My Little Pegasi

     Summer afternoons always seemed to be both too common and too rare for me, too common because despite enjoying them, far too often they got to be too hot and either dry or muggy, making me wish for a storm to roll in and lighten things up, and too rare because in England a real summer afternoon didn’t seem to come about that often that I had lived through, granted I wasn’t that old, only about twenty-five, but still, how many days have people wished they could be outside because the sun was shining and it was hot enough to forgo most of the clothes they have to wear normally, much less get the chance to spend time with their children just enjoying themselves.

     I suppose that’s where this story begins, one gorgeous Sunday afternoon in June. My family was hanging out around Cannon Hill Park, along with quite a few others since most people with any sense try to avoid working at least two days a week, and Sundays are usually one. “C’mon, Imoen, you can do better than that.” I called to my six year old daughter as I caught the cloth Frisbee she had hurled at me. It was one I had ‘inherited’ from my mom, one of the old Rice Krispies Frisbees from years back, but the fact it was made out of cloth made it a lot safer to use around the kids since even if they missed a catch and body blocked it instead, it wouldn’t hurt too much.

     Glancing around, I spotted my wife and our son riding off towards one of the cafes in the park, no doubt for something to eat since we had decided against bringing anything for us, even though the four equines we had were well stocked. Shifting a little on my feet, I sent the Frisbee back towards Imoen in a long arc, grinning when she missed the catch and had to go running after it.

     Taking the opportunity to wipe the sweat from my forehead with the sweatband on my wrist — another hold over from my childhood — I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, reaching down to stroke a dog’s ears as it came bounding up to me. I’ve no idea why, but dogs and horses seem to like me and my wife, though try to convince a stable cat to come in for a meal… we’d have more luck with a brick, and most other animals? Forget it… while we’re decent at things — good enough to foster a few strays for a while and get results — our focus left us rather limited. Eh, that’s life I suppose, some people have an easier time with some things than others, depending on who you are and what you’re like.

     Seeing the frisbee come flying back at an angle, I took a running leap and manage to grab it out of the air before stumbling into my horse with a grunt. “Ow…” I mutter, rubbing my face. Hitting a horse at speed is, unfortunately, rather like hitting a living wall — it hurts! “Sorry about that, Thowra,” I apologised to my stallion, patting his shoulder and getting a snort in response that caused me to roll my eyes. “Yeah, love you to, old man.” I murmured to him before turning away, only to be caught by his mouth on my arm, a little trick he learned to get my attention. “What is it?” I asked, turning back to him.

Foals here. Is the impression I got, making me frown. Normally when I get that, it meant Imoen and Connor are in the stables either trying to play with the cats or hiding from us or somebody else. So him using it now made no sense.

     “What do you mean, Thow?” I ask as Imoen came up to see what was going on. “Imoen’s here with me and Connor is with the lead mare.” It had always made me feel a little odd referring to my wife that way, but it worked in context. Animals understood more about humans than humans give credit for and those of us that tried — and there were quite a few of us with differing levels of ability scattered world over — could pick up enough to understand them. It was not really a special power; it was more a combination of body language, empathy and a little bit of imagination along with a lot of time dealing with certain creatures or the less used parts of the human brain. I’d been doing this since I was about Imoen’s age and met my first horse, I’d just been able to tell he wasn’t happy and when I asked why, I got a rather indistinct impression of a mare in the field. A decade and a half later and horses could still confuse me, but then so could humans and I had learned to communicate with them seven years earlier.

     Thowra stomped a fore hoof and shook his head. Nosing Imoen and getting a giggle out of her, he reared his head back and shook it before nudging Imoen’s gelding. Foals. Here. He repeated, stomping the hoof again. Reaching up, I rubbed my hand over his forehead and nodded.

     “Alright, I got the foals bit but…” I trailed off and frowned. “You mean pony foals, not human ones, right?” I asked, working through what Thowra had done in my head. Getting a nod, I scowled. What were pony foals doing around here? Sure there were the odd few people that could afford to ride, and there was a group that offered rides, but they wouldn’t bring foals to a place like this. Equines were even more valuable than dogs and cats when you got down to it, and more expensive to keep as well. That Cathy and I had a pair of horses and a pair of ponies was something, and that was mostly from us saving money through our time in the British Armed Forces and then managing to get decent jobs afterwards, despite having to work around the kids, I loved both of them, but they were a mistake we shouldn’t have made, they were something we should have planned for when we were a few years older than we had been when we mucked up.

     I frowned in thought. Those foals were probably close by, but hidden enough that most humans wouldn’t find them too quickly, I could only guess how Thowra caught wind of them, unless he was talking to something that was roaming and had found them… maybe that dog that had come by earlier. On the one hand, moving would mean Cathy and Connor wouldn’t know where we had gotten to, on the other, those foals might need assistance now, maybe I could tap into the same network Thowra had. “Imoen get Socks released and mount up,” I told my daughter, “Don’t bother with the saddle, we probably won’t be on them for long and you need to work on your bareback riding.” I added.

     “Yes Dad,” Imoen responded, moving to untie the reins on her pony and swinging up onto her back with a lot more skill than I had done at her age, but then she had started riding earlier than I had.

     I smiled slightly before turning to do the same. “Thowra, get word to the lead mare that we’re looking for those foals you mentioned and let’s find them.” I said, getting a nod from him, followed by a loud whicker that brought a dog running, the same one I had petted earlier. I snorted to myself at the chances of that. The dog had probably been the one to find out about the foals and tell Thowra in the first place.

     When Thowra started off at a trot, I pressed my knees into his flanks, using the pressure there to help myself stay off his back while it was jerking around. At a walk or a canter, most horses are steady enough that you only really need to keep your head about level and move with them so you don’t end up throwing them out or doing yourself some damage, but at higher speeds it’s usually better to spend less time with your rump on their back since it tends to move up and down fast and the meeting in the middle hurts both of you after a bit.

