My Little Pegasi

27/06/2012, 03:00 - Rob

The sound of his lothryn’s claws clicking on the stone remaining on the overgrown path leading to the ruined castle was lulling, but he couldn’t take the time to take a nap right now. He needed to see just what this place was like at night, since it was supposed to be haunted. Bloody stupid bet his siblings and cousins had put him up to, spending the night in the haunted castle on the border of Cal’drith and Or’nae lands… so why had he taken it? Ghrathryn frowned, shifting slightly on his mount’s back as the terrain changed, trying to make it easier on his horse to move around during the oncoming evening.

Why had he taken the bet, anyway? Looking up, blue eyes narrowed as a crest of silver scales flattened against his head. It was more a feeling than anything, but something was going to happen tonight, he was sure of it, and he needed to be at the castle for it to happen. Foresight was supposed to be one of Cal’drith’s inherent abilities, along with their mastery over the weather — something they shared with their neighbours the Or’nae — but his Foresight had never been particularly strong, mostly it was limited to gut feelings and the occasional flash of inspiration, but today he got the feeling that he needed to be at this ruined castle, otherwise something long reaching wouldn’t happen.

Huffing out a sigh as the ruined keep started to appear over the top of the next hill, Ghrathryn scowled. Damn feeling were a pain in the tail more often than he liked, but they had never been wrong before, not on the main things, but the nrr’gostyn was ever in the details and he had the bad feeling that this was going to be one heck of a nrr’gostyn. On the other hand, usually when his feelings kicked in, there was something good and something bad that happened, so… where would they come from?

They reached the castle itself as true night fell, shadows becoming darkness pooled around the ruined stone walls. “Whoa boy, whoa,” Ghrathryn murmured, shifting to signal his mount to stop moving. When it did, he slipped down off its back, unhooking the sword he had brought with him, just in case there was something more solid than fairy tales about this place from the saddle and strapping it to his bag so that it lay under one of his wings. Flicking his tail, he unsaddled his mount and rubbed it down. “Now, stay… at leas’ less trouble comes callin’.” He ordered it, picking up a saddlebag and starting for the door of the castle.

Reaching it, he reached up to open it, only for it to collapse inwards at his touch, landing with a resounding crash on the stone floor of the castle. “Wow, I figured on outta shape, not fallin’ ’part… guess I’ll ‘ave tae be careful wha’ I touch in ’ere.” Ghrathryn muttered to himself, stepping slowly inside and coughing at the cloud of dust kicked up by the collapsed door. Waving a hand in front of his snout to clear the dust he looked around and scowled, seeing a camp fire in one corner of the room, already burning low. Someone else was already here, but who?

Drawing the sword he had with him, he scowled as he started carefully towards the fire, looking around and up to see if he could spot whoever was here. Even being as careful as he could, he was almost caught off guard by a group of fireballs flying at him from the ceiling over the fire. Leaping forwards, he tucked and rolled, keeping his wings against his back and his sword close at hand, his tail sweeping through the camp fire, scales heating slightly, “Whoa, hey!” He exclaimed, coming up, sword still in hand. “I didnae come ‘ere tae figh’.”

“Ye’re invadin’ Or’nae territory wi’ a weapon drawn, tha’s an act o’ war.” A female voice sounded out of the shadows. A light flared above him as more fireballs ignited, illuminating a young dragon on a partially ruined wall.

Flicking his tail, Ghrathryn scowled. The voice sounded faintly familiar, but he couldn’t place where he had heard it before… probably in court when various dignitaries were being introduced to his siblings. “I drew me blade ‘cause I didnae know wha’ tae expect. I saw a fire an’ this castle isnae known tae be populated, Or’nae, ’sides it’s borderland territory, ‘tween Cal’drith an’ Or’nae, yer kin own it as much as me own.”

He watched as she leapt down off the wall, landing in a crouch before standing and starting towards him. “Hmph, I mighta known it would be a Cal’drith.” She said flatly, her tail lashing. “Wha’ are ye doin’ ’ere?”

Ghrathryn shifted slightly, lowering his blade. “Somethin’ similar tae ye by t’looks o’ it, spendin’ t’nigh’ ’ere,” He said, a grimace twisting his snout. “Against me better judgement….”

That seemed to get her attention. “So who dared ye tae spend t’nigh’ ’ere?”

“Me cousins an’ siblings,” He sighed, sheathing his sword and slumping near the fire. “At leas’ I’ve go’ someone tae talk tae… providin’ the things they say ‘bout this place arenae true.” He really hoped they weren’t, but… he didn’t want to be caught off guard by them either. “So wha’ do I call yae… ’sides ‘Or’nae’ tha’ is?”

“Me name’s V’rentryth, Gr’an’tycth o’ Or’nae.” She replied.

Ghrathryn blinked, his head snapping up so he could look at her. It had only been a couple of months since the Gr’an’tacth and Gr’an’tycth of several kingdoms had met up… his generation of them anyway. Now he remembered where he had heard that voice before, she was the red Or’nae from that gathering, one of several that had caught his eye, but the one that had seemed to freeze when she caught his gaze. “I know ye… ye were at t’gathering in Or’shre castle a few months back….” Flicking his tail, he reached out a hand towards her. “Ghrathryn Cal’drith, Gr’an’tacth o’ the kingdom, though some o’ me kin call me ‘Jhoshorythryn’.”

V’rentryth frowned slightly as she took his hand briefly, electricity crackling a little across their palms as the static charges tried to even out, “I though’ ye looked familiar, an’ ye’re the Gr’an’tacth of Cal’drith? How’d ye give ’em t’slip.”

Ghrathryn snorted softly. “I’m hardly t’only one, V’rentryth. Mom’s go’ two siblings in ‘er generation, I’ve go’ several cousins an’ four siblings tha’ are… royal. Frankly though, I think most of us take after our parents an’ adopted sister.” He watched as V’rentryth found herself somewhere to sit near the fire before looking into it. “Tae be honest… I wouldnae ‘ave taken’m up on their bet, bu’ somethin’ started buggin’ me ‘bout comin’ ’ere tonigh’.”

