The Adventure of Silver Lining

by Lucky Dreams

Rating: everyone
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure
Length: 11325

On a dark and stormy night, a young colt is told the epic tale of Daring Do's ancestor.

A few weeks before her death, Rainy Day's mother tells her son the epic tale of Daring Do's ancestor.

Published 2012-06-28 00:04:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-10-11 03:00:28 UTC

Part i

With big thanks to Sgt_Byrd and NorsePony for pre-reading!

THE ADVENTURE
OF SILVER LINING

Some miles from Canterlot, in the light of the last streetlamp before the road was swallowed by the forest, a carriage came to a sudden halt. A few moments passed, and then the driver, an earth pony, opened the door and looked his passenger in the eyes.

“End of the line I’m afraid, missy,” he said. “Looks like they’re starting a few hours early this year.”

His passenger—a white mare dressed in a cloak—stared back at him. “Beg your pardon?” she said. “It’s not snowing yet.”

“But it will do soon, ah guarantee it. Come look for yourself why don’t yah?”

Frowning, the mare stuck her head out of the door and saw that the clouds were wild and angry, and ready to start dumping snow at a moment’s notice. The Canterlot weather team were known for priding themselves on their punctuality. They were never late, but more importantly neither were they early; somepony must have really messed things up for them to be so ahead of schedule...

The mare sighed. “So you’re not going to take me up.”

“Have no fear ma’am,” said the driver. “It so happens that we’ve just passed Trotbury. Stay the night in the inn, and I’ll take you the rest of the way in the morning.” He winked at the mare. “Me and the innkeeper, we go way back... I’ll get you a room for free, y’all just sit back an’ watch!”

The mare planted a hoof on her forehead. Arriving home in the morning simply wasn’t an option; in some ways though, the worst thing of all about this situation was that she could entirely sympathize with the stallion. It was dark. It was windy and cold, and dangerous. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to carry on. “I don’t want a room for free, I want to go home,” she said, trying her best to keep her irritation out of her voice—the driver deserved better than that. “What’s it gonna take? Enough bits to put you in a hotel for the night?”

“Well... well ah guess if—”

But what he guessed the mare never found out, for just then a fearsome gust of wind shook the nearby trees, rattled the carriage, and blew the hood off the driver’s head to reveal his grey mane, his tough old face. He stopped talking. He shook his head.

“Nope,” he said. “This here’s the end of the line. Ain’t taking another step up that there path, it ain’t worth the risk.”

“Look,” said the mare. “I promised my son that I’d be back to read him a story before his birthday tomorrow. He’s expecting me, he’s probably worried sick.”

The driver shook his head again. “Bedtime stories, they can wait. End of—”

“The line, yes, got it.” The mare took a deep breath. “I’ve gotta walk, haven’t I?”

The driver laughed. “You’re a pegasus ain’t you? How come yah don’t just fly?”

“With wind like this? In any case, I couldn’t fly even if I wanted to.”

“How d’you mean?” said the driver, raising an eyebrow. The mare gave him a wry smile. Taking off her cloak, she revealed her cutie mark—a pair of wings set on fire—and her real wings were wrapped in bandages. Understanding poured into the driver’s face. “Say, what happened to you?”

The mare shrugged. “Little fall,” she said in such a way as to make it clear she didn’t want to talk about it. “Look. You seem like a good guy. Are you absolutely sure you can’t carry on? I haven’t seen my family in two weeks now, and I don’t want to break a promise to my son on his birthday.”

Once more, the driver bit his lip. “How old’s he turning?”

“Six. He’s been looking forward to it for months.”

In the pause which followed, the driver glanced at his hooves, thinking to himself; but right at that moment there was another frightful gust of wind, and snow landed on his snout, and soon the air was full of little snowflakes falling down gently and illuminated by the streetlamp. They were the sort that warned you that this was just the start, that soon their bigger, heavier brothers would be on the way, and woe betide any pony who was caught out in the open.

“No sense to it I’m afraid,” the driver said, a hint of regret entering his voice. “Ah know it ain’t far, but nopony’s gonna know we’re out there. Stop ‘ere for the night. I’ll ever give you some o’ your money back.”

Now it was the mare’s turn to shake her head, and any lingering irritation she felt transformed into steely resolve. She narrowed her eyes as she turned her head to face the forest; all things considered, there wasn’t even a choice. If the driver wasn’t willing to take her the rest of the way than she was going to have to walk, because staying here the night wasn’t possible, not when her son needed her. She wasn’t going to risk missing his birthday. “Keep the money,” she said, firmly. “I’ve got a promise to keep.”

The stallion blinked. “... Yah not thinking about walking?”

“And why shouldn’t I? If a thousand hoof drop isn’t enough to get me then this’ll be nothing. No, listen,” she said before he could cut her off, or perhaps ask her what she meant by ‘thousand hoof drop.’ “I don’t even have to make it all the way to Canterlot, ‘cos I live a little outside of it. So keep your fee. I don’t blame you for staying down here.”

“But—”

“A promise is a promise,” said the mare as she threw her cloak back on and retrieved her saddlebag from underneath her seat. She stepped out of the carriage and stood tall, facing the darkness of the forest. The freezing wind blew her mane. She quivered. The hairs on her neck prickled.

“Mad,” said the driver. “Crazier than a bessie bug. It’ll be a blizzard before yah even know it, an’ you’ll be in the woods alone without a light.”

“Well that’s why you’re gonna to give me one, isn’t it,” she said, reaching into her saddle bag and handing the driver a hoofful of bits. He blinked at her again, more bewildered than ever.

“Are yer sure I can’t persuade you to—”

“I don’t care about the blizzard, I’m not staying in the inn. I’m keeping a promise to my son.”

Sensing that trying to talk sense into the mare was a fruitless task, the driver sighed, and then rummaged around in a trunk built into the back of the carriage. The mare could hear him mutter things such as ‘nutty’ and ‘has a screw loose.’ “Go as quick as yah can,” he warned her once he found the lantern. “I ain’t afraid to admit these here woods always give me the creeps, and so you be careful now, yah hear me?”

The mare nodded, giving him a reckless sort of grin, and with that she plunged herself into the darkness. It wasn’t long before the trees obscured the lamp light. She was alone.

Tomorrow was December the first, Rainy Day’s birthday, and nothing was going to stop her from being there the whole day for him, not darkness, not fear, not even the first snow of winter; and this year, the opening blizzard looked like it was going to be a doozey. She walked faster.

In Canterlot, First Snow wasn’t simply a big deal, but a massive deal. It was when the Hearth’s Warming decorations came out to transform the city into a winter wonderland. Every year, Rainy Day’s mother would take him to see the lights being switched on, and then they would stay for the festivities and celebrations, the hot chocolate, the roasted chestnuts. Winter had come. That meant cosy nights by the fire, cakes and stories and cheer.