     Glancing back, I grinned, seeing Imoen riding easily on Socks. My daughter was probably going to grow up a huntswoman at the rate she was going when it came to riding, that or go into dressage or racing at least part of the time. She was certainly developing the skills required to compete. I felt Thowra shift under me and tug the reins. Turning back to him, I ducked as a branch tried to blindside me, glaring at his head. “You did that on purpose.” I accused, getting what sounded like an amused nicker from him. “Damn horse,” I muttered jokingly.

     “Where are we goin’ Dad?” Imoen asked from closer to me than she had been when I last looked. Glancing to the side, I saw she had urged Socks up beside Thowra, the pony doing her best to keep up despite the difference in sizes, the speed of our travel making my daughter’s reddish-brown hair fly out behind her.

     I shrugged, “Wherever these guys take us.” I replied, shifting as I felt Thowra gather himself for a jump. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I even cared about the destination at the moment, the ride was the fun.

*****

     Where the horse and pony took us was pretty much the other end of the park, which resulted in more than a few annoyed people as they wove through the crowds and occasionally bulled past people. I was fairly sure Thowra had gotten that particular bad habit from me, since when I was in a rush I sometimes simply picked a path and went along it, not bothering that much about the people that got in my way, of course given he was a sixteen hand high horse — now there’s a tongue twister for you, or the start of one anyway — and weighed a good deal more than an average human, he was more effective at bulling through crowds.

     When Thowra came to a stop, I took that as a hint to get down and slid off his back. “Alright, so we’re here, where are we looking?” I asked him, making sure his reins wouldn’t get caught on anything. It was something of a matter of trust between us that I could leave his reins on his back and he would be willing to follow me, something that Imoen wasn’t able to do yet I noted as she had to snag the reins of her pony to keep her from wandering off.

     Thowra, for his part, simply shrugged at me, resting his head on my shoulder. Ruddy lump that he can be sometimes, still, if I didn’t care about him, I wouldn’t have spent so much time with him. I sighed, moving away from him to find a tree, fortunately this being a park, there were plenty of them available. Leading the others over to it, I tied Thowra’s reins to a branch while Imoen did the same with Socks and thumping the pony’s shoulder when she didn’t behave. “Knock it off, Socks,” She said flatly, “You behave or you won’t get any apples later.” She added, waving a finger at the mare and getting a snort in response.

     I waited until my daughter had finished tying Socks to the tree branch before checking the knot was going to hold against a pony moving away from it at speed, not that I didn’t trust my daughter, but it was always a good idea to double check things when equines were involved… or when any other creature, including humans, was involved for that matter.

     Giving her a nod, I grinned, dropping a hand onto her shoulder for a moment and squeezing gently. “Good knot, Imoen.” I said, smiling slightly as she grinned up at me, her blue eyes shining. “Now, let’s see if we can find those pony foals Thowra thinks are around here.” I continued, getting a snort from the horse.

     Looking around, I frowned at the area. It was mostly trees around here since we were near one of the more forested parts of the park, still, it was hardly unused, so… they would have to be somewhere out of sight, probably somewhere covered. “We need to check the bushes, look for something foal-like, since we might not be able to see enough to tell if it’s a foal or not with branches in the way.” I said, getting a short nod from my daughter. “Remember though, Imoen, stay within call… I don’t want to lose you in there.”

     Imoen nodded again, shifting her baseball cap on her head, “Yes, Dad.”

     Nodding slightly, to her, I led the way into the trees, taking one set of bushes while she checked another, both of us looking for animals first, then looking to see if they were ponies.

     Ever hear the phrase ’nothing worthwhile is ever easy’? Kids and animals are a perfect example, and while there was only one of the former, that being Imoen, there were plenty of the latter… unfortunately most of them were either birds or squirrels, both of which tend to be mean when they’re disturbed by people so both Imoen and I ended up having a number of close calls with various families, some probably repeatedly knowing the way luck goes, of course I’ve never learned how to tell the little bastards apart so I couldn’t really tell. Shaking my hand out after another tussle with a squirrel, which ended with the bugger having a close encounter with my boot followed by a tree, I made my way to another bush, hearing Imoen swear as she found another bird that pecked at her a couple of times before flying off in a huff. Normally I would have reprimanded her for her language, but in this case she’s earned the right to use those words and most people don’t understand them — I smiled slightly remembering how Cathy and I had started creating an entire new language just for the two of us, which mostly sounded like Gaelic, if a version spoken by a lizard or bear. Our kids knew it, and knew what most of it meant, though there were some words we hadn’t explained to them.

     Bending over the bush, I frowned as I heard what sounded like a soft whimper or whinny from within. Reaching in carefully, I hissed as a few thorns scraped my hands, those were going to bleed later, in addition to the other bites and scratches I needed to get cleaned out properly, granted being around animals did tend to make you a bit more resistant to the bugs they carried, but still… infected wounds could be a right royal pain in the tail.

     Pushing the branches aside, I found something larger than a squirrel nestled within. The first thing that stood out to me was that it had pink fur, granted I had seen a few dogs with pinkish fur, but that was probably because their owners dyed them, but this thing had proper pink fur suggesting that it likely wasn’t from around here or someone had been playing with genetics or dyes, either or. The problem was, I couldn’t get the critter out of the bush and hold the branches back to stop us both getting scratched to hell by the thorns on my own, I didn’t have more than two arms, much as the extras would have been useful at times.

     “Imoen, could you give me a hand here?” I called, looking over at my daughter as she sent the birds off, her grey panther print t-shirt stained with sweat — note to self, ensure we both have a long bath or shower when we get home and change our clothes since I could feel sweat running down my spine as I had already taken my t-shirt off and left it back at the car.

     “Sure Dad,” Imoen replied, coming up to the bush I was standing next to, “What do you need?”

