Chapter 53
Foal Mountain
“Are we there yet?” Lilac impatiently sighed, uninterestedly propping herself up on the train’s window seat.
“No! And we still won’t be in another five minutes,” Charcoal exasperatedly answered.
“We’ll be there soon,” I promised, barely looking up from our book. I was sitting behind Torchwood on the train so I could look over his shoulder and read together. He was skimming over our notes on the hippogryphs again.
“Why don’t you work on some of your homework? I know you didn’t finish all of it at the beach,” Torch suggested.
“I don’t want to,” she huffed.
“You’re going to have to get it done sometime,” her brother pointed out.
“Says you! You don’t have any!”
“Exactly. Because I finished everything before we left.”
“Lucky,” she moped, sliding farther down in the chair to pout.
“Here. Have fun,” Charcoal slyly passed back her saddlebags. With one last huff that screamed ‘fine, but I won’t be happy about it,’ she plucked the bags from his hooves and pulled out her books. Charcoal, on the other hoof, continued to stare blankly out the window with Bandit draped over his shoulder. (The ferret usually accompanied his owner on these trips, giving Heckley the house to himself.)
“Charcoal, why don’t you get a book or something to read? You look bored stiff,” I suggested.
“I am bored stiff.”
“There’s plenty of magazines on the table back there,” I jerked a hoof at the back of the train car.
“They’re all tourist advertisements,” he shrugged, jadedly breathing life to a small flame and playing with it between his hooves.
“Excuse me, sir, but there’s no fire allowed in the train cars. Fire haphazard,” a passing attendant reminded him. Charcoal sounded a growl of annoyance before extinguishing his entertainment. I almost chuckled, but ended up sighing instead. We needed to work on his social skills.
“Well, if you don’t want to read the ‘tourist advertisements,’ you’re welcome to read whatever your mother and I brought,” Torchwood tried again, closing our book and offering it. Charcoal pushed it away.
“No thanks. I’m not going to end up a crazy mythical monster hunting nut like you two.”
“Well, you never know. You haven’t gotten your cutie mark yet- what if ‘mythical monster hunting’ turns out to be your special talent?” Torchwood teased.
“What kind of a talent is that?” Charcoal wrinkled his nose. “And even if that is my talent, I’d almost rather stay a blank flank. I hear enough about it as it is without a cutie mark plastered on my flank for the world to see.”
“It’s just a hobby, Charcoal,” I tried.
“And our hobby, at that. Nothing for you to be ashamed of,” his father agreed.
“But do you have to center all our trips around them? Hippogryphs are supposed to live in the mountains, right? That’s why we’re going to that dumb cabin.” I opened my mouth to respond, but I found I had no comeback. Torch also kept quiet. Lilac was very intently staring at the same page she’d started on, just trying to stay out of the argument. Charcoal finally turned over in his seat. My husband and I exchanged glances. We mutually decided it was best just to let him sulk in his own boredom, and returned to our book. No more was said during the train ride.
“You guys doing okay in here?” I heard Torchwood checking in on our kids, who would have to share a room for the next few days. We’d arrived a couple of hours ago, and settled in relatively quickly. We offered to take them out to the village this evening just to scope things out, but to Lilac’s disappointment, Charcoal opted to stay in. She didn’t want to leave without her big brother, so we promised that if she stayed and got the rest of her homework done, she could choose where we went tomorrow. After that, she happily sat down with her books.
“Mm hmm!” Lilac cheerfully affirmed.
“Fine,” Charcoal retorted.
“Alright. Goodnight, then,” Torchwood quietly backed out of the room.
“Goodnight, Daddy!”
“’Night.”
Torchwood strode into the cozy living room where I was already waiting, and sank into one of the cushioned armchairs with an audible groan.
“Here at last,” I concurred.
“Alone at last,” he corrected.
“Maybe, maybe not.” I pulled out the map from the book in my hooves. “If this is right, we’re practically sitting on top of the hippogryphs. About an hour’s flight out, wouldn’t you say?” He took the paper and flicked it taught as he might a newspaper.
“According to this, sure, but these are just the sighting areas where they’re rumored to be. I’m sure we aren’t going to find a whole cluster of them where they’ve already been spotted. These are probably ‘off-limits areas’ for them now. I’d guess we’ll have to travel out an extra hour or two at least.”
“Ouch. That’s going to take a big chunk out of the day... I’m sure the kids won’t be too happy about it, especially Charcoal.”
“Well, it’s not as if they have to come with us. In fact,” he hushed his voice barely above a whisper, “it’s probably better if they don’t. Keeping secrets like this can be hard sometimes.”
“For sure,” I almost laughed. “So what are we going to do? Come back another time on our own?”
“Just set them loose in the village plaza while we take a look around,” Torchwood shrugged. “Lilac will have a blast, and probably drag Charcoal around with her. That should keep them busy for a couple of hours.”
“Remember we have to count the return trip in that time,” I added.
“Still, we shouldn’t be that long,” he assured.
“You sure the kids will be okay with it? I mean, this is a family vacation.”