“I’m coming, Rainy,” she said to herself as she walked up the mountain path, the trees swaying in the icy wind. Her breath misted in the light of the lantern; thank Celestia she wasn’t out in the open! The forest was so thick that even in winter it still provided good cover from the snowfall.

But though she was mostly covered from the snow, she could still hear it, a strange pitter-patter, a sound which was exactly halfway between unnerving and calming. The mare shivered; she’d never liked this sound, so she whispered a few lines from an old tune to herself to take her mind off it, a song her grandmother had used to sing to her as a lullaby, and very peculiar it was too. Her grandmother had grown up in an ancient, mountainous country far to the north of Trottingham, and the tune had been passed down from generation to generation and was sung in a language long forgotten. Though Rainy’s mother had no idea what the words actually meant, she didn’t care, because to her they meant comfort.

“Paid ag ofni, dim ond deilen,
Gura, gura ar y ddôr...”

A chill crept up her back. Brave as she may have been, nevertheless, it was hard not to imagine pairs of eyes staring at her in the darkness, ancient spirits and terrible monsters. The sooner she was resting by the fireplace with Rainy Day, the better.

“Paid ag ofni, ton fach unig
Sua, sua ar lan y môr.”

And as she sang these last few lines, at last the trees thinned out, and all of a sudden there was her house in the distance, standing alone on the outskirts of Canterlot next to a thicket of trees, one window lit up joyfully. Relief flooded through her body, warming her as though she’d trotted into a patch of sunlight. Home at last!

The house had small windows. Ivy grew up the white painted walls. It was old, supremely old, and it had an air of loneliness about it despite its proximity to Canterlot; but it also felt cosy. By the time Rainy’s mother walked down the garden path and knocked on the door, the snow was at least two hooves deep. She heard a clatter of hooves, the sound of a key, and then the door was opened by unicorn stallion with a dull brown coat and a dark mane. “Oh look,” he said in the driest voice he could muster. “Our champion returns.”

His eyes lingered on the mare’s wings. The corners of his mouth twitched like he was trying not to laugh...

“Yeah, I missed you too,” said the mare, rolling her eyes and sighing happily; what a relief it was to finally, finally be greeted like a normal pony! Ever since the accident in the Cloudsdale Wonderbolts tryouts, she’d been plagued by ponies talking to her in solemn voices and staring at her with grim looks—you would’ve sworn she was dying, so not to be treated this way by her husband was the greatest gift she could’ve asked of him.

Oh, how close she’d been to being accepted into the Wonderbolts! The pain of being rejected was worse by far than the pain in her wings and—

But she was home, home at last, and didn’t want to think about it; everything was about Rainy Day now and making his birthday something special. Taking off her saddlebag and throwing her cloak on a peg, she hungrily drew her husband into the tightest embrace she could manage and closed her eyes gently, relishing the feel of his coat against hers, and of his forelegs wrapped around her. For everything that had happened, it may as well have been a month since she last seen him as opposed to a fortnight.

Eventually, she let go of him and asked, “Rainy’s in bed?”

Her husband couldn’t suppress his laughter. “Hah! You seriously think he’s in bed? You don’t think, for instance, that he insisted on staying up for you no matter what just to make sure he got his bedtime story off you? No, Rainy’s in the living room passed out in front of the fire. I’d be careful about waking him up. The excitement would probably kill him.”

Walking through the corridor and into the living room, sure enough, the mare found her son fast asleep on the tatty rug, his mouth hanging open, his white mane and tail sprayed out over the floor and his grey wings twitching slightly. He was facing the window. He must’ve been waiting for hours to be in such a state; when his mother glanced at the grandfather clock it was almost eleven, far later than she’d realised.

And it seemed that she wasn’t the only pegasus with a story to tell: Rainy Day’s left wing was wrapped in bandages. She beamed at him. Her heart swelled with pride.

“Don’t tell me,” she whispered.

“Oh yeah, you know it” her husband whispered back with barely contained exasperation. “ ‘Wait until you mother comes home,’ I tell him, but does he listen? ‘Her lessons aren’t enough,’ he says, and the moment you turn you back on him, boomph! He’s out climbing the tallest tree he can find and chucking himself off it like there’s no tomorrow. I swear he’s going to be throwing himself off a cliff next.”

“Oh hush. Rainy’s got more sense than that.”

It was clear from the way he huffed how much sense Rainy’s father thought his son possessed, however he didn’t peruse the issue. Rainy’s mother knelt down beside the colt and placed a hoof on him.

Rainy Day was soaring alongside his mother, and he had earned his cutie mark, a cutie mark for flying! His mother turned to him. “Rainy,” she said, although for some reason her voice sounded far away, distant. “Rainy, wake up. Wake up, Rainy...”

The dream faded. The warmth of the fire washed over him, and he felt a dull ache in his wings and the cuts on his legs. After a few moments, he realised that somepony was kneeling down next to him.

He opened his eyes.

The fireplace was blurry. The room seemed huge and his head throbbed. Everything was too bright, too loud. His eyelids were made of lead, and laying back down and falling asleep would’ve been the easiest thing in the world; however, something was different. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he turned around and saw white hooves, a white coat and white wings. There was that familiar, fiery cutie mark he knew so well, along with that loving face which managed to make him forget his tiredness in an instant. “M-mom?”

“Bandages again, huh?” said his mother. “You really have a knack for getting yourself into these situations, don’t ya? Hmm?”

She grinned at him, and a second later he shot up and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his face against her coat roughly. His eyes watered but he didn’t care: Mom was home! She was home, and these last two weeks, sending her letters but not being able to speak to her... he shuddered to think about it. It was as though a dark rift that had been tearing itself open inside of him was suddenly sealed shut.

“You’re really cold, Mom!”

“If I’d stayed outside any longer I would’ve turned into a snowpony. I’m not even joking; that’s exactly what happens.”

Rainy giggled, reluctantly letting go of his mother as the mare stood up. “How are your wings feeling?” she asked him.

He glanced at them proudly. “They sting, Mom.”

“How tragic. I guess I’ll just have to cut ‘em off, that’ll sort out the problem.”

Rainy Day gasped, but his mom was still grinning. Young though he was, already he had learnt that only half of what she said was sincere, and that the other half was always said with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.

“Right,” she said. “Bedtime. Chop-chop.”

“But Mom—”

“But nothing, young stallion. It’s past eleven and you should be in bed. Dad tells me you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet! You’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow.”

