap of the saddle bag sticking out from beneath a boulder that could have been a mountain in its own right. Further up the slope the other half spilled its contents like a gutted fish.
Like a gutted fish, complete with a growing ring of squabbling ravens. Scootaloo screamed and charged.
The birds rose like a black tornado, each with what looked to be a strip of rough red bark in its beak. The bark was once packaged in paper-wrapped bricks, but the few of these that did not rupture in the fall had been torn open by eager beaks. Scootaloo picked up a piece in her mouth…
Her head snapped back, and all the dizziness from earlier returned. She sat down with her eyes squeezed shut and spat repeatedly on the rock beside her, trying to get the taste of salted blood and campfire out of her mouth.
Hair-thin strings of muscle remained between her teeth. She pushed at them with her tongue and sloshed saliva vigorously through her mouth, but she didn’t get them all. The dried meat had at first the texture of fruit leather left on the stove for too long, but fruit leather never crumpled like that. The foul dust, tasting of death, coated the inside of her mouth and flowed into the back of her throat. She could still smell burnt flesh long after the taste had gone.
Griffin’s travel bag. Right.
When her heart settled down, Scootaloo stood up and started to pick through the oily mess, prodding the debris with the very tip of her hoof. Bits of oats stuck to the greasy rocks or fell deep through the cracks. The water skin was nowhere to be seen; it must have been in the other half of the bag, crushed beneath a boulder that even a skilled unicorn would be hard-pressed to move.
Further down the slope Scootaloo at last found something of use. The outer shell was built up from layers of sackcloth hardened in resin, and well-worn though they were the soles were still a good half-inch thick.
The dull yellow boots went halfway to her knees and fit a bit loose around her smaller hooves; to compensate she laced them tight around her ankles.
It went north, she thought to herself as she stood looking from one side of the valley to the other. Ponyville is north of here. At least I have that going for me.
Another ten metres up, and the rock pile leveled off. The cliff face was smooth and vertical, and the nearest feature that might bear her weight was far out of reach. Scootaloo leaned into the wall and tried to run up with the help of her wings, but it only took five unsuccessful attempts for her limbs to give out.
Lying on top of the rock pile she stared up the valley, scanning the cliff face for any sign of a nest. She remembered Cheerilee mentioning how eagles built big nests in high places. Surely a bird of that size would make its home atop a high cliff?
5 km. there has to be a way up in the next 5 km. I just have to walk…
For 5 km.
She rummaged through the debris for a while longer, and her efforts were rewarded with half of her cloak and a half spool of cord. By now the fabric was stiff and reeking of sweat, with a clearly-visible salt-creep along the edges. Her bits were gone too, the pocket being on the other half of the cloak. After a few minutes she found a way to fashion it into a kind of pouch for the cord, but it really wasn’t big enough for much else.
She was about to return to the valley floor when a metallic glint caught her eye. Rain’s knife was wedged between two stones, its blade resting halfway outside its dark brown sheath. She took the handle in her mouth and pulled the case free by its two long leather thongs. Without checking the blade, Scootaloo tied the strips of cowhide across her shoulders to carry the knife beside the rest of her meager loot.
Not exactly satisfied but out of ways to stall, the filly set off down the north side of the rubble pile, her padded hooves nearly silent against unforgiving stones.
#
The walls seemed to be closing in on her. In the tunnel of endless greys and blues, Scootaloo struggled to get a sense of distance. Sheer drops appeared out of nowhere, and more than once the filly stopped just short of the edge of a boulder that opened up to a bed of sharp talus. Huge slabs of stone—two, three, four times her size or bigger—shifted under her weight, and dropped to their original position with deafening bangs.
Hungry and cold but most definitely not thirsty, she let out a breath of relief as she rounded a huge boulder and saw on a distant scree slope something white as snow.
“Rain!” She called out. Her crisp voice echoed down the valley, surely loud enough to be heard in Ponyville, but her brother didn’t respond.
“That’s not funny, Rain,” she growled, skimming over the rocks at a quick canter.
The thing raised its bulbous head straight up on a long, muscular neck. Scootaloo slowed down.
Its coat was smooth; from this distance the creature appeared hairless. The skin, whiter than the purest marble of Canterlot, was stretched tight against a robust frame. The outline of its legs angled inwards past its knees, exactly opposite of Morning Rain’s Clydesdale build. It stood with all four of its feet squeezed onto the vertex of a single sharp rock, and though Scootaloo thought it was watching her, she couldn’t make out its eyes.
She began to move forwards again; slowly now, afraid to take her eyes off the thing on the slope. After a while, it lowered its head once more to prod at an adjacent rock. The cranium was almost a perfect sphere; almost pony-like. But its muzzle was reduced to a long, slender protrusion with a small lipless mouth at the tip, and its eyes were beady black dots in the middle of bulging, skin-covered sockets.