“They’ll be fine. Charcoal doesn’t seem to like our company anyway.”
“He does spend a lot of time alone,” I commented. “What does he even do in there?”
“Who knows?”
“Well, I, for one, would like to know. It’s not natural-”
“Honey, we talked about this. Privacy, remember?”
“Checking up on my son is not an invasion of privacy.”
“About the hippogryphs? What do you say?” he abruptly changed the subject.
“Well... I guess... I just don’t like leaving them alone.”
“They’re growing up. I think Charcoal is responsible enough.”
“I’m not questioning that; I know he’s very responsible. I’m just worried about the emotional impact. He’s right- we do center our vacations around this sort of thing, and we do run off on them a lot. I want them to know we’re really a family.”
“They know how much we love them,” Torchwood comfortingly smiled. “Just because we take a little time to ourselves on vacation doesn’t mean we’re not a real family.”
“I guess you’re right,” I smiled back. “So? Have breakfast together, send them off to the plaza and meet up for lunch?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Why are we spying on Mom and Dad?” Lilac whispered to her brother.
“Shh!” Charcoal silenced, waving a claw to cut her off. He was currently in his dragon form, which he found to have better hearing than his pony body. With one ear pressed to the door, his brow furrowed in concentration.
“Well? What are they saying?”
“Talking about hippogryphs again,” her brother groaned. Though he knew it was rude to eavesdrop, he liked testing the extent of his dragon abilities, and often listened in to his parent’s conversations. Though, he quickly became bored when they started rambling on and on about mythical creatures.
“If you’re bored, there’s an easy solution,” his sister lightly teased. “You could always stop eavesdropping.”
“Shh! Now they’re talking about tomorrow.”
“Ooh! Are we going somewhere fun?” Lilac hopefully piped.
“SHUSH!” he hissed as loudly as he dared, jabbing a claw in emphasis. She flattened her ears and finally kept quiet. Charcoal pressed his ear back to the door. “The village plaza,” he reported. “No, wait... we’re going to the plaza. Mom and Dad... aren’t coming with us?”
“How come?”
“They’re... going to hunt for hippogryphs,” he finally huffed. “That figures. They care more about things that don’t exist than us.” He slid against the door, rather depressed.
“That’s not true! Mommy and Daddy love us!” Lilac argued, pouncing her brother’s lap.
“Then how come they’re always away?”
“They’re not always away, you are,” she said, snuggling into his scales.
“Me? I never go anywhere!”
“Exactly. We don’t get to see you up in your room,” Lilac yawned.
“It’s not like I have any place better to be.”
“Sure you do. You could go out with your friends.”
“What friends?” Charcoal snorted.
“What about Pound Cake or Spectrum? They’re you’re friends, right?”
“Yeah, Pound and I hung out before, but he’s got work now. And Spectrum and I know each other, just not very well.”
“Maybe you should get to know him better,” she advised. “He’s really nice.”
“So what do you want me to do? Ask him over to lounge around and do nothing? Sounds like a lot of fun.”
“His parents are Wonderbolts! He loves flying! Ask him for a race sometime. Or just go play ball. He likes all kinds of sports.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that...” Charcoal uneasily shifted with his sister still in his lap.
“No it isn’t. You go up, ask him, and see if he says yes. Remember how easily Blaze does it? Except you always turn him down.”
“I’m always busy.”
“Busy hiding, maybe,” she huffed. Charcoal tuned her out and returned to testing his dragon hearing. He furrowed his brow in confusion.
“Hang on.” He pushed her off so he could better listen at the door.
“Oof! Charcoal!” Lilac indignantly sniffed. He again lifted a claw to silence her, and listened even more intently. “What is it this time?” his sister finally sighed upon realizing she couldn’t talk him out of it. Charcoal recoiled from the door as though he’d seen a ghost.
“I think... no...”
“What is it, Char?” Lilac pressed her own ear to the door, but against the incredibly thick oaken panel, she could hear nothing.
“I could’ve sworn Dad just said something about us not being a real family.”
“You must’ve heard wrong. Dad would never say that,” Lilac rolled her eyes. “It is a thick door.”
“I heard it,” Charcoal insisted, eyes wide and even a little wet.
“I don’t believe you.” Lilac shook out her mane and crawled under the wooly covers. “I told you eavesdropping was a bad idea. Now you’re hearing things. Just go to bed.”
Charcoal wordlessly obeyed his sister. Was that what his father really thought? Didn’t he consider them family? Charcoal’s heart burned with rage. They were an odd lot, what with a grown (and still growing) dragon living in the laundry room and one son with unique shifting abilities, but did that really mean they weren’t family? Charcoal had always been assured this ability just meant he was ‘special,’ but even around his own family he often felt it made him an outcast, like he could never truly belong. Lately he’d even been wondering if it was the reason he hadn’t earned a cutie mark- dragons didn’t have such marks, after all. Would this condition inhibit him from finding his destiny?
All these troubles whirled in his mind as he shifted back and crawled under the heavy quilts. A single tear dripped to the pillow.