Sensing that all the pouting in the world wouldn’t make even a shred of difference, Rainy Day marched past his mom and dad into the corridor, and up the wooden stairs to go and brush his teeth. After putting his Daring Do toothbrush back in the holder, he trotted up one more flight of stairs to his bedroom in the attic, leaving the door wide open for his mom to follow.

The attic. That old, dusty, dirty attic...

In spring, the wailing of the wind would keep him awake. In summer, it was too hot. In autumn, the rain beat down upon the roof, and in winter it was so cold that sometimes, in the mornings, his breath would mist in front of his face. But none of these things mattered to him because, his mom aside, more than anything else in the world, more than exploring, more than his wings, Rainy Day loved his bedroom in the attic; it was easy to bear the pain in his wings and legs when his bed was waiting for him. The floorboards and the rafters were bare. With his hand-me-down bed, the second-hoof wooden furniture and the odd bits and pieces that his parents stored up here—chests, suitcases, board games, jewellery, Hearth’s Warming decorations, and even a worn-out piano—it was easy to imagine that this wasn’t a bedroom at all but instead a smuggler’s cave in a far off land. It was a dragon’s den atop a lonely mountain. It was a shipwreck filled with treasure. The room was whatever Rainy Day needed it to be, and his privite sanctuary away from the world.

“How are you feeling now?” asked Mom as she shut the door behind her, switching off the main light. Rainy Day turned on his bedside lamp and sat up in bed. He flexed his wings, sending a shiver of pain shooting through him; but less than an hour from now he would be six years old, six! Who cared if his wings hurt?

“Fine,” he said, brightly. “I’m fine. I could take on a dragon!”

He looked up, but Mom didn’t look back, instead staring out of the window. “Rainy, look,” she whispered. “They’ve started early this year, did you notice?”

Rainy blinked, and then gazed curiously at the familiar view out of the window beside his bed. Some way above them, the lights of Canterlot gleamed like jewels on the mountainside, a thousand lights shimmering in the darkness, all different colours, oranges and yellows, blues, and here and there a few dashes of purple and red; all half-obscured behind the tall trees next to his house, but this served to make the sight even more magical. It made the attic seem private and hidden from the outside world, as though it was in the centre of a forest.

And it was snowing.

Rainy had fallen asleep long before it had started, and of course he’d been much too thrilled by his mom’s return to pay attention to anything that was going on outside the windows. Now, he watched as flakes of snow gathered on his windowsill; and outside, the world was a particular sort of quiet that only snowfall at night could conjure up, a type of silence that was hard to define but which was very much real: it was like the world was holding its breath as it was transformed into a giant canvas. Come morning, the possibilities would be endless.

His mother whispered in his ear, “Snowponies in the morning, I think, and a snow fort. We’re gonna go all out this year, it’s gonna be brilliant.”

Rainy carried on staring out of his window. “Yeah,” he said flatly, his wonder draining as quickly as it had appeared. “Brilliant.”

Though Rainy Day loved snow, he hated that he shared his birthday with the first day of winter, hated it, hated it, hated it! Seeing those first little flakes lit up by his lamp, Rainy found it hard to keep the disappointment out of his voice, and, what a confusing mixture of feelings he had! There was love for his mother and delight that she was home, but he also felt crushing tiredness, and the thought of First Snow was making him upset... his head started to ache once more.

Of all the days in the year, why was his birthday December the first? Why not the second of December or the thirtieth of November? Rainy Day thought about his cousin Summer Delight: Summer had been born halfway through August, which, as far as Rainy was concerned, was the perfect time to have a birthday. To his soon-to-be-six-year-old year old mind, December meant First Snow and Hearth’s Warming. August, by contrast, meant hay fries and long summer evenings, and fun. Summer Delight always had a wonderful, special day all to himself. Rainy Day, on the other hoof, was supremely aware that his special day would always be overshadowed by something larger...

“What’s wrong, darling?” said his mother, placing a hoof on his shoulder. “You’re so quiet tonight. Aren’t you looking forward to tomorrow?”

“How... how come my birthday’s on First Snow?”

“You’ve never asked me this before, dear.”

“... I was just wondering...”

Mom sat on the bed right next to him, and placed a hoof on him. “But you weren’t ‘just wondering’, were you?” she said. “This actually bothers you, doesn’t it?”

Rainy Day gulped. A gust of wind pounded against the window and the roof—being in the attic, it sounded ferocious—and all the while his mom gazed at him sadly. He looked back, his cheeks hot, his stomach cold. He was hugely aware again of how tender his wings felt, of how painful his cuts were.

Mom leaned closer to him. “I thought you were proud that your birthday was on First Snow,” she said, her usual mischievous smile returning. “I wish that my birthday was on First Snow. It’s good luck, don’t ya know?”

Rainy’s ears perked up. “It, it is?”

“Well of course it is! Think about it: you live in a good house, have a loving family... what more could you ask for? Don’t ya know how many ponies would love to have such a killer date to have their birthday on?”

Rainy Day listened with rapt attention, sitting up straight and pulling his blanket up over himself as much as was possible. But he still wasn’t convinced. “You’re, you’re just saying that.”

For a few seconds, his mom seemed lost in thought—Rainy could see it in her eyes and at the way she glanced to the Daring Do clock on the wall: quarter past eleven. Though she’d had every intention of reading him a story, that had been before she’d realised what the time was, and the only reason she was up here now was to give a goodnight kiss for his birthday.

But...

But something felt different tonight, and Rainy could feel it in his hooves. He was sure his mother could sense it to—a nervous kind of energy, like electricity in the air around them. Rainy’s mother faced him once more, her face screwed up; it was late, oh so late, but then again she hadn’t walked up the mountain alone for nothing...

“You know what? I’m going to tell you a story my mom told me when I was little,” she said, “and then you’ll never feel bad about being born on First Snow ever again. Promise. Super promise.”

For the second time in as many minutes, Rainy’s ears perked up. It had been a while since his mom had told her a story without reading from a book, and for as much as he loved hearing about Daring Do’s adventures, these were always his favourite sort of tales. A tremor of joy travelled through him as he sat there in his smuggler’s cave, for the moment forgetting his anxieties about First Snow and listening to the wind pound against the window and the roof. He pulled his blanket over himself a little more. Sinking into his pillow, he watched his mother in the light of his bedside lamp. What a perfect night for telling stories.

A perfect night, in fact, for Rainy’s mother to tell him the last story he would ever hear from her before her death three days later, in the Great Airship Disaster of Canterlot. Rainy Day would never, ever forget this story; every single word would stay with him for the rest of his life.