“I know tha’ feeling,” V’retryth responded with a sigh. “Somethin’s here… I jus’ donae know wha’, tha’s t’only reason I decided tae come ou’ ‘ere.” She sighed again, settling near her fire. “At least I’m no’ facin’ those rumoured ghosts alone….”

*****

27/06/2012, 03:30 - Rob

     My eyes snapped open to find my daughter sleeping peacefully next to me, and me unable to move. Shifting carefully, I sighed, finding the fillies had managed to trap me good and proper with their weight, still it gave me a chance to think about things. The first one being what the heck that dream had been, normally when I slept, I remembered nothing of it, it was just a case of at some point it went from being unknown o’clock at night to being unknown o’clock in the morning, though usually an hour or two before I had to get up, with no indication of what had happened in the missing hours apart from having shifted position.

     That dream… I could remember it a lot more clearly than I remembered anything else that happened while I was sleeping. I snorted mentally, the fact that I could remember it at all was a bit different to everything else that happened while I was sleeping. Looking over at my still sleeping daughter, I frowned slightly. She and Connor had had nightmares last night as well, before they and the fillies had come to sleep with us in the living room and it seemed I had had a dream of some kind. “Gh-Ghrath…” A whimper came from my other side and I turned my head to look, seeing Cathy shivering, despite the number of bodies around us and the fact we were in the middle of an actual summer.

     Shifting carefully, I leaned over and kissed her tenderly before settling again, shifting one arm to trace her back gently. No way could we do anything with so many younglings around, but sometimes touching helped relax people. Closing my eyes, I sighed softly, thinking again. The name Cathy had whimpered, it was the same name I had heard in my dream, the short version of it at least. If Cathy was having dreams similar to me, was it possible she was seeing things from ‘V’rentryth’s’ perspective?

     Well, whatever the cause, it was something else to look up on the net, particularly instances of entire families getting nightmares about the same time — that said, most of those would probably be down to something pretty traumatic or life changing happening were I to guess. What else needed to be done today anyway? Oh yes, reports on what happened yesterday, since there were an officer involved incident in the park that didn’t end with an arrest, checking to see if there were any My Little Ponies around that matched our currently nameless foal in looks and checking to see if any more foals had shown up anywhere along with trying to localise them to see if we could find out where they were coming from. No doubt the last two would take more than a day all told, probably more like a few months or longer before we figured everything out to do with the foals.

     Stretching as much as I could, I wrapped an arm around Imoen as she shivered, drawing her closer and kissing her forehead. It seemed that even sleeping with everybody, her dreams hadn’t left her alone either. It still left me wondering what had happened last night though. Even so, we couldn’t afford to lie around all day, particularly if we were going to ride into the city. Pushing myself up, I reached over to where I had left the tablet the night before and picked it up, setting it where it wouldn’t give off too much light and disturb the others before turning it on to check the time. Half three in the morning, bloody great, I still had hours to go yet before I needed to get up. I sighed, shutting the tablet down and putting it down again.

     Feeling something shift on my lower back, I turned my head to see Twilight blinking up at me sleepily. “Hey Twilight, what’re you doin’ awake so early?” I asked softly, not wanting to disturb any of the others.

     Twilight shrugged and shifted, not saying anything, whether it was because she couldn’t or she couldn’t put it into something that I understood, I didn’t know which. Shifting a little, I managed to bring one arm down so I could trace my fingers over her muzzle gently before yawning. Great, knowing my luck, I would be stuck either dozing or dealing with Twilight, probably both since Twilight would likely fall asleep again, I probably wouldn’t. Now I don’t mind children, I’ve got two of my own, but there are times when you just want them gone for a bit, and the wee small hours of the morning is not a happy fun time for dealing with anything young since it means you’re a lot worse off for the interrupted sleep.

     Feeling Twilight shift again, I frowned, looking back at her. “Do you need to relieve yourself?” I asked. Getting a blank look I sighed. “Do you need to have a wee?” I asked, getting a nod this time. “Alright, c’mon,” I whispered, nudging her into getting off the bed, it creaking under the weight before I climbed over Imoen, being careful not to disturb her.

     Standing up, I motioned Twilight to follow me and padded out of the room, the carpet fortunately muffling the sound of her hooves striking the ground. Leading her outside, I took her over to an old toilet that had still been around when we bought the house, though we had added a constant run of water into the sewers so it didn’t need emptying. “It’s probably best to use this one, easier to figure out for you unless you’d rather do it the way Thowra, Blaze and the others do.” I said, getting her to turn and face me and lower her rear a bit, tail out of the way. I had to chuckle at the look of relief on her face when she got things going and left her to it.

     I probably wouldn’t have time to get dressed before the purple filly came out of the toilet, but now that I was up, I guess I might as well make the most of it. If nothing else, it would mean I could get an early start on getting the horses groomed, fed and watered for the day, and get some food ready for everybody when they got up. It would also give me a bit of quiet time to see what was supposed to be happening in the new generation of My Little Pony and see if there were any other appearances of strange pony foals already reported.

     After a bit, Twilight emerged from the stall and I led her back to the house, letting her get back into bed with the others while I went up and got ready for the day’s work. Oh-four-something mornings sucked when you weren’t used to them, though with animals and children, you tended to get more of them than you wanted and any farmer will tell you that you have to be up with the dawn to get everything done on a farm, without even going into the shifts emergency services pull or food producers.

     A quick shower and a change of clothes later and I was back in the stable itself, getting ready to do one of the less enjoyable tasks for the morning, mucking out stalls, setting up some soft music — since how many people like going from sound sleep to blasting rock or metal? — I set the eeePad down on a shelf out of the horses’ reach before getting the wheelbarrow and pitchfork and getting started.