“Hey!” She yelled when she was close enough to see its eyes. “Hey! You there! Have you seen a big bird recently?”
Its drooping ears whipped around a few times, but overall the creature seemed more interested in the boulder. Scootaloo noticed its tiny black horns.
I never thought sheep could be this scary looking.
As she approached the base of the slope, the true scale of the sheep’s achievement became apparent. It wasn’t just standing on a rubble pile, though the loose scree on the slanted valley floor was enough of an obstacle for the filly. The sheep had somehow climbed across thirty metres of sheer rock, and was perched on a kind of ledge where a few boulders from an earlier slide had settled, looking like a figure on top of a trophy. She would have even described the pose as triumphant, were it not for the complacent look in its half-lidded eyes.
Scootaloo adjusted the package in her back. The valley seemed to go on forever, and there was no sign of the bird anywhere.
For a moment her thoughts turned to Ponyville. She saw herself walking into her living room; felt her father’s embrace.
And Gari, the mare who had been as good as a mother to her, stood behind him with her hood up and her face downcast. Scootaloo would have to speak to her; to tell her with a straight face that her son had been eaten by a giant eagle.
A sharp crack brought her back to the present. Scootaloo ducked and covered, her wings snapping open instinctively.
The valley rumbled, and she heard the cliff wall shattering, but all the echoes prevented her from ascertaining where the slide would happen.
Boulders rumbled against boulders, against the cliff, crushing lesser stones as they crashed to the valley floor. Scootaloo’s ears popped in the intense pressure wave, and soon tiny flakes of slate rained down on her.
She stayed completely still until she stopped feeling the tiny impacts on her back. The sheep of course was still flipping rocks and ruminating. A cloud of dust was slowly rolling down the valley, and a tongue of blue-green slithered down the once-pristine creek.
Flashes of cold blue light drew her eyes upwards.
The top of the cliff was hidden in a rolling storm cloud. The dense black vapour cycled at a dizzying speed like a giant wheel turned on its side, and whenever a tendril drifted off and threatened to dissipate it would immediately snap back into the main mass like a hatchling running to a hen. Lightning flashed deep within its core, and once in a while a magnificent forked bolt struck the wall below, instantly cutting loose hundreds of tonnes of stone that fell in a sustained torrent.
Scootaloo backed away slowly, unable to take her eyes off the frightening sight. Once in a while the entire cloud would light up like a black lantern, and in those brief flashes the filly could make out the shape of a giant bird with its wings spread.
The rolling front of dust would soon reach her, showing no sign of thinning. Scootaloo felt tiny flecks of grit on her face, and though she retreated steadily there was no way to outrun the seemingly-solid wave. And why would she try? In front of her were Ponyville and her brother; behind lay leagues upon leagues of barren ground.
She pursed her lips and pressed her ears tight against her skull. Untying the cloak around her neck, she tore off a strip just large enough to fit over her eyes. With what’s left of the fabric she made a tighter-fitting parcel for the spool.
The goat bleated once, but when she looked up it had already disappeared into the pale yellow mass.
The valley got darker still as the cloud filled her entire field of view. She could hear sand and pebbles falling.
The sound reminded her of hailstones.
With trembling hooves Scootaloo tied the blindfold behind her head a mere second before a thousand pebbles pelleted her body.
#
In three breaths her nostrils were completely clogged with dust. She could taste a hint of sweetness in her mouth, and felt the grit between her teeth despite her tightly sealed lips.
Scootaloo opened her mouth for a big gulp of air and immediately took a mouthful of sand and pebbles. Dust crept down under her ears and slowly worked its way through the edges of her blindfold.
She heard the falling stones like a drumbeat, and the ground itself bucked up and down. All the loose rocks under her feet shifted constantly, as if the valley was trying to eat her. She trod lightly, proceeding in bursts of motion towards the source of the vibrations.
Her mouth became bone-dry, and her throat felt like it had an inch-thick coating when the dust finally thinned. Tiny cuts covered her body unfelt, and her closed eyelids were caked with viscous, putrid mud.
Cautiously, she lifted one side of her blindfold and squinted out at the world. She was standing on a slope, and though the air was still full of dust it seemed a little more breathable than before.
A giant boulder hit the ground not two metres to her right, the deafening impact drowning out her scream.
Scootaloo stood on her hind hooves, leaning into the cliff wall. All around her the rocks continued to fall, but she could now see that the deep grooves along which they rolled were directing all the debris away from the very base of the cliff. Though the vibrations made her teeth chatter and her stomach churn, she had wandered into a tiny safe zone.