Part ii

“A long time ago,” Rainy’s mother began, “before your grandmother’s time, and her grandmother’s grandmother’s time, there was a young filly—”

“Was it Daring Do?” Rainy asked. Before he had finished speaking, he felt his face burning; hadn’t his mom made it clear that this story took place hundreds of years ago? Nevertheless, a look of pure ‘why-the-hell-not’ passed over the mare’s face.

“You’re close,” she said with a grin. “It was her great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, and she looked exactly like her! She had the same red eyes and everything, the same dark mane and the same brown coat... but she didn’t have her cutie mark yet, and this is the story of how she got it.”

It was so like his mom to take his silly question and weave it into her story so seamlessly. His face still hot, he smiled with anticipation, vowing to himself not to interrupt her again, not unless it was necessary.

“Where were we? Now, Daring’s grandmother didn’t live in Hoofington nor work in the university there. She didn’t even live in Equestria. No, she lived in a desert country miles and miles away, past the Everfree Forest, past where Manehatten is today and all the way over the ocean. It was a tough, barren place was that desert. There was hardly any water. Neither was there such a thing as snow, and the closest the local foals ever got to making snow angels was sand angels, and they didn’t have snowball fights but instead dust fights. Which for what it was, was fine, but sand and dust are no proper substitutes for snow.

“In any case, it didn’t matter, for Daring’s grandmother—Silver Lining was her name—never got the chance to join in anyway.”

“How come?” said Rainy Day without thinking.

“Because Silver Lining was an orphan,” his mom explained, “and the pegasi she called mother and father... well, they would’ve described themselves as sensible and practical, but in truth they were neither of these things. They were rotten, rotten from the wings on their backs right the way through to their bones.

“‘Scrub the floors,’ they would snap, and Silver Lining would have to scrub and scrub them until they were spotless. ‘Clean the house, wash the cart, wash, clean, cook, wash, clean, cook,’ and if Silver Lining refused then they would lock her in her room until she learnt her lesson. Every day from dawn ‘til dusk she would have to work whilst her adopted parents, who were very rich—rich enough that they could’ve easily employed servants on handsome wages—would sort out business in the nearby town. And very shady business it was too, lots of ponies in dark coats speaking in hushed voices about stolen goods, but Silver kept her mouth shut. If she blabbed and got her parents put away in jail, then surely it would've been the streets or the orphanage for her; and maybe if she’d lived elsewhere than she would’ve gladly accepted the change, except in those parts... it was best not to think about it. Better to be locked away for a month or more than to spend a single day on the streets or in the nearest orphanage.”

“But why didn’t she just fly away if they were so mean to her?” asked Rainy Day, his promise to himself not to interrupt forgotten.

“Well she did think about it, all the time in fact,” said Mom, “deep down, Silver Lining knew she didn’t belong in that world. Out there was another life waiting to be discovered. It was just a case of where to look.”

Rainy Day leant forward in bed, hooked on his mother’s every word.

“You see, Rainy, despite what her adopted parents said, Silver Lining was almost certain she didn’t come from that part of the world. She had... she had a memory, or to be precise the shadow of a memory, a faint, fuzzy image that might not even have been real; perhaps it was no more than a half-forgotten dream. In it, it was night time and she was tiny, and she was shivering underneath a streetlamp next to a magnificent castle that rose up into the night, its towers swallowed by darkness. She was with a mare that she liked to imagine was her real mother, and from the sky was falling... whatever it was, it was so peculiar that it was half the reason she was convinced the memory wasn’t real. It was like rain, but so cold that it had turned into ice but so light that it didn’t seem to fall so much as float. Outside of her dreams, Silver Lining had only ever seen ice once, and that had been when a travelling fair had come to town.

“’There’s no such thing,’ her adopted parents spat at her when one day she finally told them the story and about the strange ice which fell from the sky. ‘There’s no such thing as snow.’”

“B-but wait,” said Rainy Day breathlessly. “If they didn’t want her to know about snow, why did they tell her what it was called?”

His mom winked at him. “A lucky slip of the tongue,” she explained. “And though Silver Lining was careful not to let on, the instant they said the word ‘snow’ she had never been happier in all her life, ‘cos she knew then that it wasn’t her imagination at all, it was real, her dreams were real! And she knew her fake parents were more than rich enough that they wouldn’t miss her. She sure wouldn’t miss them.

“The time had come: she was going to run away. Her heart beat like a drum. Her forehead dripped with sweat, and she tapped a hoof nervously on the floor, her body feeling icy cold. She was absolutely petrified that her parents would sense she was up to something.”

“Where was she going to run away to?” Rainy Day whispered. He was having trouble making everything fit together in his mind. Even if Silver Lining knew that the castle was a real place, how would she know where to go?

“The ocean,” said his mom. “They lived right near the ocean, yet for as long as Silver Lining could remember, her adopted parents had warned her to stay far away from it. ‘Why?’ she would often ask. And sometimes they would ignore her. Other times, they would give her baffling excuses.

“‘It’s too dangerous,’ they might say. ‘We can’t have our precious daughter being eaten by sea monsters.’

“‘It’s too wet. You’ll get sand stuck to your coat, and it’ll never ever come out.’

“‘It’s too salty. Don’t you know that if a pegasus gets salt water on her wings then the salt makes the feathers stick together so that you can never fly again?’

“It was this last reason more than any other that made Silver Lining suspicious, for she was too clever by half for her parents; if salt water was so dangerous then why live near the sea? Thinking about their flimsy excuses strengthened her resolve. The last straw was when she was locked in her room once more for daring to ask about snow.”

Rainy Day’s mom grinned at him making the little colt’s heart skipped a beat, and he didn’t dare to breathe for fear that he might miss a word or two.

“That night, so quietly that even the sharpest eared pony would’ve been hard pressed to hear her, Silver Lining picked the lock of her room, because for the first time in her life she knew where she was heading. She crept to her parents’ door, pressed an ear against it: there, her father’s snoring, and her mom was whinnying in her sleep. Silver wiped the sweat from her forehead. She was safe.

“Sneaking down the corridor, Silver took enormous care not to step on the creaky floorboards. Then, in the kitchen, she placed into a saddlebag two loaves of bread, a bottle of water and a stick of celery. A minute later she opened the big, heavy front door incredibly slowly, trying to ignore the beads of sweat trickling down her face; when they splashed on the floor they sounded, to her, worse than the clattering of hammers.

Eventually, the door was open enough that she could slip through it. Bathed in the light of the moon she trotted out of the house into the sand. Then she ran. She ran as fast as her little legs would take her! She didn’t look back, she didn’t dare look back. All the while she expected her parents to swoop out of the sky and carry her kicking and screaming back to her room to lock her away forever. No sun. No friends. No nothing.

“‘Keep running,’ Silver Lining said to herself under her breath. ‘You’ve gotta keep running!’”

