Seven Sins

“Yes!” they all yelled and ran out of the house to tell their families they were leaving.  I sighed and started to feel stress take over my body as I realized we only had a small time to kill Zodiac and had no idea how dangerous it might be.  Clear was the first back followed by the others.  I stretched my wings and started to fly out the door as fast as I could.  On hoof was going to take way to long and not everypony can fly only Brigitte, Rose, Thunder, and I.

“Darling how are we going to get to the Changeling Kingdom?” asked Clear.

“We can’t fly, and Clear’s magic isn’t strong enough to give us all wings.  I guess we have to travel by hoof,” I sighed and started walking towards the kingdom.  The others followed but started to trail off with side chatter about how exciting this was.

My hooves started to ache with every step I took; I gently lifted into the air to give my hooves a break.  The rain was starting to clear up and you could see patches of blue sky.  Pain shot through my injured wing and I started to quickly fall out of the sky, I couldn’t move my wings from the pain and all I could think about was falling on the ground with a thud.  I opened my wings all the way as pain started to blur my vision and I closed my eyes meeting my fate.  I felt large muscular hooves grab my body mid air and set me on the closest rain cloud.  I still couldn’t open my eyes from the pain but I felt a cold feeling cover my body and then the pain was gone.  I opened my eyes and took a deep gasp and looked around to see where I was and who saved me. Thunder hovered over me holding tightly to Clear how must have used a spell to fix my wing.

“How?” I choked out.

“You were flying next to Thunder and when you fell he caught you, placed you on this cloud and picked me up while you were out and I used a healing spell to fix your wing.  What did you do to your wing?” Clear spoke as if she had no care in her voice and was only helping me because she needed me alive.

“I landed on it when I was fighting,” I said trying to forget that I couldn’t save my mom.

“That spell should have fixed it for good, I could tell someone tried to earlier but didn’t have enough energy for the whole spell,” Clear said as she was set on the ground.  “We should rest here for the night.”

“Yeah we should my hooves are killing me,” Candy moaned.  Thunder and Brigitte flew around the forest and gathered large leaves and started to tie them together and try to cover us from the rain.  Most of the rain clouds were gone and it looked like it would stop raining any minute now.  I couldn’t move very much because the pain drained out all of my energy but I started to limp over to Clear.

“Clear can I have some of that gauze?” I asked as she started to wrap my wing.  The pain was gone but my wing was too tired to hold itself up.  She quickly wrapped my wing and tied the bandage to my body so it held up my wing.  I stood up slowly and started to walk over to Brigitte who was sitting close to the fire Rose started.  I snuggled into her side to keep her warm.  Her orange fur was damp from being outside and mixed with my dark gray fur.  I never looked like I belonged in the family, mom was a light orange like Brigitte and light blue and purple mane, dad was golden yellow with red and white mane but I was dark gray with black, white and rainbow streaked mane.  I never felt like I belonged, the only place I felt loved was when I had music lessons with Vinyl and Octavia Scratch.  They taught me everything I needed to know about music from learning how to play the cello to how to autocorrect your annoying sister into sounding like a monster.  They treated me like their daughter, they could never have children and they adopted me as their own.  Them and Brigitte were the only people I truly cared about after dad died.  Mom hardly spoke to us after he died, she would just sit and stare at his picture and mumble.  We had to take care of ourselves from that day forward.  I quickly fell asleep to the memories of my family and drifted off into a deep sleep filled with dreams of adventure and mystery.  The camp was silent except for the soft sounds of ponies snoring and softly mumbling in their sleep.

I woke up to find that the camp was empty and the fire was damp as if somepony put it out with water.  I stood up quickly and felt the pain I expected wasn’t there.  I stretched out my wing that wasn’t wrapped and took off in a run out of the shelter.  A dark figure lurked in the shadows of trees and I could hear a low growl.  I felt the hair on my back start to stand up and I lunged towards the shadow, missing it and landing on somepony’s tail.  I heard a high pitched squeal of fear and saw Rose leap into the sky and onto the nearest cloud hugging it tightly.

“What the buck was that for?!” she screamed.

“I thought I saw something in the shadows and I heard growling…” I trailed off and looked back at the shadows.

“That was Thunder and Green fighting over who’s stronger,” she said as she stepped off the cloud.

“Oh,” I said but didn’t take my eyes off the shadows.  I knew something was there, maybe somepony is following us.  I let out a low growl and hunched my back like a cat before it strikes.  I could feel the threats presents and I knew something was there, I could feel it.

“Relax, Pride every little thing will be alright,” Rose said as she sighed and sat down leaning against a rock.  I sighed and acted like I didn’t care but I still felt like somepony was there.

“Where are the others?” I asked as I sat down next to her.

“Lookin’ for food and stuff to carry the rest of the way seems like a waste to me though,” Rose answered as she started to drift off into sleep.  I stood up and started to fold and take apart the camp and make it travelable.  I could tell I was hungry by the growls my stomach was starting to make.  I stretched and took the bandage off my wing and started to stretch to sore muscles.  I took off in a slow glide and started to look for the others.

I quickly found Green and Brigitte but they seemed like they weren’t looking for food like the others were.  I quietly landed and hid behind a bush to find out what they were doing.  Brigitte started to step closer to Green and did a little hop but opened her wings to fly closer then started stepping slowly closer to him.  I could tell what they were doing at once, Brigitte always did her little walk/fly thing when she was flirting with somepony.  I gulped but still stayed and watched to see where this was going.

“We should just ditch them and stay right here and do stuff,” Brigitte said as she was only inches from Green’s muzzle.  He quickly stepped back until his flank hit a tree trunk.  “What’s wrong, big boy?  You scared a little filly’ll tame you?” she purred with every word she said and stepped closer to him.

“No, Miss Sparkle, I’m not scared.  We need to look for food for the others,” he stuttered.

“They won’t miss us,” she said more seductively.  She gently placed her hoof on his cheek and started to lean in for a kiss.  This wasn’t good they needed to focus on killing Zodiac and they need to do it quickly and not dilly-dally.  I jumped into the air and pounced on my sister spreading my wings making her look like a tiny filly compared to my overly large wings.  She shrank into the dusty ground and hid her face with her hooves, trying to protect herself.  I closed my wings and stepped off of her and looked back at Green.  He looked scared and shocked at what had just happened, he stared at me and Brigitte then took off in a fast run back to camp.

“This is no time for you to go around lusting after every colt you see fit,” I said as I took off in after Green’s trail.  I could hear her scoff and try to figure out what to say to me as I walked away.  I knew she would be mad at me for the rest of the day but I did what I needed to.  When I reached camp Green was trying to look busy but blushed and ran off to find Thunder.  Rose hadn't moved since I left to find the others but there was now a pile of fresh fruit and flowers to eat.  I started to eat an apple and instantly noticed that Sweet Apple Acres apple’s tasted a lot better.  I chocked down the apple and stood up to tie the leaves from the shelter on Thunder and Green’s backs.