     I carefully pressed the branches further apart, grimacing as thorns dug into my hands, really wish I had some armoured gloves about now because that damn well hurts. “Think you can get that pink thing out of there if I hold the branches apart?” I asked, looking down at my daughter.

     I watched Imoen look into the bush for a moment, trying to figure out what she was seeing and how to get it out before she nodded. “I should be able to, Dad.” She said before reaching in and carefully touching the thing, bringing an equine head up with a snort of surprise. I watched her carefully pet the pink equine’s blue mane — another reminded that this was either genetic or dying experiments here; I just wasn’t sure which it was yet — settling the creature. “Easy there, I’m not going to hurt you; I just want to get you out of this bush.” Imoen murmured gently as the foal put its head back down, letting Imoen reach in and get her hands under its barrel, lifting it carefully out of the space.

     As she lifted it out, I frowned, grimacing as the branches started pressing back in, one of them managing to slip out of my grasp and lash back into its natural position, causing both the foal and Imoen to yelp as thorns scratched them. “Sorry, lost that one,” I said, grimacing. “You gonna be okay to get the foal out quick? ’Cause I’m not going to be able to hold these much longer.”

     Imoen nodded, her face set as she lifted the foal out, having to tug on it a bit as its tail — also a royal blue colour — got caught in the branches and thorns, causing the foal to whimper. “Sorry,” Imoen murmured, setting the foal down and giving me the chance to get my arms back.

     Looking down at my daughter, I sighed, seeing the bleeding cuts and pecks on her skin. Cathy probably wasn’t going to be pleased about this, nor about my state when we got back. “Alright, let’s see your injuries.” I said, getting a nod and an arm held out for my inspection.

     Checking the cuts and other injuries, I frowned, none of them looked too bad, but still, Imoen did look like she had been through a fairly major battle if not a war. “You’ll live, but we’re getting those seen to once we get back, K’gostyn alone know what is on those thorns or what those critters have been into.” I said, squeezing her shoulder gently before turning my attention to the foal, wincing a bit as my own wounds stung — they might have been relatively minor, but it still felt like I’d had a close encounter with stinging nettles and I’d imagine Imoen felt the same way.

     Picking it up, I studied it, frowning slightly as I checked for injuries — which mostly consisted of a number of scratches from when Imoen had picked her out of the thorn bush and a rather nasty feeling lump between the pony’s ears, that said, I did find a wrenched foreleg, which would heal with time, and a pair of wings suggesting to me that someone had been playing with genetics. “She looks like Firefly, Dad.” Imoen said from beside me, catching my attention. Frowning slightly, I set the pony down and looked at her. Imoen was right, she was more ‘natural’ than the character from My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle, but still, a pink pegasus with a blue mane and tail, the wings and muzzle were a lot bigger than I imagined Firefly’s would have been as a filly, but the colours were hers. Was someone trying to make real ’My Little Ponies’?

*****

     Baby talking the foal had gotten us the locations of two more, roughly, in the mess of forested parkland. The first one of which had been relatively easy to get hold of as she couldn’t fly and had ended up stuck in some sort of rope trap by the time we got there. It had taken a good bit of persuasion to get the little purple mare to relax, but eventually she had let Imoen pick her up and carry her back to the Firefly look alike, who was being watched by Socks and Thowra, the latter of whom was being a lot more responsible than usual.

     The second foal, however, had been a much bigger problem to get hold of. That orange-yellow maned pegasus seemed to want to play and kept running off whenever one of us got too close to where she was hiding. Eventually we had resorted to getting roughly into the area she was and pointedly not playing with her while still making enough of a show to let her know what she was missing out on. It took long enough doing that that it was starting to get towards late afternoon by the time we got her back to Thowra and the rest. Unfortunately that presented us with a problem, as while I could handle Thowra with or without reins and a saddle, Imoen still needed the reins to handle Socks and we now had three fillies to get back to the car and horse trailer. Not something that would be easy to do.

     Eventually we got it sorted out with me holding the two that were more likely to try to bolt while Imoen handled the last. Of course mounting up and getting things sorted out took a bit of juggling, primarily with me going up onto Thowra’s back first and taking all three from Imoen before she mounted and took one off me.

     The trip back to where we had been playing was a lot slower than the trip out had been, primarily due to the foals. It hadn’t been too many years ago that I had first taken Imoen riding with me on Thowra’s back, and he remembered that enough to know that it’s easier to go slow and ensure that your young riders don’t fall off than have to keep stopping and starting all the time. I squeezed his barrel with my legs to let him know I appreciated that he was going slow while I dealt with two fillies, glancing around at the people still in the park, several of whom were staring at us, not that I could blame them, after all, it wasn’t every day that a pair of people rode past with a group of foals in their arms, much less ones the colours we had… which reminded me, once we got back, we were going to have to check the net and the news reports, see if there was any mention of any more odd coloured foals, particularly ones with horns or wings, showing up anywhere around.

     As we approached our ‘camp’, which was to say our primary spot for the day, I saw Cathy sitting on Blaze, unlike us, she was wearing the proper gear for riding, including having saddled Blaze and a helmet on her head, something I should have insisted on for Imoen at least, except we had pretty much bolted to find the fillies that wasn’t going to win any points. I sighed as we moved up to where Cathy was sitting on Blaze’s back, the chestnut mare browsing idly. “I take it you’re not impressed, love.”

     “Not really, though seeing what you’ve brought back, I can understand why.” Cathy replied before sighing at the mess of dried blood on me and Imoen. “Just what did you two do? Fall into a thorn bush?” She asked, pushing a lock of reddish-brown hair behind her ear.

     I shook my head. “No, though there were thorn bushes involved… the pink of this trio was half-way asleep in one when we found her and that was after poking into more than a few others and annoying a few rodents and birds.” I replied, using my knees to guide Thowra towards Blaze, the pair of them rubbing their muzzles together in greeting, Thowra grooming Blaze’s neck with his teeth and lips. “Connor back at the car?” I asked, looking around and not seeing our son anywhere in sight.