     Getting the horses out of the way was the easy bit, once they were actually awake, of course convincing them to wake up while it was still dark outside had been a bit of a pain. Once they were out of the way, however, it was actually kind of relaxing to buckle down and deal with manual labour for a while, not due to what you’re doing since it can leave you exhausted, particularly when you first start out, but in the fact you can just do things and let your mind wander, especially once you have your body trained. It’s kind of like a reflex, you do the work often enough that you don’t need to think about it, the same as you can train in martial arts or combat to the point where you’ll simply react when a situation presents itself or you can throw out an answer to something without even hearing the whole question. You’ve pushed things past the point of thinking about them.

     That was how it felt cleaning out the stable and putting in fresh straw and refilling the equines’ feed and water, I’d done this for years, and even though normally Cathy and the kids will do it as well, helping out or taking charge and getting it done, it wasn’t too much worse for me alone… it let me think about things.

     Ponies and dragons, what did the pair have in common? I snorted to myself, wiping my forehead with the back of my gloved hand. “Nothin’, that’s what,” I said, bending down to pick up the wheelbarrow and starting to wheel it to where we dumped the used straw so it composted. Ponies were creatures of earth generally speaking, oh sure there were fantastical ones, but there were legends of fantastical horses going back to the days of Ancient Greece. That said though, dragons of some type or another showed up in most regions at some point, from the feathered serpents of the Americas to the bestial western dragons to the serpent-like Oriental dragons. Bones had been discovered back in the early days of palaeontology that were claimed to come from dragons, most belonged to one species of dinosaur or another, but what were dinosaurs if not another type of living dragon, granted one that had never breathed fire as far as we knew, but still… a lot of people still thought of them that way, or thought of them as the base for dragons despite the first recorded findings being a long time after some of the legends, such as St. George.

     Tipping the barrow out, I wheeled it back to where it was stored and moved to lean against the fence, watching as the sun brightened the skies. I’d actually beaten true sunrise, meaning I’d been working in either darkness or half-light until now. Huh, I’d not even noticed it, so maybe I’m too used to it.

*****

27/06/2012, 08:10 - Rob

     “And not only did you not call the proper authorities to take the animals away, but you failed to report the incident?” The fat, rather bald topped police chief asked, glaring at me from behind his desk. The room he worked in was almost always cluttered with various items and reports, most of which meant nothing to anybody else, but it was somewhat homey for all that.

     I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Captain, you do realise it would have taken longer for them to get there than it did for my wife and I to handle things, take care of the wounds temporarily and take those foals to our stable, right?” I asked, shifting slightly. “And we were off duty at the time; I’m reporting the incident now, which you’re pretty lucky it was someone like me that got involved in this, Captain.” I continued, shifting slightly. “A lot of other people would have either taken them home and not looked into things any further or would have done something to hurt those fillies. You know as well as I do that there’s a market for exotic animals, and while horses and ponies are fairly common, pegasi and unicorns, particularly ones with those coat colours aren’t.”

     The captain sighed and nodded. “Alright, I can see what you mean… just don’t make a habit of picking up strays, Farrell, you can’t afford it and I don’t want to see you or your wife working every hour God sends just to keep up with everything, your kids need you more than some stray ponies.” He said, shifting back from his desk. “I’ll make a case; you and your wife will be seconded to ESC for the duration of the case as you’ve both already come across it. Just remember, from here on out, I want regular reports on what you’re finding, and reports on what’s happening with the foals you’ve taken in.” He continued, waving a finger at me.

     “Yes, Sir,” I responded, saluting — it’s been a few years and I still have a habit of pulling a military salute, guess the tour of duty in the army made an impression on me.

     “Dismissed,” The Captain said, causing me to nod and head out of the office.

     As I headed back to the stable I had left Thowra, Socks and Star, the latter pair with orders to the grooms that helped out to not be given out to anybody as they weren’t police mounts or battle trained and would panic if trouble showed up — not to mention that Thowra and Blaze were about the right height for police work at sixteen hands, the two ponies were only about twelve.

     So now it seemed I would have to hang around until one of the detectives in ESC got off their arses and came down to see what this case was about. It’d probably be the Wildlife Command if anyone, which might mean I would be waiting for a while before anything happened. Probably a good idea to have a look see if there was anything already out and about then.

     Cutting myself off, I turned and headed for the computer room, granted I preferred being in the stables to dealing with computers, but I was able to handle them mostly.

     It didn’t take long to reach the main area, where most officers had a cubicle they could use for typing up reports and such. Making my way to mine, I sat down in the chair and powered the computer up, frowning slightly as it went through the boot process. One of the good things about being on the force, at least you were kept fairly up to date in terms of computers and software, though I doubt anybody could stay completely up to date as things are out dated as soon as they hit the store shelves. I also tend to keep the computer off when I’m not using it, unless I think it’ll be a short call, mostly because I’m used to shutting everything down when I don’t get mobbed, it costs less to use less.

     Getting the internet browser running, I frown, thinking about where I should be looking. The news sites to start with, they’d probably have an article about any strange creatures, followed by anything about people dreaming they were dragons or something else and remembering it and anything to do with My Little Pony. I fully expect this hunt to take a while, given not everybody will willingly be open about things, but there would likely be at least a few that were squealing in joy at the thought of possible live ponies like those from the cartoons. There’s bound to be some reporters after a story as well, ones that would jump on anything that’s remotely odd, and Cannon Hill Park yesterday was hardly quiet. I’d lay odds on at least one reporter having been there, even if they weren’t willing to approach us about things.

*****

27/06/2012, 09:30 - Rob

     While the net hadn’t given me anything of particular value, it had pointed towards some potential hotspots within Birmingham before the detective from Wildlife had actually shown her ugly mug. I admit to not being the best judge of beauty on the planet, but it’s rather saying something when you’ve seen rats that are prettier than a person after said rat has lost a fight with a cat or terrier. Yeah… not pretty at all. Of course, I didn’t have to like the detective, or even appreciate their looks and most women in the force are a spectrum of types, though model quality ones are probably about as rare in the force as out of it.