Rainy Day’s mother said this so quickly that she had to take a few seconds to catch her breath, almost as though she had just run across the desert herself. In the silence, Rainy Day noticed a cold draft coming from somewhere, so he pulled his blanket over himself a bit more and folded his hooves. It was a delicious feeling sitting there in the bed listening to his mother’s story as the snowstorm battered the house and rattled his window.

“At first,” his mom said once she’d recovered, “her plan had been to lay low, and at the crack of dawn find somepony in town who’d be willing to lend her a boat—her parents were very respected, and were she to say to a pony that they’d be paid afterwards, she was sure she’d get away with it.

“However, when at last she saw the ocean stretching before her in the moonlight, Silver Lining panicked. What if her parents had already woken up? What if tonight was the one night when they wouldn’t sleep soundly? The more she thought things over, the more worried she became and the faster her heart beat. She hadn’t covered her tracks! She’d stolen from them, and hadn’t given the slightest clue that she was leaving forever!

“There was a little sailboat lying on the beach. A breeze ruffled Silver’s mane. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the taste of salt heavy in the air, the promise of adventure all around her. ‘You can do this’, she whispered to herself, although a small, impish little voice speaking from a shadowy part of her mind reminded her that it wasn’t too late to turn back and avoid the wrath of her adopted parents.”

Rainy Day fiddled with the blanket, struggling not to interrupt the story yet again; however, it was hard. He so desperately wanted to tell his mother each and every reason why Silver Lining shouldn’t turn back.

“Gathering all her courage, Silver Lining marched up to the boat. Who did it belong to? Didn’t this count as stealing?”

Rainy Day couldn’t contain himself anymore. He let go of the blanket and said, “It’s, it’s not stealing when it’s for something good! Silver Lining shouldn’t feel bad about—”

Rainy stopped, his cheeks becoming so hot that had the window been opened to let snowflakes blow into his bedroom, he suspected that they would’ve melted before even touching his face. To his relief, Mom smiled warmly. She didn’t appear to care that he kept on interrupting the story; if anything, she seemed to enjoy it.

“Exactly,” she said with a nod. “But Silver felt bad about it all the same, though more than anything else she felt incredible excitement! She had only been on a boat twice in her life—both on land, and one of those boats had been a wreck—yet now she was going to sail to the country full of snow and where a castle and her real parents awaited her. As she threw her weight against the back of the boat, grunting and pushing it into the water, she realised with a pang of guilt that she might never see her adopted parents again. In the morning they would wake up and then go to wake her up... except... except the only traces they would find would be hoofsteps in the sand. They would never work her until her bones ached ever again. They would never again beat her, hurl her in her room, call her vicious names and never praise her...

“Silver Lining beamed. In an instant, everything changed: she was stealing the boat, but so what? Though she wouldn’t feel completely happy until she was out at sea, she could sense her coming relief, like the early morning sun rising up from below the horizon. It would be the most incredible feeling ever and it was within her grasp!

“The water lapped against her hooves. Feeling lighter than air, she hopped into the boat, and then the breeze picked up, and then the water started to carry the boat away, and for the first time Silver saw what the desert looked like from the ocean: there was the town with its two piers and all those shabby looking buildings lit up by the moon; and a little way further out was the grand old house that she had always struggled to call home. Everything she had ever known was laying there under the stars.

“... Then it was gone.

“Her stomach jolted. Like a trickle snow which tumbles down a mountainside, gaining power and transforming into a full blown avalanche, a rush of feelings crashed down on her, suffocating her. It was too late to turn back, and what if this was the wrong thing to do? And she wasn’t sure if it was because of the exhilaration of running away, or the fear that she was wrong and nothing lay beyond the sea other than a waterfall cascading endlessly into a void, but Silver Lining lay down on the floor of the boat and hugged herself, trying with all her might not to cry... at the end of the day, her adopted parents had raised her, hadn’t they?”

“But badly,” Rainy Day said. “They didn’t deserve her.”

“Hah! Quite,” said Mom. “But what was done was done. Silver could no more back out of this adventure than swap her wings for a unicorn horn.”

Something in his mom’s eyes made Rainy Day’s guts squirm, for the expression on her face was sad, mournful; a look to match the frightful weather. The wind grew louder. The sound of it blowing through the trees was like the wailing of banshees, and it chilled Rainy, made his hair stand on end and made him quiver. His lamp flickered. All of a sudden, his room didn’t feel so cosy anymore.

Before he could voice his worries, his mom carried on. “So here Silver Lining was in the middle of the ocean, half elated that she was free, half terrified that she would die out here, and entirely stunned that she had found the guts to go through with this. She sailed all through the night and all through the day, the waves making her feel queasy, and more than once she had to stick her head over the side of the boat just in case she threw up, ‘cos believe you me, Rainy, even at its gentlest the sea can feel pretty rough for somepony who’s never been on it before. The glare of the sun on the water made her feel sick as well, and gave her a tremendous headache. ‘Don’t fall asleep, alright?’ she kept on warning herself. ‘Don’t fall asleep. You mustn’t fall asleep. You mustn’t.’

“Eventually, when evening arrived after what felt like weeks of sailing, she couldn’t help herself: she put her head down to rest her eyes for a second, but passed out almost instantly from tiredness. She was fast asleep. She was sailing blind.

“When she woke up, she had sailed into the heart of a storm.”

Rainy Day gripped his blanket tightly in his hooves, his mind swimming and his aching wings twitching from nerves. “What happened next?” he said in a small voice.

“What d’ya think happened?” his mom replied grimly. “A filly with no experience of sailing? Zilch? Nada? Within ten minutes of waking up, Silver’s boat was flipped over, her saddlebag of food was swept away, and there was nothing she could do but hold on with all her might to the overturned hull of her boat. The water lashed against her coat. It battered her, beat her, drenched her; she was freezing. Never before had she wanted to scream so much as she did then, yet the storm even stole that last tiny freedom away, for every time she opened her mouth it was filled with seawater.

“This was it. This was the price of following her heart and running away: Silver Lining was going to drown.

“‘Yet I’d rather die out here alone,’ she thought to herself fiercely, ‘than turn back and spend another day where I don’t belong. I’d rather die than go back to my fake parents who don’t love me.’”

Rainy Day didn’t dare interrupt again, and he could scarcely hear the blizzard anymore; it wasn’t important. As far as he was concerned, in that moment, all that existed was his mom’s voice and Silver Lining’s life hanging in the balance.