     I watched as she shook her head. “He and Star are in the field near the cafe, since it is getting on for tea time.” Cathy replied, shifting slightly on her mount. “I was coming to get you two when Blaze said something about you both pony foal hunting, at least that was what I could make out.” She added, looking down at her horse.

Mate, herd-stallion and filly finding lost foals like Socks. Blaze responded with a shrug of her hide. See three; dogs say at least six they scented.

     The last bit got my attention. We had found three, which meant there was no problem with Blaze’s eyes or counting skills, however if there were at least six the dogs were scenting — if they were relaying the information properly — that meant there were at least three more foals around somewhere, maybe more… maybe lots more. Cathy and I owned a place large enough that we could possibly handle another six to ten equines, if we were careful with our money and started getting extra income from somewhere, but if there were more, then we wouldn’t be able to take them all on, which meant we would be calling on other stables around the country if we found more, of course if we didn’t, there was no telling what might happen to them. The black market for animals was still booming even with the economy having taken several hits over recent years and there were always ‘collectors’ that would pay big money for something unusual, which unicorns and pegasi certainly counted as.

     I sighed in resignation, seeing the look on Cathy’s face. We wouldn’t be searching for those missing foals yet, but once we were cleaned up and fed, we were probably not going to see our beds until we found something to tell us where those foals were. “We can’t stay here all night, love.” I said, shifting slightly on Thowra. “We’ve got five younglings to look after and two of them have school tomorrow along with us having to go to work.” I heard a groan from Imoen and rolled my eyes, no doubt the last thing she had wanted was to be reminded of that dreadful institution and prison of the young, school. I couldn’t say that I blamed her, after all most kids in Britain get roughly twelve years of required schooling followed by anywhere from nothing to another ten years of ‘higher’ voluntary education. It got more and more annoying as time went on for most people that I knew of, primarily because people end up getting a glut of book learning and lectures during that period and they start to shy away from it, preferring to learn through being shown and practicing instead.

     Cathy nodded once, nudging Blaze into turning around so she was beside me and held out her arms. “Pass me one of them, we’ll go to the cafe and get you all cleaned up before having something to eat.” She said, getting pricked ears from the fillies in response.

     Nodding, I passed her the purple filly before settling my arms around the yellow one, glancing over at Imoen, who seemed to be handling the nearly asleep pink filly just fine, though it looked like the mention of food had woken her some. “Let’s get going,” I said, shifting in my seat slightly to relieve the ache in my hips before nudging Thowra with my heels. “Cafe, Thowra, you know where it is.” I said, getting a nod from the stallion. He knew alright, since we often came here or to one of the other large parks and he had learned several things about them, as had Blaze. Socks and Star were a bit young yet to have memorised the important locations, but they knew some of them.

     “So what were you planning on doing once you had found the foals?” Cathy asked, riding next to me as she studied the little purple filly.

     I shrugged, rubbing Thowra’s shoulder gently. “I was planning on finding out which farm or stable they had come from and getting it checked out, but looking at this trio, I’ve got the bad feeling there’s more to this than a few missing foals.” I replied, frowning at the path ahead of us. “At the moment the best I can come up with for how we ended up with pegasi foals and a unicorn foal is either someone has been playing with genetics, in which case they ought to be shut down before they run across something nasty — the last thing we need is a T- or G-virus type incident happening — or someone has opened a gate to their world and they fell through somehow, in which case… K’gostyn alone know what will happen, but having a rip in the fabric of reality is bound to be a recipe for disaster.”

     I heard Cathy snort at my comments and glanced over at her as the cafe building crawled closer. “You’ve been watching too many of those Let’s Plays by Kikoskia, Necroscope, Helloween and the rest of that group.” She said, before looking down at the foal in her arms. “Still… it probably wouldn’t hurt to check up on things when we get back home, since I doubt that there being foals like these three around is a coincidence.”

     “I thought it was conspiracy once it got to three events, Mom.” Imoen put in from the opposite side of me. “Isn’t that how the saying goes?”

     I nodded. “Yeah, ‘once is chance, twice is coincidence, and three times is conspiracy’. The question is whether all three, or however many it actually is, foals we’ve got here counts as a single event or multiple.” If it was a single event, then maybe it was chance, if there were other events we knew were separate, however then we had a potential problem. Particularly given how some humans could be, sure there were those like us, willing to lend a hand and able to do so, some were willing even without the ability while others had the ability but weren’t willing and then there were those with neither the willingness nor the ability, and those were the ‘good’ side of things, since there were always those that did things for their own gain or simply to be mean. K’gostyn help any foals that fell into the hands of the last lot since those were always the ones I had maintained should be permanently removed from things, specifically life, but there were enough people against it that the death sentence and even life imprisonment generally didn’t happen, leaving more people to be hurt by those that repeated their offences.

     Cathy frowned, shifting slightly in her saddle. “You know… if there are supposed to be six foals around, if we don’t see them during tea, maybe we should get these three into the trailer and take a ride around the park, see if anyone has seen anything, I mean most of the people that are here regularly know us and know we’re good with horses and ponies, so they might be able to give us a hand.” She commented, scanning the field as we came to it, looking for our son. “Starting with those mounted police that patrol the area, they owe us a couple of favours for helping stop trouble before.”

     I nodded again. “Good idea, Cathy, and we can put the word out that we’re looking into the appearance of ‘strange’ foals at the same time, get things going in seeing if we can find out where they came from.” I said, smiling slightly as I heard Connor call us and waving back in the direction of his voice. He would see us more easily than we would see him.

*****

     Tea at home was usually something of a hectic time because we had to get everything cooked, set out and feed eight of us, plus leaving a bit out for the stable cats, out and about it tended to be quieter, mostly due to the fact we didn’t have to do the cooking and we weren’t fighting for limited space to do what we needed to do to feed everyone. Of course, that was on a normal day, which today wasn’t.