     “Officer Farrell?” She asked coming up to where I was working, breaking me out of the haze I had been in, focused enough that the background noise of people talking on the phone or to one another had become little more than a mumble. Blinking, I turned away from the screen to look up at her, not putting into words my first impression of her.

     I nodded, tapping the command to print on my keyboard. “That’s me, yes,” I agreed, “I take it that you’re the detective for this case the Cap’s created…” though if she was, I hoped she wasn’t going to try talking to the foals, a face like that would give them nightmares for life. Fortunately I didn’t say the last bit out loud, so I’d apparently managed to pick up a little diplomacy from somewhere, probably dealing with the kids more than anything, since normally I was as diplomatic as a runaway tank going downhill towards a town and packed with explosives ready to blow. I shrugged mentally to myself, we all have our faults.

     The harridan nodded sourly, her lips set in a thin line. “That’s right, boy,” I growled at that, literally, one of the things that had helped me learning how to ‘talk’ to animals was the fact I could imitate them pretty well, and comments like that generally put my back up the way an annoyed dog did. “I don’t see the point of this little wild goose chase though. It’s probably some ponies escaped the local zoo and got caught in paint or dye before wandering into the park.” She continued, completely ignoring my ‘comment’. Great, one of those type of people… the self-entitled older generation, k’gostyn but they put my back up as much as bratty kids, of course they often take it as read that they deserve things for being around as long as they have in one way or another and some do, but others… others I do not like.

     “Detective, I was at the park, I hadn’t been drinking and besides me and my family there were at least a few dozen witnesses, most of whom were more shocked by the dog attack than by the fact there were pegasi in the park.” I snapped, glaring at her. “My family took them home and they were still there this morning, so no, it’s not a group of foals that jumped a fence and got into random dyes.” Getting to my feet, I grabbed my print outs, including the one from the printer and my jacket and started towards the door. “There’s more going on here than you seem to think, ‘detective’,” I said over my shoulder, ignoring the looks from some of the other officers in the room, along with the comments about what the higher ups would do about my attitude. “I intend to find out what that more includes, since the things I can think of all mean trouble for someone.”

     Walking down the corridor towards the motor pool, I scanned the locations that people had mentioned on various websites, there was Cannon Hill Park, of course, not like something like that was going to go unnoticed given it had happened with quite a few people other than myself and my family around, particularly given the waiter and the dog owner were more than likely a bit miffed about things, and the woman with the toddler had had a bit of a scare… then there was the waitress Cathy and I knew by sight if not by name and everybody else there. The others were a mixture of odds and ends, mostly strange dreams and strange animals spotted around the place, though how many were the effect of drugs was up for debate.

*****

27/06/2012, 10:00 - Cathy

     Flicking a glance around the examination room of Dr Jacobs’ veterinary practice, its plain white walls doing about as much to calm the non-human patients it saw as a regular hospital’s walls did to calm humans, I sighed as I watched the nurse try her best to stop Rainbow Dash fluttering around just barely off the ground while Spitfire looked like she had Firefly’s ear in her mouth. “Spitfire, stop trying to eat your sister’s ear, Dash settle down.” I ordered them both before turning my attention back to our unnamed foal. I had been looking on the net earlier, after taking over the computer from Rob when he had taken the kids, and I think I had a name for ‘nameless’. There was a picture on a place called DeviantArt giving faces to some faceless characters, ones that had never really been. One of them was called Nightshade and looked a lot like the little filly being checked over right now, down to the golden eyes that really made her look as if someone had put bird DNA into her, like those stories in the Maximum Ride series.

     Shifting slightly, I stroked Medley’s mane gently, soothing her fears. The other four had been relatively easy check-ups, teeth, hooves, temperature, bloods and vaccinations, not that any of them had liked the last two. Couldn’t say I blamed them either, getting poked and prodded was never nice, though it usually didn’t hurt too badly when the person doing it was paying attention.

     Medley and Nightshade were the last pair, though, which meant I was now having to comfort Medley as she knew what was coming, she had seen her ‘sisters’ go through it all before her, and they weren’t as badly chewed as she was. Brushing my hair behind my ear, I rubbed Medley’s neck gently, taking care to avoid the injuries as I watched Dr Jacobs clean out Nightshade’s wounds again and dress them, poor filly would probably have scars throughout her life from some of those bites, as would Medley.

     Hearing a whimper from my side, I looked back down at Medley again. “It’s alright, little song, Dr Jacobs won’t hurt you if he can avoid it.” I whispered, causing her ears to flick towards me. ‘Little Song’… huh… it suited her in some odd way. Shifting slightly, I pulled her into a gentle hug, picking her up when Dr Jacobs indicated that he was done. Carrying Medley over to the table, I set her down carefully before wrapping an arm around Nightshade and looking at him. “So… what sort of state are they in?” I asked.

     Dr Jacobs shifted his glasses on his nose and checked his notes before responding. “We still need to run the blood tests, but the first four… Rainbow Dash, Firefly, Twilight and Spitfire?” He asked, looking at me for confirmation, to which I nodded. “Apart from a few scratches and bruises, they’re fine, no worms, no sign of anything wrong with their hooves or teeth, eyes and nasal passages are clear and their legs and wings all seem to be fine.” He frowned, getting a fresh set of needles and bandages. “That said, there are some fairly substantial differences to them that we’ve already found, for instance their bones seem to be structured much like a bird’s, except with small pockets of something at various points, which, I would guess is either hydrogen or helium to help them fly. Their wing spans are fairly impressive, about three to four metres across, though they don’t have all their flight feathers in yet….” He trailed off again at a commotion from the others, causing me to sigh.