She cleared her throat, spitting out a thick black glob of muddy phlegm. Her boots and legs were a uniform shade of yellowish-grey, the loose, wrinkly fabric giving her hooves a diseased appearance.
Looking up, Scootaloo saw that the wall had a rectangular fracture pattern, with a series of narrow ledges forming a giant staircase of sorts that went at least halfway up. The storm cloud was right above her head, and she could feel her hair slowly rising in response to the potential in the air.
Not daring to get off the wall, the filly flipped herself awkwardly so that her chest was flush against the cliff. Reaching up towards the first ledge with her front hooves, she gritted her teeth against the pain as she forced her wings up to speed.
Scootaloo rocketed skywards, her wings giving her just enough extra lift to reach the sequential ledges. The rocks tumbled by just to her right, creating an unstable current that constantly threatened to suck her in or throw her far to the left into open air.
Her limbs burned from exertion. She heard the slide as if through ears full of water. She felt as if the rear half of her body would fall away at any moment, but she knew better than to stop. The ledges were no more than cracks now; even a sheep would be hard-pressed to stand long on the tiny features that she now used as launch platforms.
With a fierce growl the filly leapt clear of the last foothold, shooting well past the top of the cliff and falling limp on a carpet of tall, yellow grass. A ptarmigan ascended clumsily above the ground cover, its frantic thundering wings adding but a drop to an ocean of noise.
Scootaloo gulped the static-filled air. Every hair of her coat stood on end now; rolling thunder replaced the vibrations from falling stones, and through closed eyes she saw intermittent still-frames of a red world.
I found the bird. Now what?
Sticking her nose out from the curtain of grass, Scootaloo squinted through flying sand and blinding flashes of electricity. Even from just twenty metres away the cloud seemed solid, and Scootaloo stood in awe of its sheer size. It would have taken the entire Ponyville weather team to compress a cloud of that size, and it was growing still. A constant stream of water flowed from the places where it touched ground and trails of white fog entered through the top which towered higher than the peak of Ponyville’s town hall.
The air reeked of ozone, burning her sinuses and drawing tears from her eyes as grit never could.
The knife came to mind, but even a rough assessment of scale made her shudder. A dozen fanciful plans ran through her mind, all of which hinged on getting through a wall of lightning.
Think it through. Stop and think it through.
She felt the rough wooden handle under her hoof. Was it better to charge with it in her mouth, or try to cut more precisely while hobbling around on three legs?
It’ll end the same way regardless.
Lightning and thunder reached her simultaneously. Scootaloo closed her eyes and turned away as the pressure wave ruffled her mane.
Just beyond her hiding place the thin earth ended, replaced by base rock. With eyes squinted in anticipation of another flash, Scootaloo surveyed a few reasonably-sized chunks. Taking a deep breath, she darted out of the grass and scooped up one angular stone about the size of a big apple. Balancing it in her right hoof, she flung the stone as hard as she could towards the churning cloud, the recoil sending her tumbling backwards into hiding.
A strand of lightning reached for the projectile. The stone shattered on contact, sending tiny bits flying in every direction.
The cloud seemed to waver ever-so-slightly.
After another strike, the filly once again left the grass. This time she picked a big brick-shaped block, and putting her whole weight into it sent the stone flying in a high, lazy arc.
Again lightning reached out in defense, but this time only half the block broke. The remaining fragment, still of a respectable size, disappeared into the cloud.
A cold, wet wave knocked Scootaloo off her feet. Pebbles and ice and water droplets hit her like a big pane of glass, the initial stinging sensation quickly fading to full-body numbness.
When she looked up again the gorge was utterly unrecognizable. The late-afternoon sun shone brilliantly, projecting a small rainbow on the quickly-dissipating fog that was all that remained of the storm.
The lightning had cut out a kind of dry moat that turned the edge of the cliff into a circular island. This pedestal was piled high with slender pines and boulders from the valley, and the tips of a few massive dark feathers decorated the top.
Morning Rain was draped over one log, his mane and wings dripping orange-tinted water. The deep wounds in his back had been washed clear of blood, and flaps of skin were hanging loose around the edges.
“RAIN!” Scootaloo hollered, taking one step towards the pile.
The colt didn’t respond, but something else did. A grey ball, covered in folds of sickly grey skin and roughly the size of her head, rose above the rim of the nest. Two big brown eyes and a hooked red beak were its core features; its face was otherwise identical to the back of its head.
Another one popped up beside the first, and then another.
Identical septuplets.
Without warning, one of the heads snapped forwards, returning almost instantly with a mouthful of cream feathers.
The colt woke with a start, clumsily turning towards his attackers. The hatchlings shuffled backwards a few steps with their heads drawn back on their long, loose-skinned necks.
A shadow fell over Scootaloo, and the powerful downdraft nearly made her legs buckle. She took one step backwards and pressed her wings tight against her sides, planting her legs firmly in anticipation.