     Imoen and I had cleaned ourselves up using one of the first aid kiosks scattered around the park, taking the time to disinfect our wounds. We had also given the fillies a quick clean, checking their obvious injuries, which had resulted in a fair amount of whining and squirming from the pink one — we really needed to name these guys if we were going to keep them. Once that was done, we had to order for seven, and the waiter had given us a strange look when we had ordered milk, porridge and oats since that was more a breakfast food than a tea food, at least until Thowra and Blaze had stepped in, and stepped on him — given I had been on the receiving end of a horse’s hoof on a foot, the fact that he had managed to hobble off was a surprise, particularly given both of them had done it, one on each foot, and Thowra had given him a nose shove as well.

     I sighed, hearing mutters from around the outside seating area we were in and rolled my eyes. “Calm down, Thow, he’s just not used to having people order what humans consider breakfast items this late in the day, nor is he used to them ordering for ‘animals’.” I said, reaching up to put a hand on Thowra’s shoulder, feeling his muscles tense and relax under it. He snorted, moving to nose me and the fillies before sighing. “I know, old man,” I said, watching Cathy handle Blaze, the words were different, but the touch was the same, the same one she had used on me a few times as well.

     Scratching Thowra’s shoulder briefly, I leaned back, watching Imoen and Connor play with the fillies, wondering where the three of them had come from again. The only two things I could think of were some place making them through either robotics — not likely since they bleed, unless they were cyborgs, T-800 style — or more likely genetic manipulation, or there was some sort of either alien or extra-dimensional something that had brought them here. Though that brought my thoughts back to how humanity would react to them. The fact there were supposedly at least six in the park suggested that something was sort of happening, since a park is a public space, and on a Sunday in summer, there’s a fair number of people out and about, could be any one of maybe several hundred people had found them and sure as heck we hadn’t been hiding them so a lot of people had seen them.

     A waitress was the one that came back to us with the porridge, milk and oats, though fortunately she was one of the ones that knew us and nodded to the two horses before setting the oats where they and the grown ponies could reach. “Sorry ‘bout him, he only started a couple o’ weeks ago.” She said, putting the milk down for Imoen and Connor setting three bowls of porridge on the table. “I think this is the first time he’s ever had anyone bring animals to a place he serves food at, much less ones that are as willing to express their own opinions with force and are as big.” She added, absently patting Thowra’s muzzle when he lipped her cheek. “Though… I am a bit curious as to why the porridge.”

     “That’s easy, lass.” I replied, pointing over at where the kids and foals were playing. “The foals probably haven’t had anything to eat all day, and since we don’t know how well they can handle fully solid food at the moment, better to get something part way liquid so they can eat it.”

     Cathy nodded, looking over at me for a moment. “That said, I don’t suppose you know of any other foals around similar to those ones?” She asked, shifting slightly in her seat.

     The waitress shook her head. “No, I can’t say I have,” She replied, frowning slightly. “I’ll ask in the back when I fetch the rest of your meals though, since they do stand out a bit….”

     She trailed off as a yell sounded from the small play area, bringing everybody’s heads up. Pushing out of my chair, I shared a look with Cathy before moving over to it to find a toddler crying while a pair of pegasi stood nearby, one looking like it had had a few bites taken out of it by a dog, the other trying to stand up for it in front of a larger dog. “Thowra, teach that mutt to play dead.” I growled, swinging myself over the fence, Cathy following right behind me as the two horses leapt the fence and advanced on the dog, their ears flat against their heads.

     As Cathy and I approached, Thowra and Blaze put themselves between the foals and the dog, moving forwards slowly. Moving to crouch near the child, I glanced over as the dog yelped, having tried to get past the two horses and found a hoof with its nose. “Are you okay?” I asked the child, keeping my hands back as it wasn’t Imoen or Connor and a lot of parents did get worried about strangers near their kids these days.

     “I-I o-okay… b-b-but…” The toddler trailed off, turning to face me, tears still in her eyes as she moved enough to reveal a third pony, this one a green on green pegasus that looked worse than the blue-grey one that had been standing. I glanced over to where the two ponies were, seeing Cathy gently tending the blue roan’s wounds and scowled. These were probably the other three Blaze had mentioned, a cyan, a blue roan and a green, all pegasi, which was somewhat interesting, I would have expected more unicorns if they were together.

     Turning back to the child, I reached down. “Let me have a look at her, I promise I won’t hurt her if I can help it.” I said gently getting a confused look from the toddler, I smiled slightly. “See the lady there?” I asked, pointing at Cathy, who was pushing her hair back from her face as she looked the roan over. “That’s my wife, she and I own a small stable where we house the two horses guarding us, we’ve had that pair since they were foals themselves, getting on for seven years now since we went into one of the few cavalry regiments left, now we part time as mounted police and foster a few horses and ponies.” We actually did more than that, mostly involving the horses and ponies in some way, but the police job was probably the best one to use to gain the child’s trust. Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out my wallet and opened it to show her my badge. “See, this says I’m a police officer.” I said, getting a nod from her.

     “O-okay,” The toddler whispered as her mother came running up and gasped at the sight of the badge.

     Hearing the gasp, I looked up, rolling my eyes at a strangled yelp from the dog followed by an angry sounding whinny from Thowra and a heavy thump. “It’s okay, ma’am, I just need to look at the injured pony.” I said, looking back at her daughter as I took the green pony from her, starting to check it carefully. “Do you have any idea where your daughter might have found this filly?” I asked as the pony whimpered despite the gentleness I was using. We needed to get this one to a vet, ASAP, but it would probably take too long to go to the practice since the nearest equine vet was a good ways out of the city. “Cathy, you still got those first aid supplies?” I asked, looking over my shoulder.