     Looking over at them, I rolled my eyes as Twilight pounced on Dash while Firefly was in the midst of a scuffle with Spitfire, each trying to chew on something of the other’s body. “Firefly, Spitfire, Rainbow Dash, Twilight!” I snapped, causing all four of them to pause and look at me, their ears flattened against their heads. “Just what do you four think you’re doing, hmm?” I asked, getting miserable looks out of them. They might have been young, but they already knew when they were in trouble. “All four of you, no treats for the rest of the day and you’re going straight to bed when we get back home.” I continued, making them all cringe, their ears down. “In the stable,” I added as an afterthought, resulting in a collective whimper as I turned back to Jacobs. “You were saying, Doc?”

     He coughed, looking up from where he was standing. “Yes well… ahem… there’s not much more we can say at the moment except that they’re actually a bit lighter than they should be for their size, and from what we can tell, apart from their blood being a brighter red than normal, everything seems to be mostly normal for a horse.” He said, moving to check Medley over as Nightshade jumped off the table, making me roll my eyes as she ended up gambolling along the floor.

     After making sure Medley wasn’t in dire need of me standing right next to her, I made my way over to Nightshade and helped her back to her hooves. “You need to watch where you’re going to land doing things like that, Nightshade.” I said gently, rubbing her muzzle gently and getting my hand lipped for my trouble. I had to smile, since that was almost typical of most equines at some point or another. “I don’t have anything for you, and I don’t think the vets keep sugar cubes or apples for visiting patients.” I said, shifting slightly before sending her back to the others.

     Getting up again, I watched as Jacobs continued removing the bandages Medley had on from this morning, checking her wounds over. Feeling a nose against my leg, I glanced down to see a really down looking Rainbow Dash there and crouched next to her. “Aw, honey, are you sad because I yelled at you?” I asked, getting a miserable nod from her. Shifting slightly, I wrapped my arms around her. “Dashie, you did some bad things, so you got scolded. If you don’t do them again, I won’t do it again, you understand?” I asked, getting another nod. “Of course, if you do good things, like standing up for your sisters against that mean ol’ dog, you’ll get something nice.” I continued, hugging her as I looked over at the others. “That goes for all of you,” I smiled slightly, waving them over. “C’mon, you all look like you could use a hug… though you’re still getting a nap in the stables when we get back.” I said, patting Dash’s shoulder as the others came over to me.

*****

27/06/2012, 13:40 - Rob

     The orchard wasn’t exactly what I had been expecting in terms of a place where some of those ponies had appeared, certainly not what I had thought we would be investigating, still… the old timber-framed building had a fair amount of charm to it, shame they were so rare these days, but buildings change and timber is a lot less fire resistant than brick.

     Hearing a grumble from the detective — I still hadn’t learned her name, and didn’t feel like rectifying that any time soon — I rolled my eyes and looked around, trying to figure out just what this place had been back in the day. It was only because I was looking around that I spotted something red dash into what looked like another building, probably a barn or silo for storage. I wasn’t sure what it was, but… something had definitely run in there.

     Turning my attention back to the door as it opened, I shifted slightly, seeing another pony, an orange one that didn’t seem to have any obvious special features the little I could see of it poke its head out of a room behind the man standing in the doorway before ducking back into it. I’d never seen a pony with that shade of orange fur, nor proper human blonde for their mane colour and when I say that, I mean the sort of golden yellow shade of it, since that ‘colour’ ranges from almost white through to nearly brown. Fun fact, my own hair had once been nearly white, but it had darkened over the years, at first shifting with the season, but eventually settling into brown, if England had been further south, I would probably still be blonde, maybe even that white-blonde.

     “I don’t see why the police are involved in something like this, I mean it’s just some loose animals, right?” The man asked, drawing me out of my introspection in time to see him standing aside to let us enter.

     “I’m pretty sure there’s more to it than that,” I responded, shifting slightly as we followed him into the house and into the room I had seen the pony disappear into earlier. “In fact, I’m almost certain something is happening around the city at least, maybe further afield.” I continued, looking around and not seeing hide or hair of the pony. I frowned, scanning the room again, a couple of kids, a few dogs… no pony, but the settee seemed to be quite far out from the wall for some reason. Moving over to it, I crouched, frowning as I spotted indentations in the carpet. This piece of furniture had been moved, and recently too.

     I glanced down between it and the wall, reaching down to unhook the collapsible baton I kept at my belt. “What makes you say something like that?” The man asked as I spotted an orange pony rump with a blonde tail.

     Extending the baton, I reached in carefully and tapped the pony on the rear before pulling my arm back quickly as she shrieked, bucked and bolted out the other end. “She does,” I said, standing up and moving to see the filly, only about as old as the six Cathy was taking care of, cowering near the trio of dogs, several of them with their heads up and their teeth bared. “I found six others, mostly pegasi, in Cannon Hill Park yesterday, and while most of the places we checked out today have been useless, there’s plenty of rumours around of other ponies around.” I looked back at the man, who looked annoyed. “And I’m guessing she’s not the only one here, is she?”

     I watched the man, shifting carefully to give the pony and her protectors an indication that I was sorry about scaring her and that I wasn’t going to hurt her. “You’re right,” He admitted finally as one of the dogs came over to sniff at my hand. “There’s another… one that’s been around for a couple of years,” He sighed, making me frown slightly. “We didn’t think much of it, just that he was a bit redder than normal for a pony, like a Macintosh apple, but then we found this one near where we store the applejack…” I could figure it out from there.

     “So you went looking on the net, and I found things out because I was doing the same thing.” I said, glancing at the detective, who was looking more than a little confused. “Have you had them looked over by a vet or doctor?” I asked, turning my attention back to the man and getting a head shake, which made me narrow my eyes. Okay, granted there are more than a few reasons why people might want to keep things a secret, particularly something like the ponies since there were far too many ways them being revealed could go wrong, particularly if they were as intelligent as a dolphin or human and had the throat set up to speak human languages, but you had to at least make sure there were few chances for things to go wrong and them to get sick or die from something you didn’t know about, right? Apparently not in this family’s world view, which could make things troublesome if there was something possibly wrong with them, I’d seen a few people that had lost friends in my line of work, if it was preventable, it was preferable.