“It was a small comfort,” said Mom, “but the sure and certain knowledge that she would rather drown than go back home gave her strength. Narrowing her eyes, she dragged herself further up the upturned hull to get a better hoofhold. Twice the waves knocked her back, but twice she gritted her teeth and tried again more determined than ever. She would see snow, she would, she would! She would touch it, taste it, smell it. She would let it settle on her coat and listen to it falling. What sound would it make? It wouldn’t be like rain; that much she was sure of. In the desert, it rained precisely five times a year, and the sound was harsh, like stones smashing on the tough, dry ground. Silver Lining imaged that snow would be soft and light. A sleepy sound. A quiet sound, and her real parents—”

Rainy Day gasped as a thought came to him. “She’s going to find her real parents?!”

Mom smiled. “Don’t jump ahead,” she said. “But yeah, so Silver Lining sighed happily as she thought about standing in the snow with her real parents, but at the same time her stomach felt every bit as rough as the ocean around her, and she trembled from the cold. In that instant, she knew that nopony was coming to save her. All she had left to hold on to was her upturned boat and a bond with ponies she couldn’t even remember.

“But then... then she very almost let go of the hull from fright, for the storm was changing. Thunder boomed. Lightning flashed before her eyes, except it was coming from the ocean!”

“T-the ocean?” Rainy asked, his eyes wide and focused entirely on his mother.

“That’s right, the ocean!” said Mom. “Forks of lightning shot out from beneath the waves and licked the sky, and they all emerged from a single spot some twenty hooves in front of her, a spot where the waves were beginning to glow green, like the colour of seaweed when the sun shines behind it. The patch of light grew larger. For a moment, Silver Lining considered letting go of the hull to attempt to swim away; a mad idea, so thank Celestia that sheer wonder and terror glued her to the spot and pushed those insane thoughts aside. Silver stared transfixed as the light grew brighter. Only the spray of the waves kept her jaw from dropping in awe.

“From the centre of the light, something huge burst through the surface of the water, something gargantuan. The sight made her feel utterly tiny, more so than the storm raging around her, the mountainous waves, the brutal sea and the inky dark clouds above her head. Silver was sure that it would be the last sight she would ever see.”

Rainy Day’s head filled with images of monsters, rows of razor sharp teeth, snakelike tentacles and sea serpents with uncaring eyes. “What was it?” he said, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

“A goddess,” Mom whispered back. “A goddess of the ocean who had heard Silver Lining’s thoughts, and they enraged her. For you see, she had recognised Silver straight away and so had whipped up the storm in order to claim another soul for the deep; and most ponies would’ve given up the fight by now, so the filly’s continued refusal to give up and let the waves carry her to her doom was simply infuriating.”

A horrible, peculiar question entered Rainy Day’s head. “How did the goddess recognise her if Silver had never been on the ocean before?”

“I’m getting to that, don’t worry.”

“Then... then what did the goddess look like?”

“Like Princess Celestia,” answered Mom, “but bigger than a house and made out of water, and her eyes didn’t have pupils, and where her heart should have been there was a ball of light, a vivid green and brighter than a full moon. ‘Why haven’t you let go yet?’ the goddess asked, her voice putting Silver Lining in mind of the deepest trench at the bottom of the ocean—she’d read about such places in books.

“It was an odd question to say the least, not what Silver Lining had been expecting at all. She studied the goddess’ watery mouth, which was large enough that it could swallow a grown pony whole. Silver’s heart sank. What chance did she have against this beast?

“Yet she wasn’t going down without a fight. ‘What do you mean why haven’t I let go yet?’ said Silver, though with difficulty ‘cos of the waves and the spray and the wind and stuff. ‘Are you as stupid as you look?’

“The goddess stamped a hoof on the water. ‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with, foal.’

“‘I’m dealing with a dumb looking pony who asks stupid questions,’ said Silver, smugly. ‘So there. I know exactly who I’m dealing with.’

“‘Let go of the boat.’

“‘No!’

“‘Let go! You should’ve joined your parents at the bottom of the ocean years ago...’

Like a ship plunging into the deep, Rainy felt his heart sink like Silver’s had done. He couldn’t believe where his mom’s story had wound up. He didn’t want to believe it. He was Rainy Day, whose best friend in all the world was his own mother! She was the pony who told him bedtime stories. She was the one who would always drop everything just to be with him: Rainy Day couldn’t imagine anything so dreadful as losing his parents.

“For a second time, Silver Lining almost let the waves wash her away,” said Rainy’s mom, “‘cos she was stunned. The goddess’ heart lit up brighter than ever before, and then...

“The goddess must have been using magic on her, Silver reasoned, for suddenly her mind was full of pictures: she was a baby on a great wooden ship. Earth ponies manning the decks, pegasi flew amongst the rigging, and there was a unicorn at the helm. Silver herself was wrapped in blankets and being looked after by a grey pegasus mare, her mother; and it was the storm of the century. Sheets of rain lashed the ship. Waves as big as hills smashed into the sides. ‘Hold steady!’ the captain shouted, but for nothing, for that’s when the lightning struck the mast. As if in slow motion, it began to fall.

“The next thing Silver knew she was all alone in a lifeboat; where her mother was now was a mystery, like the memory of what had happened between then and now was so unspeakably awful that even the goddess’ magic wasn’t strong enough to coax it out from the darkest corners of Silver’s mind: it was enough to know that whatever had happened, it had claimed her mom’s life. Baby Silver was wailing. Nopony was responding...

“Then Silver Lining gasped as she snapped out of her long lost memories, confronted once again with the goddess of the ocean. She didn’t care that she was going to drown. All she cared about was the anger coursing through her veins; pure, unadulterated anger that made her vision red, her blood boil and her stomach scorching.

“‘I haven’t let go,’ she said to the goddess in the calmest voice she could summon, ‘because my parents wouldn’t want me to. Just because I can’t see them it doesn’t mean they’ve left me.’”

Rainy Day gaped at Silver Lining’s nerve. What was she thinking? Surely the goddess could destroy her boat with no effort at all, or eat her or hold her under the water until she drowned...

“I know what you’re thinking,” Rainy’s mom told him, “and Silver thought exactly the same: she didn’t care. As expected, the goddess roared and charged towards the boat, the most frightening sight Silver Lining had ever known... but she didn’t scream. She didn’t close her eyes. She didn’t want to give the monster the satisfaction.”

Rainy Day bitterly wished that he hadn’t left his stuffed griffon doll at Summer Delight’s house when they had visited there a few days previously. He would’ve hugged Mom, except he was afraid that she’d stop telling the story in order to return the embrace.

He jumped as his mom smacked her hooves together. “Smash!” she shouted. “The boat exploded into a thousand pieces as the goddess stamped down on it with all the power of the ocean, and the force of it knocked the breath out of Silver’s lungs and threw her high into the air. The last thing she felt was her back smacking against the water. The last thing she remembered was the face of her real mother in the eye of her mind, almost as if she was really there.”