     “Catch,” Cathy called, tossing a kit to me. Having my hands full, I sidestepped, letting it land on the ground near where I had been crouched and set the filly down, pulling out a pair of gloves and putting them on before pulling out an alcohol imbued cloth to start wiping the filly’s wounds clean.

     “I-I don’t know… we just found it wandering the park a couple of hours ago.” The woman replied, shifting uncomfortably. “I didn’t know it was dangerous, or that there were others.” She added as Imoen and Connor, along with the trio of foals Imoen and I had found came up to see what was going on.

     Waving Imoen over and sending her to dump several used cleaning cloths, I took a roll of bandages from the kit and began wrapping the filly’s wounds. “Ma’am, all creatures can be dangerous, particularly to young children. My own pair have taken more than a few knocks from the horses and ponies we keep. The reason my wife and I aren’t as concerned about them in this situation is because they grew up around these creatures, they know how to handle them and how to talk to them, most people don’t anymore.” I said and snorted softly. The amount of scratches I had gotten over the years to prove that point was probably more than most cared for, but it was part of life.

     Finishing bandaging the filly up, I looked at the toddler, now in her mother’s arms. “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to take this filly home with you as she will likely need more or less constant care over the next few months, not only as a growing filly, but also due to the wounds she received from the dog. I know a vet that specialises in equines, and my wife and I own a small stable. For now, we will take them with us while they heal and we investigate their origins.” I said, carefully packing everything away and picking the filly up gently, nosing her when she whimpered. I would have said more, except it was at that point that the dog’s owner finally decided to show up, yelling at the horses, who the dog was cowering away from now.

     I decided, since I had my hands full, to let Cathy handle this one, after all, she had all the backup she was likely to need in Blaze. Our horses weren’t man killers, but they knew how to fight since we had gotten them in the army and kept them after we had left. That training had come in very handy moving into the police.

     Turning back to the woman whose daughter had brought everything to our attention, I saw her nod once. “Thank you, officer. I’m just glad no harm came to my daughter.” She said softly, hugging her child close.

     “I know the feeling, ma’am,” I replied as Imoen and Connor joined me, watching their mother take several strips of hide off the dog’s owner metaphorically speaking. “I have children of my own, and I always worry when one of them gets into trouble. Thank you for your assistance.” I said, nodding to her before turning to the kids and fillies. “You two get the fillies together and back to the table. Imoen, give Dr Jacobs a call on my mobile, tell him we have a group of foals that need checking and ask him if he can meet us at the stable tonight as two of them have dog bite wounds.” I said, getting a chorus of “Yes, Dad,” from the pair of them.

*****

     “Just what are those monsters doing to my dog?!” A male voice yelled as I finished wrapping a bandage around the roan’s barrel, covering several bites she had received. A quick glance to my right showed the cyan filly — which had hair that looked like most of the rainbow, though it was missing violet for some reason — staring in awe at Blaze and Thowra as the two stood guard. She probably hadn’t seen anything that big in her short life… making me wonder just where she came from and who her dam and sire were. Something Rob and I would need to investigate later, once we were back in uniform since as he had said, something about this mess didn’t add up.

     Getting to my feet, I gave the filly a gentle push towards our children, who had come to see what, was going on themselves, and bringing the rest of the small herd with them. “Go on; go to the rest of the herd.” I said gently as she looked up at me before reaching over to touch the cyan pony on the back. “You too, young one, go to the rest.” I said, pointing at them and getting confused looks from both. Sighing, I nudged them in the right direction again before turning to deal with the man that had come around and was being blocked by the horses. No doubt Rob would send the kids to get them or get them himself soon enough if I knew him, and after being around him as a friend through to wife over the course of a decade and a half, I ought to know some things about him.

     Putting a hand on Blaze’s flank, I nodded when she turned her head to look back at me. It had taken us a good year to train Thowra and Blaze both that if they’re working guard with us behind them, to check who was touching them before kicking out, but it paid off in situations like this one.

     Walking around Blaze with one hand on her side, I used my free hand to pull my police badge out of my pocket. I may have been off duty, but that didn’t mean there weren’t times when I was called in at short notice, hence I tended to keep the badge on me as much as possible. Walking up to the dog owner, I flashed my badge. “PC Cathy Farrell, West Midlands Police Department,” I introduced myself. “Sir, your dog is responsible for at least one attack that involved a toddler, which is why my partner and I intervened and had our horses stand guard to prevent further attacks on either the toddler or the fillies she was playing with.”

     “That is no excuse for setting these brutes on my dog, young lady!” The man yelled at me, making me roll my eyes, it seemed he cared more about the dog than the toddler, which probably wouldn’t go down to well with any parents around.

     I sighed, shifting slightly. “Sir, my horse along with my partner’s is war trained and I just spent the last several minutes patching up a foal that is probably not even a year old while my partner looked after a toddler. You should count yourself lucky I haven’t already arrested you for possession of a dangerous animal, particularly given the wounds the filly received. You can, however, count on getting the vet’s bill for every wound on those fillies your dog attacked along with a hospital bill for the toddler if your dog actually hurt her.” I stated flatly, feeling rather than seeing both horses move to flank me, glaring down at the man in front of me, the dog hiding behind his legs and whimpering.

     I watched as he opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking around nervously to see most everybody staring at the tableau, before clenching a hand into a fist. “Your boss will be hearing about this, young lady, count on it.” He growled before turning and leaving.

     “Considering it’ll be in the report, yes they will hedrachin.” I muttered with a sigh before turning to see what was going on. “All right folks, show’s over. Get back to what you were doing.” I ordered before patting both horses’ shoulders and going to see what was going on.

     Walking over to my husband, I frowned slightly at the sight of another pony in his arms. “Was the toddler hurt?”

     “No, she was fine, if a bit spooked by the entire thing, her mother is taking care of her now.” He replied, shifting the filly carefully and getting a whimper from it. “I think that mutt decided to try chewing on greenie here, then the other two got involved. Did quite a bit of damage for the amount of time it had, unless this little one caught wind of her friends and went to find them and that was where the dog caught them, and then they ran here, green collapsing in the first safe place she could see.”