     I shifted slightly, feeling a pony muzzle brush against my hand and ignoring it, since it was often better to let them approach on their own terms, particularly the younger ones. “There’s a vet I know, Dr Jacobs, he already knows about the ‘special’ ponies,” I said, watching the man in front of me. “He checked over and patched up the six my family took in yesterday, and he’s an equestrian vet so he knows equine biology, met him while I was in the military on posting, but never learned his first name.” I smiled slightly, remembering that meeting. Several of the horses in our unit were acting up because of something which while everyone knew about, didn’t know what it was. In the end, I asked Thowra what had been going on while the vet was checking the other horses out and he had told me more-or-less that someone had been messing with the food, which was why he and Blaze had been refusing to eat anything that they didn’t see me or Cathy gather or grass in areas away from the pasture.

     I had been a bit sceptical of his comments, but I had also seen how rough the other horses looked, so I had gone to get some of the feed we used and took that in, telling Jacobs that Thowra was refusing to eat the food from the stables and refusing to eat the grass in the pasture because he thought it was bad. The guy had given me a look and asked if I thought that horses could talk, to which I had responded that they were mostly understandable, if you knew what you were looking for to see their speech. Turned out I was right, someone had drugged the feed bags with something that made the horses feel sick, and had sewn seeds of a plant that caused horses to either get sick or pass things rather quickly in order to get out of doing things because he was worried about something. Stupid, but understandable, though the fact that he knew what it was doing and kept doing it made me wonder how he would treat other animals — including humans — in a similar situation away from the herd.

*****

27/06/2012, 15:30 - Imoen

     Finally out of school… I swear it seems like it lasts longer every day. I sighed, pushing my red-brown hair back into its ponytail as I waited for my brother and dad. “Hey, Ponygirl, are you going to run off again?” A voice asked, causing me to roll my eyes and turn to face Beth, one of the most stuck-up girls in the whole school, I swear if she spent any more time on her looks she would need a supermodel or film star’s retinue to keep them… that or have things surgically implanted in her face.

     “What do you want, Beth?” I asked, crossing my arms and leaning against the fence around the school. I really didn’t want to deal with her right now, I wanted to get back home, get what homework I had out of the way and spend some time just riding or lazing or hey, watching videos on the computer, there was supposed to have been a new episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic out that I hadn’t gotten to watch yet, that’d kill half hour or so, and maybe I could show the ponies where their names were going to come from.

     The blonde girl shrugged at me. “Oh, just to tell you that the girls and I are having a party this weekend, you’re invited, of course, if you do something to make yourself presentable and stop hanging around with those ugly brutes.” She said, examining her nails. I simply rolled my eyes.

     See, this was why I didn’t like Beth that much, sure I could get on with her at times, but only in short doses… it came of being a military brat whose parents became mounted police. I’ve always been around equines, them cats and dragons with a healthy dose of dogs and wolves thrown in, Beth on the other hand is all about make-up, boys, fashion mags and gossip… not my preferred drink, in fact, we were probably about as alike as rose tea and bitter shandy — my dad’s preferred drink when he does actually drink, I’ve had one, once, thanks to my granddad and his friend, but with my parents being the law, literally, I’m not about to try sneaking them the way other teens did, particularly not given the headache the day after. “Beth, I don’t do that sort of party, you ough’ tae know tha’ by now.” Great, now my accent is slipping, something else I got from dad, though he swears he doesn’t know how it happens either, particularly since we’re both Brummies born and bred. “’Sides, I’m gonna have tae ‘elp me parents this weekend, we foun’ a group o’ ponies in t’park yestaday, an’ they’re only foals, they’re gonna need a lo’ o’ carin’ fer a’leas’ a year.”

     That made Beth stick her nose up in the air and snort. “Well, if that’s the way you feel, see if I invite you to any parties after this.”

     I rolled my eyes again and looked up at the sound of clopping hooves on pavement. “Yeah, whatever, Beth, at least I’ve got some skills and work experience well before I need it, the type that most people wouldn’t be able to get.” I said, pushing off the wall and heading for the entrance, grabbing Connor as I passed him and ignoring his indignant ‘Hey!’

     Making my way up to where Dad was waiting, I grinned as he swung down off Thowra’s broad back. “Hi Dad,” I called, waving at him before Connor and I wove through the crowd towards the island of calm near the horse and ponies. The fact Thowra looked big enough to squish some of the kids around and that Dad was in uniform probably helped that. My grin became wider when Socks nickered, moving over, I patted her shoulder, leaning against her for a moment before looking back to see Connor doing the same with Star. “Hey you,” I said with a grin as she nuzzled me, ignoring the snort from somewhere behind me.

     “So, did you pair have a good day?” Dad asked from behind as I felt his hand land on my shoulder. Looking up, I saw him smile slightly, one of those special smiles people keep for the ones closest to them.

     “Borin’ mostly,” Connor replied looking up at Dad, “Maths an’ English all day.” I swear that accent drift is a family trait.

     I rolled my eyes at my brother’s comment. I could agree with him on the maths element, though we were both pretty good at it, which actually made it more boring because the things we were being taught were behind what we knew and rehashing old ground was annoying. English on the other hand had been writing stories, which I enjoyed, so did Connor, normally, today he was probably either distracted with thoughts of those bad dreams last night, the fillies we had found yesterday or something else, likely the people he had been sitting with.

     Dad arched an eyebrow at him, apparently well aware of there being something up with my brother. “You usually like English, particularly if it’s writing stories, so what was wrong today?” He asked, shifting to lean against Thowra and look at Connor.

     Connor shrugged, moving to mount on Star, until Dad put a hand on his shoulder. “I… donnae know, jus’ couldnae deal wi’ it t’day.” Connor said with a sigh.