The gust threw her off her feet. Her body went numb instantly as electricity shot up her legs and forced her jaws shut on her tongue. The ground zapped her again when she touched down, and she lay on her side, tingling and immobile.
Standing on the sideways ground, the great bird regarded her with its head lowered aggressively. Its eyes shone like polished bronze plates, and the ridge of feathers sweeping back from its almost non-existent forehead gave it a perpetually irked expression. Metallic green feathers dominated its face, fading to glossy black further down the neck.
With each step the ground flashed. Moisture sizzled and rose in puffs of vapour between scaly toes as thick as the timber of its nest. Electricity arced between the iridescent feathers of its magnificent wings, occasionally hitting the ground in front and sending drops of molten rock into the air.
Scootaloo propped herself up on her front legs. Feeling was slowly returning to the rear half of her body, but her hind legs still moved spastically.
The monstrous red beak parted, revealing a mouth full of backwards-facing barbs and a scaly black tongue. Its call was more terrifying than a lion’s roar; Scootaloo cowered in the putrid wind of its breath and covered her ears, but the vibrations traveled through the rocks beneath her up through her chin and echoed endlessly in her skull.
What’s the plan? What’s the plan?
The cliff was completely blocked by the bird’s crackling wings. An excited chatter came from the nest, but the hungry chicks failed to drown out the growls and grunts of the injured, exhausted colt.
“RUN!” Scootaloo shouted. “RAIN! JUST RUN!”
The bird’s head hovered over the filly. Its breath felt like a fire on her side, and the moist air beneath its wings was so thick that her lungs refused to pull it in. Little sparks of lightning lashed out at every part of her body. Desperately Scootaloo groped for the knife, but each time a powerful discharge from its handle deflected her hoof.
For a second the cacophony from the nest fell silent. Then a single shrill cry filled the air, starting as a whimper and quickly building to a desperate scream.
The crackling stopped, and Scootaloo once again felt the natural wind of the valley on her back. The humidity dropped to nothing, and she eagerly inhaled the sterile air.
The bird was looking over its shoulders, its wings now closed. It was terrifying to behold even from that angle. Scootaloo crawled out of its way, stumbling noisily over some loose rocks, but it didn’t move a muscle. She followed its gaze back to the nest, and what she saw made her stomach churn.
Rocking back and forth on his hind legs, his half-plucked wings drooping at his side, Morning Rain stood facing her at the far edge of the nest. Under each bloody foreleg he held the head of a struggling chick. Their downy wing nubs flapped pathetically, and their mouths were stretched wide in their piteous scream. They would have been taller than the colt, had their kicking legs found any purchase.
Pure hatred burned out of his teary eyes (the white of the left had turned bright red). His whole body trembled, and his lips were completely pulled back. It mattered little that his mouth was filled with flat grinding teeth instead of carnivorous fangs; the remaining chicks were throwing themselves out the opposite side of the nest, hopping clear of the dry moat with little wings ablur and scrambling clumsily towards their mother.
She shrieked again, turning completely towards her nest with one hop that threw Scootaloo into the air. Her wings flared open, her head bowed…
With a roar of his own Morning Rain pushed his two prisoners backwards.
They disappeared beyond the edge of the nest as the colt fell the short distance into it.
With another surge of wind and a crack of thunder the giant vanished. The five remaining chicks tweeted and whistled as they flopped around on the rocks.
Scootaloo charged for the nest, feeling completely weightless. She cleared the moat and the edge of the nest too, landing atop a thick pile of faded feathers and pale grey droppings. Morning Rain lay face down on this mattress, twitching uncontrollably.
She threw him against the side of the nest, any consideration for his comfort drowned out by her rage. His pupils shrunk to pinpricks when they finally fell on her face.
The first few punches caught him square in the nose, snapping his head this way and that. But her attack also seemed to knock some sense into him, and before she knew it he had escaped her along the circular wall. Struggling onto the rim of the nest, he launched off even less gracefully than the chicks.
When Scootaloo touched down just beyond the moat, Morning Rain already had a decent head start. He stumbled along the cliff’s edge at a fast limp, his wings dragging against the ground beside him. The chicks were huddled together, their watery, terrified eyes darting between her and the fleeing form of her brother.
With burning eyes Scootaloo set off after him, her wings helping her along the rough path.
She had gone maybe half a kilometer when the cry rose from the valley floor, livid and heartbroken. It was soon answered by a hundred rock slides all through the canyon, their angry grumbles and snarls rolling up and down the valley until they all sounded as one.
Tears streamed down the filly’s face as she picked up her pace even more. She wanted to pass her brother, just so she wouldn’t have to look at him any longer.
Morning Rain, what have you done?