     I nodded slowly as we moved back to our table and blinked to find another few bowls of porridge sat waiting for us. What Rob had said made sense, particularly given the time line, and I knew how fast a child could be when they were scared, both from Imoen and Connor and from the horses. Blaze had certainly bolted a few times and it had taken a lot longer to get back at a walk than it had to get out.

     Taking a seat, I watched as Imoen and Connor rounded up the other five foals, bringing them back with the help of Thowra and Blaze. When she got close enough, I caught the blue roan filly gently and lifted her up onto my lap, grunting a little at the weight since a pony foal was about as heavy as a sack of cement mix or box of printer paper, the 2500 sheet ones. “Easy, little one,” I murmured to her, settling her carefully and ensuring her hooves were folded under her so they didn’t dig into me. Reaching over, I took one of the bowls of porridge and scooped a bit out with my fingers, holding it under her muzzle until she lipped it off me. Glancing over at Rob, I saw him showing Imoen and Connor how it was done with the injured green, letting them feed the quartet that were still relatively active while we waited for our own food.

     It didn’t take long for the six fillies to eat, especially with willing hands there to help get it from human made bowls into eager mouths, though it did result in a few bitten hands. Shaking my own hand out, I checked myself over, ensuring the little filly hadn’t broken the skin in her haste to eat before carefully shifting her off my lap. The lack of weight was a relief, quite frankly. Getting up, I called Imoen over and the two of us went to wash our hands before taking over from Rob and Connor as they did the same.

     Tea, once it came for the rest of us, was a lot quieter than usual, mostly because there was more than enough noise around to make up for it and plenty of people giving us looks as well. I jumped a little as Rob put a hand on mine, looking over to see him give me a reassuring smile and smiled back. It had been a long time since something like this had happened, of course I doubt there was ever a time that people had rescued pegasi or unicorn foals in the middle of a fairly well known park. Last I had hear, apart from the cartoons that had them in on and off, like My Little Pony, She-Ra, and some others that I couldn’t remember the names of, there weren’t any recent stories that gave a visual on unicorns or pegasi, oh sure there were the odd few myths that had films or TV series made about them every few years, most of which were based on Greek myths, there was nothing that could really explain something like this.

*****

     Apart from the incident with the dog, tea had been pleasant enough, and the ride back home had given everyone a chance to relax a little before dealing with Dr Jacobs — that had been ‘fun’ for a given value of the word — eventually though, he had left, having given us antiseptic for the fillies’ wounds and taken several blood samples. K’gostyn alone know what he was going to find with those, though hopefully nothing too out of the ordinary. Sighing, I settled on the couch, resting my arm along the back of it and closed my eyes for a moment.

     “You know,” Cathy said as she settled herself at my side, having put the kids to bed while I handled the fillies, which were sleeping in one of the spare rooms for now. “If we’re going to keep those fillies, we should name them and I was thinking, since they look a lot like them, maybe use the names of ponies on the My Little Pony show.” She continued, leaning into me.

     Shifting my arm down to rest over her shoulders, I shrugged my other shoulder. “It’s as good a plan as any at the moment, though it only gives us two names, the pink and the green, the others don’t match anyone I remember seeing in the series.” I pointed out. The show was supposed to be for girls Imoen’s age and younger, so while I had seen a few episodes I had never really sat down and watched the entire lot, nor kept up to date on what was happening with it.

     Cathy shifted slightly against me. “Four,” She said, making me open my eyes to look at her, “Maybe five actually. They started a new series a couple of year ago, Imoen and I have been watching it on the net some days.”

     “So who of our set are in that show?” I asked.

     “Well there’s two for certain, one that looks like she could be in there, I’d have to recheck some episodes.” Cathy said, resting her head on my shoulder. “The unicorn we’ve got looks a lot like Twilight Sparkle, the main character of the new show, the light blue pegasus has a rainbow coloured mane, so she looks similar to one of Twilight’s friends, Rainbow Dash, the last I need to check, but yellow pegasus with a yellow and orange mane I think was Spitfire. She’s not one of the main group so she only shows up every so often, in the show she’s one of the group Rainbow wants to be part of, they’re kind of like the Red Arrows but pegasi.”

     I nodded, frowning as I thought. “Well if we take it that the pink one was Firefly and the green is Medley, which leaves that blue roan without a name at the moment.” I shifted slightly. “You’re off work tomorrow barring something exploding, right?” I asked.

     Cathy nodded, “Yeah, which means I’ll be dealing with six fillies on my own.” She grimaced, apparently not liking the sound of that, not that I could blame her, children of any species were a lot of work, particularly when you were one against a group. “I’ll see if I can find something, providing they give me a chance to do some research.”

     “We’re probably going to have to get in touch with some falconers at some point, see if they’ve got any ideas on how to train the use of wings, just in case this group don’t know how to fly.” I said, frowning still. “I’ll do that, it should be fairly quiet tomorrow, even for a police station, I can put in the report about the incident earlier ask that we be assigned to other cases investigating strange creatures showing up out of the blue and see if there are any falconers around that might be able to help out if we need them.”

     “Alright, though I’m going to need the car.” Cathy responded, stretching slightly against me. “Dr Jacobs wanted us to bring the fillies to the practice tomorrow if possible and it’ll be easier to move them in the car than try herding them that far. I think he wants to do more tests and take x-rays of both the healthy and injured fillies to ensure there’s no broken bones and see if the… extras are actually grafted or whether they’re actually something that their bodies are built to have.” Listening to her, I had to admit, that made sense. If the fillies had just had those extra limbs more or less grafted on, then they were most likely someone playing with nature very badly, more than likely they were Earth creatures though, giving us something to look for. If their bodies were built to have those extras and built to be able to fly on the other hand… well we were back to square one.