“She, she can’t die,” wailed Rainy Day, tears welling up in his eyes. His stomach squirmed, and sweat trickled down his forehead. He wiped it away with a hoof. “You’ve gotta change the story, you can’t let her die!”

“Hush now you daft pegasus,” Mom said firmly. “I haven’t finished yet.”

Rainy Day blushed. “S-sorry,” he said, shuffling in bed and pulling the blanket over himself a bit more as if somehow it would hide his embarrassment. Mom ruffled his mane.

“Now, despite her circumstances, Silver Lining had always thought of herself as being a lucky pegasus.”

“Wh-what? Why?” asked Rainy.

“Because in many ways, she kind of was.”

Rainy shook his head. “But, but her adopted parents were mean to her!”

“But at least they gave her a place to live and food to eat. That’s more than a lot of ponies have.”

“But they locked her in her room!”

Mom sighed. “True enough, however in spite of everything that had happened to her, in other ways, Silver Lining was a lucky pegasus, because somepony was watching out for her. And there was no other time in her life when this was truer than it was now.”

Rainy Day furrowed his eyebrows, fully wrapping his blanket around himself to form a snug little cocoon. A tremor ran through him as he looked at his mother, and was met with a mysterious smile.

“The goddess, satisfied that Silver Lining was a goner, dived back into the depths of the ocean leaving the filly for dead. Silver was tossed around like a rag doll. Her lungs filled with water. She had minutes left, if that.

“But then, if a pony had been watching her, they would’ve seen a remarkable sight: an unexpected break in the clouds, from which burst a ray of light like a sword cutting through the rain and the sea spray. It landed precisely on Silver Lining. It made her face and her mane glisten ‘cos of how wet she was.

“As fast as it had appeared, the light was blocked out by the clouds; but now, standing on the water by Silver Lining was a pegasus pony, the most beautiful mare you ever saw in your life and clearly not of this world. Her coat was pale and she was see-through. Like the goddess before her, her eyes lacked pupils and they glowed white, and her mane and tail were made of mist. She had a regal look about her, like a princess, or maybe an angel; it was in the way she held herself tall and proper even as the storm raged around her.”

“Silver’s mom?” whispered Rainy Day.

His mom winked. “The pegasus spirit wasted no time,” she said, ignoring her son’s question. “She knelt down, picked Silver Lining up and placed her on her back, and then she ran. She galloped over the ocean, over the waves, never stopping for breath, never blinking. For hours she ran, right out of the storm, and even then she carried on running. The whole while, Silver Lining was out cold. Only when they were in sight of land did the spirit slow down, and only once it was within swimming distance of a beach did it finally place the filly back in the water. In the blink of an eye, the mare was gone. Other than Silver Lining herself, there was no hint the spirit had been there or that anything remotely out of the ordinary had just happened.

“And when Silver Lining awoke washed up on the beach, the first thing she did—and I’m not going to lie, this isn’t pleasant—was threw up.”

“Eww,” said Rainy, sticking out his tongue and shaking his hooves, but he did it with a smile which grew and grew until he was beaming. At long last he allowed himself to fully enjoy the warmth of his blanket. He relaxed in the softness of his pillows and the comfort of his sheets, and remembered the cuts on his legs and wings; compared to what Silver Lining had gone through, they were nothing, not least because he had his mom to make things better.

Through the window, the snow had become so thick that it didn’t so much resemble snowfall as it did an impenetrable wall of white lit up by his bedside lantern, yet the knowledge that it was freezing cold outside made his bed seem all the comfier. Rainy Day breathed in deeply. It was the end of the story. That meant Silver Lining was going to experience snow for the first time...

“She threw up,” Mom repeated, “and it took her a good minute or two to convince herself she wasn’t dead and that it hadn’t been a dream. The sand, you see, made her think of home, and of being beaten... but two things persuaded her that this was really happening. The first was the trees. She was in a little bay, and trees grew at the top of the cliffs and weeds clung to the rocks. Never before had she seen so much greenery!

“The second thing came a few minutes later, just as Silver’s thoughts were turning to her new predicament. She had no food, no water, and no money. She’d been washed ashore a strange land and was battered and bruised. One of her wings was crumped. Now she was aware of it, the agony was almost unbearable, as though it was on fire.

“‘But I’m not dead’, she told herself, ‘and if I can live through that voyage I can do anything. There’s nothing to hold me back...’

“And then it happened.”

“Her cutie mark?” whispered Rainy Day, almost trembling with excitement.

“Her cutie mark,” Mom said with a nod. “Silver yelped as she felt the strangest feeling, a tingling sensation like nothing she had experienced before; all she could think to compare it to was icy water being poured on her flanks, yet even that didn’t properly describe this feeling, this strange, glorious, scary, wondrous feeling. She turned her head round sharply, and gasped.

“And the moment Silver Lining laid eyes on her cutie mark, she fell in love with it. It was of three little clouds, each a deep, dark grey. A ray of light poked through them, and the light made the clouds look as though they were laced with silver: she was Silver Lining! She never gave up, and she could see the good in any situation. After the shock of finding herself on the beach, this, a moment she had dreamed about her whole life, was almost overwhelming. She was tired. She was battered and bruised, had barely eaten since running away and hadn’t had anything to drink in almost a day. Silver fell to her knees. Her mind was spinning. Her eyes watered from this storm of feelings, and her vision blurred, and she felt as though she would pass out.

“However, she forced herself to keep going, and she climbed to the top of the nearest cliff; it was all she could do not to turn around and spend the rest of forever admiring her cutie mark. And at the top of the cliff she found a house, and it was such a relief to see a real house again that it single-hoofedly made her entire ordeal worth it. She knocked on the door once, twice, three times. She kept on knocking until an earth pony opened it for her.

“Then she allowed herself to collapse.

“When she woke up, it was in a bed so soft and comfortable that for the second time she was convinced she had died and gone to heaven. The sheets were made of silk, her pillows were plump, and the room was neither too hot nor too cold. The curtains were drawn. She could’ve been anywhere.

“Silver Lining rested her head on the pillows, staring at the ceiling, thinking, because something was bothering her: why hadn’t she drowned? Instinct told her that she had been weeks away from washing up on a distant shoreline. What had happened? Why was she here?”

“Didn’t she know about her mother?” whispered Rainy Day, a lump in his throat and a sickly sensation in his chest. Though he already knew the answer to the question, he wished that it could have been different.

Mom sighed. “Not even a clue,” she said, “yet in her heart she had a feeling that somepony had been watching over for her... not that she could explain it, not even to herself, but how else could she have survived? It didn’t seem likely to her that it was down to chance and dumb luck. Silver glanced at her ray-of-light cutie mark.

