//------------------------------//
// Falling Rocks and the Spirits of the Sky 
// Story: The Legend of Falling Rocks, Buffalo Brave 
// by Titanium Dragon 
//------------------------------//

	Long ago, before the ponies came to this land, the spirits of the sky ran freely across the clouds, and all the peoples of the land lived in peace. In those days, the buffalo roamed free across the hills and plains, and the stampedes could run from mountain to sea without fear.

One day, the spirits of the sky howled with anger, and laid a blanket of snow all across the land. In that time, all of the buffalo were as one, and the great chief Smoking Mountain spoke to his people.

“The winds seethe with anger, and the rivers are covered with ice,” he said. “Tell me, who among you is so brave as to climb the mountains and speak to the spirits to learn of their anger?”

The buffalo stirred.

“It is too cold!” cried one.

“It is too far!” said another.

Chief Smoking Mountain looked out over his people, his heart hanging heavy in his chest. “Will none go speak to the spirits, to tell them that we suffer?”

“I will go.”

“Who speaks? Who is it who will brave the mountains and the snow and return peace to our land?”

The buffalo brave stepped forward. “I will. For I am Falling Rocks, and I will not fail my people.”

“This will be a perilous journey,” said the Chief. “Take this.” And the chief reached back and pulled, and out came a great gray blanket, thick and gray as the clouds in the sky. “This was given to me long ago by the caribou. May it keep you warm.”

And so the brave, wrapped in his blanket, set off for the highest mountain in all the land through the snow and ice. The wind blew at him, the cold sharp as arrows, but the chief’s gift kept it at bay. The rocks trembled and shook with the force of the storm, but Falling Rocks was surehoofed, and he did not fall. All the world was against him, and still he forged on.

At long last, he reached the sacred mountain; at its peak, he could hear the spirits howling in anger and pain. Falling Rocks was cold, and he was tired. His bones cried out to him, “Let us turn back, and let another carry this burden!”

His horns cried out, “Let us turn back, and let another freeze!”

His tail cried out, “Let us turn back, and let another die!”

But Falling Rocks was brave, and he would not listen. He strode up the mountain, determined to speak to the spirits crying in the sky. He closed his ears to his bones, and let them ache. He closed his ears to his horns, and let them freeze. He closed his ears to his tail, and let it hang limp behind him. But he was very cold.

High, high up the mountain, he found a cave frozen with ice and he thought, for a moment, that he might find rest. But shouts and discord greeted his ears, as pony fought pony in that icy place. Now, Falling Rocks had seen many things, but the ponies were new to this land, then, and they were a strange sight to his eyes, in all the colors of the rainbow, shouting and struggling amongst their brothers.

“Why do you fight?” he asked.

“Because we have wings, and can fly,” said one.

“Because we have horns, and can do magic,” said another.

“Because they think they are better because we have neither,” said a third.

“Are you not cold?” he asked them, for indeed, the snow had grown heavy over their coats, and ice glistened from their tails.

“Yes,” they said. “But we can build no fire, for we have no wood.”

“Here,” said Falling Rocks, and he pulled the great gray blanket from his back. “Take this, it will keep you warm.”

“But there is only one blanket, and three of us,” said the ponies. “How will we decide who can stay warm?”

Falling Rocks looked at them. “You are small,” he said, shaking his head. “If you cease to fight, you will all fit.”

“I will not share a blanket with them, for their horns are cold,” said the one with wings.

“I will not share a blanket with them, for their wings are cold,” said the one with horns.

“I will not share a blanket with them, for they would not share it with me,” said the last.

“Then I will take this blanket, and continue on my way,” said Falling Rocks.

“No!” cried the ponies.

“Then will you share the blanket?”

“Yes,” they said as one, as they shivered.

And so Falling Rocks took the blanket, and cast it over the ponies, so that they may be warm, before he strode out into the storm once more.

Now his bones cried, and his horns cried, and his tails cried as one. They bade him to turn back, to take back his blanket, but he had cast his eyes over the ponies, and they had found peace, shivering together beneath the sheet. So he continued onward, up the mountain, even as his bones bent and his horns froze and his tail grew stiff with ice.

At last, Falling Rocks reached the peak. Ice shone over his hooves as the spirits of the sky cried out in anger above, whirling and shouting and stampeding across the sky.

“Why do you do this?” called the brave. “Why do you cover the land in snow, and make us suffer?”

But the spirits gave him no answer, only crying out wordlessly and whirling all the faster.

“You are bad spirits!” he cried out. “We have honored you for generations, and this is how you repay us? You drape a blanket over our land, killing the grass with snow. You freeze the rivers, so that the fish cannot swim. You take all from us, and will not even tell us the reason for your anger. You have not honored us, as we have honored you. Begone!”

Falling Rocks stamped his hoof, and in that moment, the sky flashed with the light of a thousand storms and the ice cracked beneath him. The spirits of the sky knew what they had done, and fled, and the snow came to melt across all the land.

And that is how Falling Rocks saved the buffalo from the spirits of the sky.