Salmon Run

by mushroompone

Two

Night Glider awoke in the sweat-sticky hours of early morning knowing she had to leave.

It was an odd feeling. An ache in her wings, though not an ache in the traditional sense—she knew the pains of cramps and splints and twisted feathers, of strains and sprains and broken bones. This was not that.

This was a restless fluttering.

A thrumming.

A need to move and thrash and fly away.

In those first few moments of consciousness, she couldn't fight the urge, and her wings puttered uselessly under the blankets. The motion scared her, and she rocketed upright, her wings still buzzing.

She yelped something. Some wordless cry of confusion. Her wings had a mind of their own.

But then she truly woke, dragged out of the bleary world of sleep and truly into the world of the waking and the living.

The buzzing stopped.

But the urge rattled under her skin.

She swallowed firmly, spit thick and salty in her throat, and pulled her blankets up to her heart. She twisted her hooves into them. She felt that steady pressure of the cool linens pressing into her skin, and she willed it to hold her bones in place. Like a tourniquet. Like shackles.

The urge to fly still vibrated through her wings. They trembled with effort it took not to move.

And then,

because Night Glider was merely equine,

she exploded from her bed in a burst of blue feathers,

fumbled open the window latch,

and dropped into the inky dark of night.

The ground rose to meet her, and she dodged it, allowing her wings to carry her through the sky in whatever direction they pleased. She whirled in circles through the night air, tight spirals, rising, diving—

"Nigh!"

A familiar voice. Whisper-shouted from a nearby window.

Just like that, the magic and freedom of her whims vanished.

Night Glider whirled in the air, searching for her friend. "Party Favor?" she guessed. "Is that you?"

The predictable peaks of Our Town faded into her view. Night Glider spotted the little blue dot of her friend without a bit of trouble, and swooped in to meet him at the window.

Party Favor's brow creased. "Are you… okay?"

"Yeah," Night answered quickly, without thinking. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Party blinked. "Uh… because you just came flying out of your bedroom window like your house was on fire?" He looked his friend up and down, searching for signs of harm and finding none. "What the hay are you doing?"

Night Glider did not have an answer.

She cleared her throat. "I'm, uh—hey, what the hay are you doing?" She hung on the window frame with both forehooves. "Why are you even up?"

"Midnight snack," Party said with a shrug. "But you didn't answer my question."

Night Glider coughed. "I dunno. I just… felt like flying, I guess."

Party didn't say anything. He only looked deep into his friend's eyes, his brows knit, his lower lip protruding in the frown of a worried parent.

"Don't give me that look," Night said, rolling her eyes. "I'm fine, I just—"

And then came the sound.

Not all at once.

Slow.

Rising.

Like a swelling wave, rushing to the shore.

It sounded like shuffling cards. Or a stick run along the wood slats of a picket fence. A thousand individual fluttering beats, layered atop one another until they became a singular hiss.

Night Glider flicked her ear and looked to the sky, searching for the source of the sound.

The stars began to blink.

Flickering.

Like candles about to snuff themselves out.

Candles in the autumn breeze.

Party Favor winced. "What's that noise?"

Night Glider gasped softly.

She pushed off of her friend's windowsill and drifted up, higher and higher, wings carrying her up to the moon, to the stars, to the—

Things were rushing past her.

Careening.

Shapes, forms, things with wings!

Pegasi.

Thousands.

Hundreds of thousands.

So many that they blocked out the light of the stars.

"What's going on?!" Night Glider screamed into the gale. "Where are you going?!"

Someone hooked her. Scooped her up like a bear scoops a salmon from the white waters of the river.

"We don't know," the mysterious pegasus whispered in her ear. "But we have to go."

Party Favor called after her, but Night Glider could not hear.

She was swallowed up by the flock.