“‘Thank you’, she whispered, although she wasn’t sure who she was speaking to. Warmth crept into her cheeks. Silver was extremely thankful that she was alone.

“But not for long. Somepony opened the door: Princess Celestia!”

“What happened then, what happened then?” Rainy asked hurridly.

“Well,” Mom replied. “The princess explained that Silver Lining was in Canterlot castle, and that more importantly she was safe, and that a particular friend of her parents had already agreed to let her live with him.”

Rainy Day raised an eyebrow. “How did Celestia know who Silver’s parents were?”

“Well that’s just the thing, isn’t it?” said Mom. “It would’ve been stranger if she hadn’t known them, ‘cos as former heads of the Canterlot weather team, Silver Lining’s parents had been two of the most respected pegasi in town! Celestia explained everything. She told Silver about how an accident had taken her father’s life before she had even been born, and about how shortly afterwards her mother had taken her away on a ship. It had never been heard from again. The unfortunate souls on-board had all been presumed lost... until now, that is.

“‘You mean me?’ Silver asked Princess Celestia, although it wasn’t really a question. Was she really the only survivor? She must’ve been, because any others would’ve shown up by now...

“Silver sat in silence for the longest time, starring at her new cutie mark... then at last, she gulped and spoke, and recounted her own story back to Celestia. The princess scowled when Silver told her about her adopted parents. She smiled when Silver told her about stealing the boat. When the filly explained about the goddess, the princess’ expression was thoughtful and solemn.”

“And then what?” asked Rainy Day, feeling as though he’d missed a step in the dark. Where did First Snow come into all this?

“And then that was that. Silver Lining began her new life in Canterlot with her parents’ friend, who owned a quill shop in town and who was the nicest pony you could ever hope to meet. She had her own bedroom, and the door was never locked, and although she worked long hours in the shop it was because she chose to. She grew up to be a very successful pegasus did Silver Lining, a fine young mare and a superb flier.

“But I’m getting ahead of myself here. All of that stuff was yet to come, and before she left her room in the tower on that first, precious day, Princess Celestia had one last surprise for her: it was from the weather team. Upon hearing that the long lost daughter of two of Canterlot’s most legendary weather keepers had returned, many of them had insisted that they do something special for her, anything, anything at all, be it grant her the perfect sunny day or else treat her to whatever she wanted.”

“She chose snow, didn’t she?” said Rainy, a smile spreading across his face as at last everything fell into place. This is what the whole story had been leading up to, a revelation to put his mind at ease and help make him feel better about being born on First Snow. The thing was, however, he wasn’t sure he especially cared about that anymore. First Snow or not, he had his home. He had his room in the attic, his bed, his pillows, his blanket, and the knowledge that in many ways he was a very lucky pegasus. He had his mother, who was his best friend; his mother who loved him with all her heart and more.

“Got it in one,” said Mom. “Yeah, Silver Lining asked for snow, saying that she had never seen it before—or rather, that she had been so small when she’d seen it last that it didn’t count. And so the next day, December the first, it began to snow and it was everything Silver had hoped for and more. It glistened beneath the streetlamps. It built up over grass and trees and on the roofs of houses. There was snow as far as the eye could see, and Silver Lining cried with happiness at the sight of it.

“And ever since, December the first has been First Snow. It’s not just a random date, Rainy. Can you see now how lucky you are that tomorrow’s your birthday?”

They sat on the bed, mother and son, looking out over the blizzard which was showing no signs of stopping. The weather team had gone all out this year, and overnight, Canterlot would be transformed. Banks of snow would rest in the parks, weigh down branches, and silently demand to be turned into snowponies and snowballs. Right at that moment, teams of ponies were dressed from head to hoof in special snow gear, thick woolly coats and goggles, and when morning came the results of their labour would be seen: they would’ve decorated the whole of Canterlot ready for Hearth’s Warming, lights, streamers, everything. It was remarkable how fast the world could change.

“Thanks Mom,” said Rainy Day quietly. Without a moment’s hesitation he threw his hooves around her and pressed his face against her coat. When she returned the embrace with equal vigour, he shut his eyes, and held on to her more closely than ever before, never wanting to let go.

After a while, Mom stood up and glanced at the clock. “Rainy, look,” she said in a voice that was scarcely a whisper. “It’s ten past twelve. You’ve been six years old for ten minutes...”

More silence, but a marvellous, complicated silence made up of the sounds of the winter storm, the strange creaking of floorboards, the sound of the pipes in the walls. The house felt alive, and even though this was the latest Rainy Day had ever been up, his headache from earlier was gone, and his eyes didn’t feel heavy; he had never felt more awake as he did then.

“Can you tell me another story?” he asked hopefully, but mom grinned and shook her head.

“There’ll be plenty more time for stories another day, but now you’ve gotta go to sleep. D’you want me to leave the light on for you?”

Rainy shook his head.

“How are your wings feeling?”

Rainy Day turned his head around to look at his back, and he flapped his wings slowly. “Getting better...”

With that, his mom drew the curtains, straightened his blanket, and gave him a goodnight kiss on the forehead. She switched off his lamp. Somehow, in the darkness, the storm seemed louder than before.

Mom walked over to the door, stopping for a moment to look back at her son even though it was too dark to see him; it was as though some unseen force was holding her in place, urging her to stay just a little bit longer. Her beautiful colt, six years old already... and how vividly she remembered taking him home from the Trottingham Royal Infirmary. It had a strange birth. Very sudden. She’d been visiting her grandmother who was being kept under close examination in the infirmary, and Rainy Day hadn’t been expected for another two weeks... it was as if Rainy had known that, if he’d waited that long, his grandmother would never have had a chance to meet him...

And when the old mare had held Rainy for the first and last time, she had sung him a tune, the same, peculiar lullaby she used to sing to Rainy’s mother, with those ancient words which refused to give up their meaning.

As she stood by the doorway in the dark, Rainy’s mother started to sing.

“Paid ag ofni, dim ond deilen
Gura, gura ar y ddôr.
Paid ag ofni, ton fach unig
Sua, sua ar lan y môr.”

Then Rainy’s voice sounded through the darkness, joining in, as though they were speaking a secret, special language which only existed between the two of them. Not even Rainy’s father sung him this song.

“Huna blentyn, nid oes yma
Ddim i roddi iti fraw.
Gwena'n dawel yn fy mynwes
Ar yr engyl gwynion draw.”

The mare gulped, though she didn’t know why. “Goodnight Rainy,” she said.

For as awake as he thought he’d felt a few minutes previously, Rainy must have more tired than he’d realised, for he responded with a snore. His mother smiled to herself.

She walked out of the bedroom.

She shut the door.