     Mounting up myself, I shifted a little to get comfortable. I couldn’t really blame him for it though, particularly if it was the dreams or worry about the fillies Mom was looking after. A shiver ran through me at the thought of the dreams I’d had last night. Being with everyone had helped a lot, but it hadn’t chased them away, only made them something bearable… and left me worried since even as fun as flying had felt in the dream, there was that lingering feeling of something bad about to happen. I looked up when I felt Dad’s hand on my back, seeing him looking worried. “I’m okay, Dad,” I said, “Jus’… still feel a bit o’ from t’dreams.”

     He nodded, rubbing my back for a moment before moving to mount up on Thowra’s back. “Sounds like both of you could use a treat,” Dad said, ignoring the bustle around us as school friends separated for the day and cars or parents picked up children. We were the only riders, which was kind of a shame; it’d be nice to ride with someone other than my family once in a while. “Wha’s say we get some cakes on t’way back an’…” Dad trailed off, yawning before rubbing his eyes. “An’ I could do wi’ some caffeine.” There his accent goes taking a trip north without him, just as mine had done earlier.

     I nodded eagerly at the thought of cakes while Connor agreed vocally, probably loud enough they had heard him a few roads away. “Yes please,” I said, once I could hear again.

     Dad chuckled as he swung back up into Thowra’s saddle and got the stallion turned around with a touch of his reins and the pressure of his knees. Nudging Socks around, I touched my heels to her flanks as Thowra started off at a canter along the street, moving deftly through the crowds of pedestrians around. Evening rush hour wasn’t due to start for another hour and a half, but there were still plenty of people around, most of them collecting kids from school or teenagers leaving school for home or meetings with their friends somewhere.

     It was probably about an hour before we stopped in front of a cake shop, a family owned one rather than the national chain of Greggs. I liked the stuff from Greggs, but it was nice to try a family run bakery’s wares occasionally. “Whoa, Socks, whoa,” I murmured, leaning back in my saddle and pulling back on my reins to get my pony to stop before swinging off her back. Moving around to grip her reins under her chin, I got a sniff and a muzzle against my neck, making me giggle before she stomped on the ground, drawing my attention, “What’s up?” I asked her.

Fillies, inside. Was the response I got from her, which didn’t make much sense, but after the last couple of days….

     “Dad,” I turned to look at Dad, who nodded to me, apparently having gotten the same from Thowra.

     “I know,” He said, confirming my suspicions. “I’ll talk to the owners, see if we can have a look at these fillies and get them to get them checked over.” He continued, moving up to the door and pushing it open.

     Following him inside with Connor after tying the two ponies to a bike rack, I blinked as a trio of foals bound up to us whickering and squeaking in a babyish excitement at seeing us. They’re an odd trio, I note, two are greys, different shades but the same colour, obviously siblings, the third… was bright pink. I know enough about reading ponies and identifying them to recognise familial resemblance in them, and in horses as well, but this third one must be some type of throw back or weird mix-up, because while she’s got enough characteristics that match to be their sister, her colours are completely different.

     “Hey there,” I grinned at them as they bounced around Connor and I, Dad going to get the cakes and talk to these foals’ caretakers.

*****

27/06/2012, 16:10 - Cathy

     I was sitting on the floor, fillies surrounding me, looking over at the book I held in my hands as I read to them when I heard the sound of hooves on the drive. Yeah, I know, it’s kind of odd to read to foals, but these weren’t ‘normal’ foals, so I had dug out some of the old books Rob and I had that we had taught our children to read on, apparently the same ones he had learned to read with as he had gotten them from an aunt of his, a teacher that was probably close to retirement given she had two children of her own that were grown up and a bit older than my husband.

     I had taken Blaze out for a ride earlier, letting the pair that had behaved at the vet’s come with me while the others napped in the stables for a couple of hours, then had started reading to them, since they had behaved. The way they all behaved, it wasn’t so much like foals that I knew as human babies or toddlers, just on the edge of learning how to read and speak, sure physically they were a lot more active than a human would be, but ponies in the wild had to be able to walk and run pretty quickly and the girls were most likely made from normal ponies somehow.

     Hearing the door open, I shifted, looking up towards it. I had heard hooves on the drive, but I hadn’t heard any nickers of greeting between the horses, which worried me. Waving my hand at the fillies, I got to my feet and threw the book onto the couch before moving to grab the service pistol kept near at hand, but hidden from young eyes and hands before moving towards the door of the room, ensuring I was on the side it had its handle so if it did open suddenly I wouldn’t get smacked in the face by it.

     A moment passed, then another before I heard Thowra’s nicker, sounding more distant than usual… Blaze must have been further out than normal. Closing my eyes for a moment, I sighed to myself, moving to put the gun away, just before Rob and the kids came in through the door, Rob looking like he had been waiting for something, probably the same thing that I had been. “Hey love,” I said, looking up at him, “Good day at work?”

     Rob shook his head. “Not really, they made a case for the fillies appearing and there are at least another five foals around that I can confirm, probably more, but the detective on the case… she’s a harridan, and one of those self-entitled idiots.”

     I snorted at that, I knew the type, I also knew that Rob could be a bit too readily annoyed by the older generations, though sometimes they weren’t as pleasant as they could be, so it was hardly any wonder than the generations after them had gotten nastier. What was the phrase? “Every generation blames the one before?” It was pretty accurate as far as it went, we all had something against those older than us, those that made us do things when we were young and… there are some things that people hate or fear about the elderly, wishing that they wouldn’t go that way themselves and fearing they would. A rather sad fact of life in an era when life expectancy was roughly sixty to a hundred and the average was going up, even though the human body wasn’t really designed to take it and broke down.

     “Alright kids, get changed and get your chores done, then we’ll have dinner.” I said brightly, turning to see our children playing a bit with the fillies and smiling slightly. It was good to see them having some fun after last night and this morning.