     “Makes sense,” I said, rubbing Cathy’s shoulder gently. “I’ll take Thowra when I go, and try to get back before the kids get home, though they should be able to handle the responsibility of handling their own mounts…” I trailed off, thinking. I could ride to work since where Cathy and I worked there was a stable where I could release Thowra, but if Cathy had the car, either she would have to drop off the kids and pick them up again or… or they could ride to school with me and then I could pick them up, though the question was what we did with their ponies during the school day. I’d have to have a proper look at the school grounds, see what was where. “Actually, I’ll take Imoen and Connor to school, we can all ride there and I’ll either take their ponies to the station afterwards or we’ll set them up at the school somewhere where they can’t wander and get hurt.” That last bit was important. We could take food and water wherever, but the environmental risks would be the deciding factor in all this.

     Cathy nodded before raising her head as hoof steps sounded on the stairs. I saw her look around at the door leading to the stairs as it was pushed open by a groggy looking pink filly. “Aw, honey, why aren’t you still sleeping?” She asked, getting up to gather the pegasus up and bringing her back to the couch to settle her across our laps.

     Looking down as Cathy and I got ourselves settled again, I rubbed Firefly’s muzzle gently. “What’s wrong, Firefly?” I asked, keeping my voice gentle. “Something wake you up?” I asked, getting a nod from the pegasus. “What happened?” I asked softly.

     I felt Firefly shiver on my lap and shifted my hand to her shoulder, rubbing it gently as I trailed the fingers of my other hand over Cathy’s shoulder, waiting for Firefly to give us a hint. The filly had only been with us a few hours and I was already getting the impression that she had a differently set up brain to most equines I’d worked with, granted Thowra and Blaze were good examples of intelligent horses, but these fillies seemed to go a bit beyond that.

     “You can tell us, Firefly,” Cathy put in from my side, her own hand resting over the foal’s withers gently. “We won’t be upset.”

Dreams… “Ba-.”

     Cathy and I shared a look at the sound Firefly made, it was certainly not a standard part of equine spoken language, in fact, and it sounded a lot like she was trying to say something was bad while her body language gave away what it was. “You had a bad dream?” I asked gently, getting another nod along with the saddest expression I had ever seen on a horse’s — or pony’s — face. “Aw, honey, don’t worry about it.” I reassured her. “We all have bad dreams every so often, and given what you’ve probably gone through…” I trailed off as the sound of more clopping sounded from the stairs.

     “Dad?” Connor’s voice came from the stairs.

     “Lemme guess, you all had bad dreams as well?” I asked looking over as the door opened slowly to let the other fillies, Connor and Imoen in. Glancing over at my wife I rolled my eyes at the ‘chance’ of that happening and waved them in. Imoen hurrying to the couch and climbing up to snuggle into my side, pressing her head against me as I dropped my hand to stroke her hair, “Nightmares, huh, Imoen?” I asked gently, getting a nod.

     I closed my eyes as the rest gathered around, Cyan, or Rainbow Dash rather, supporting the filly we hadn’t named while Twilight and Spitfire helped Medley along to sit on the floor near us, all of them, including Connor, who had mirrored Imoen against Cathy looked spooked. “Yes…” Imoen said her voice muffled from where she had her head pressed against me.

     I sighed, closing my eyes briefly as Cathy leaned up to settle the ponies — as I had been a bit trapped. Every parent will tell you that there are times you’ll end up with children coming in because of night horrors, most tend to happen rarely unless there’s a lot of upheaval happening since dreams are usually either memories or the brain trying to process things it couldn’t handle while you were awake. It doesn’t make dealing with them any easier, and when you’ve got a group of kids all having nightmares at once, adults tend to get sleepless nights.

     “Want to tell us about them?” Cathy asked, resettling herself against me for the third time that night, one hand on Firefly while the other was around Connor.

     Imoen shivered against me, jumping slightly when Twilight put her head on the girl’s knee. “I-I don’t remember most of it,” She admitted, sniffling a little. “B-but th-there were big lizards fighting and blood and…” She trailed off with a sob as I hugged her gently.

     I had to wonder where those images had come from though, granted blood was a moderately common occurrence around the stables and the kids’ school, but never that much, so was that from the sight of Medley and Nameless earlier? Probably not that much, though it might have had some influence there. There wasn’t anywhere else I could think of that she might get it from given we didn’t let the kids watch movies rated 12 or older nor did most of the books we had go into that much detail on what blood was like so… that was odd.

     I held Imoen gently, shifting my legs to wrap around Medley, who had settled against me, trying to be careful of the filly’s wounds. “Imoen, go get the tablet and turn on the stereo.” I murmured, getting a nod from her. Releasing her, I watched as she got my eeePad Transformer and turned on the stereo, which was one of the things we had recently updated to be able to sync with things wirelessly. Taking the tablet off my daughter when she brought it back, I activated the app that let me run the stereo and started off some soothing music. With luck, it would help the kids and fillies both get back to sleep. “I guess we’re not going anywhere until morning.” I said to Cathy, who nodded.

     “Well, if we can convince them to shift for now, we can pull this bed out.” Cathy said, nudging the settee with a heel hard enough that I heard it.

     I nodded slightly. “Good idea, Love.” I said, leaning over to kiss her gently before nudging Imoen again. “Go get some of the spare pillows out of the cupboard in the other room, lass.” I said gently, sending her off again, Cathy sending Connor to lend a hand. Getting the fillies shifted, Cathy and I pulled out and dressed the bed, waiting until the pillows came back before settling on it, not bothering to change as we had switched to pyjamas earlier, after bathing everyone. Settling, I grunted as Firefly and Imoen found themselves spots against me, Cathy resting her back against my side so she could cuddle Connor and the other fillies spreading out around us. Shifting to get a bit more comfortable, I listened to the music change, the soft strains of one of Enya’s songs playing through the speakers.