     The pair groaned, but hurried upstairs to change out of their uniforms, followed by Rob, who dropped a bag in the kitchen first. Shaking my head, I checked to make sure the fillies were okay before heading into the kitchen myself and moving the bag to somewhere out of the way before starting tea. It was probably a good thing we had the horses encouraging us to get a lot of fruit and vegetables, and grains, since otherwise we tended to eat more meat and the fillies wouldn’t be able to stomach that too well, still, when we went shopping next, we would have to get a lot more vegetarian food, particularly things equines could stomach.

     It wasn’t too long before I felt hands on my waist. Leaning back, I turned my head and kissed Rob gently before turning my attention back to the cooking. “You said there were at least five other foals around?” I asked, not looking at him as he shifted to lean against the counter after kissing my neck. “Were they the same as the ones we found?”

     “No,” Rob replied, shaking his head. “They were mostly normal physically, a red and an orange, the red actually older than our lot, showed up on an orchard a few miles away from town and as we were riding back, we came across a pink and a pair of greys, all three in the care of a couple of bakers who said they found them in a quarry of all places.” He explained, making me frown. Our sextet was odd enough, but that more of them were showing up, and one was apparently older… something had probably been going on for a while. “What about you?” Rob asked, drawing me out of my thoughts. “Did you learn anything from Jacobs?”

     “A few things,” I replied, setting the soup to simmer and making sure the timer was set for the rest of the meal. “Physically they’re mostly like normal ponies, but there are signs of things being different. For one thing the pegasi all have hollow bones, and apparently gas pockets in them to help fly so they’re not reliant on brute force. That and their blood is more red than a human’s, probably due to increased oxygen capacity, beyond that there’s nothing he’s found yet.” I shrugged, shifting to look at Rob. “Not like we didn’t expect things to take a while though.”

     He snorted softly, looking up at the fillies as they came into the kitchen to investigate the smell of the food cooking, their hooves ringing on the tiled floor. “No, though I hope they find something that’ll give us an idea of how they ended up as they are and where they were.” He said, worry lacing his voice.

     I had to agree with him on that one. Reaching out, I put a hand on his arm. “I know, Rob, I know.” I whispered, glancing back at the fillies myself. Was fate just going to keep dropping new lives on us unexpectedly? First our kids, then Thowra and Blaze when their dams had gotten sick and died and we had been assigned to them, now the fillies. A thread of worry chilled its way through my gut, but a thunder of human feet coming down the stairs at a run, followed by Imoen and Connor racing each other outside, both grinning stilled it. As tough as it might be, with Rob and our families around, we would handle whatever came at us.

*****

27/06/2012, 19:00 - Rob

     Imoen yawned as she lay curled against my chest, causing me to glance down at her and smile slightly. Tired little girl was tired it seemed. Smiling a little, I closed the book and kissed her forehead gently before glancing around to see the fillies asleep already, curled up together in a messy pile while Connor was struggling to stay somewhat awake against my side. Good, it would be good if they could get some sleep tonight, unworried by dreams or nightmares.

     Hearing the door open, I looked up to see Cathy coming back in from putting up the horses and ponies for the night, the ones that didn’t act like four year old human children. “Hey,” I whispered as she picked her way carefully over to me and settled down next to me, “Everyone else in bed?” I asked softly, not wanting to disturb the sleeping fillies and kids.

     “Yeah,” Cathy replied as she settled next to me, opposite Connor. “Though they decided they would rather be in pairs than alone tonight.” She continued, making me frown slightly. It wasn’t that it was unusual for the horses to use one of the double stalls nor the ponies to do the same, what bothered me was the timing. Normally they did it at random, when they wanted to spend the night close, but all four of them had been awake before sunrise this morning, and had been acting a bit spooked, rolling their eyes and stamping or flicking their ears to catch sounds that weren’t there. That they had chosen to pair up tonight made me wonder what they had experienced last night.

     “If they got similar night terrors to the ones we had last night, I’m not surprised,” I said, shifting carefully and rubbing Imoen’s back when she grumbled. “I think we might want to have Jacobs check out their digestive tracts though, since Medley and Nightshade managed to eat those cakes earlier and they haven’t gotten sick yet.” I added as a thought occurred to me. Ponies, at least the ones I knew, weren’t particularly capable of digesting human foods, granted there’s some crossover since humans are omnivorous by nature so we can eat a fair selection of both meat and plant, but for the most part we can’t digest straight up grains while they can’t eat our processed foods as well as they can their own stuff.

     Cathy leaned against my side, curling her legs up on the settee. “He had a look at the obvious things and took samples from all of them, what it’ll turn up is anybody’s guess right now.”

     Not the answer I would have preferred, but at least it was something to know that the vet was actually already looking into things as much as he could. Slipping an arm around my wife, I closed my eyes for a moment, leaning my head back against the backrest. I hadn’t taken the time to think about my dreams last night during the day, not really in terms of its content. Granted that content was a bit hazy, but I remembered enough, I had been a dragon, in a world full of them, I had gone out to a ruined and abandoned castle as part of a dare, meeting a princess from the neighbouring land there, though she wasn’t in line to the throne. What was she in relation to the throne though? Later born from the king and queen or a daughter of another line? Come to that, what relation had I had to the throne of the land I had lived in in the dream?

     Whatever I was in relation to the crown, I knew who I had been to some degree. Ghrathryn, I had called myself, Ghrathryn Cal’drith, but those golden scales had long been something I had known something about. I often used that form as an imaginary avatar when reading or watching things, something to put myself into things without using my own form. I don’t doubt that I was not alone in that habit nor that there were people who had stranger looking mental avatars for putting themselves into stories, but still… this was the first time I had felt something of a past for him, or had really gotten a name in his own tongue, a tongue that sounded remarkably similar to the one Cathy and I used when we wanted to talk to one another without letting anyone else know what we were saying. I wonder what had brought it up on the night we had taken in the ponies… coincidences like that are more often the result of something playing games with mortals, though what that something was I didn’t know. I just hoped it wouldn’t end up with everything going bad around us when things were finally revealed, though I had a bad feeling about this….