Chapters Canterlot Castle is a bright, cheery place for the most part, full of large windows and well lit spaces meant for the open work of governing a kingdom. However, there are also rooms for learning, for science, for study. Rooms meant for the learning of secrets both gross and sublime. In one such room there stood a mystic mirror, recently returned for study from the Castle of Friendship.
The room was well guarded, as more than once before those who had passed through the mirror had altered the fate of worlds. Both of the senior princesses of Equestria, were determined to ensure that nothing and no one unexpected, passed in or out of the portal. So, when the mirror changed, from brightly lit from within by a pink light to a sullen, dark gray, the change was immediately noted and the ruling diarchs of Equestria, notified.
"Sister, do we have any idea what has caused this change in the mirror portal?" asked Luna, as she and her sister walked down the corridor.
"I'm afraid not,” said Celestia. "However, I have sent a message to Twilight asking her help. Her previous experiences with the portal and the fact that she is the Element of Magic should prove invaluable to determining the cause."
As she finished speaking, a scroll materialized out of a sudden puff of smoke in front of her. "Ah, a message from Twilight, no doubt,” said Celestia, stopping to catch the scroll in her magic.
"What does it say?" Luna asked, who stopped as well and turned to look.
"Hmm,” Celestia murmured, frowning. "The message is from Spike. It seems Twilight has been sent off on a friendship mission by the map in her castle and she is currently unreachable."
"Twilight is the only one of us not completely tied to a particular castle or location," Luna said. "Her responsibilities certainly take her far and wide now.” The sisters continued their way down the corridor, past a pair of studies and a storeroom.
"Indeed,” said Celestia, nodding to some guards as they passed. "And we both know from experience how seriously she takes those responsibilities."
"So, without Twilight, is it up to us then, to determine the cause of this change in the portal?" asked Luna. "I have no problem in making the attempt, but this lies outside of our expertise I think. Perhaps there is another skilled mage we could consult."
"Perhaps," said Celestia. "According to Spike, Twilight's zebra friend, Zecora, is currently in Canterlot, buying rare ingredients for potions, before returning to her home in the Everfree. He goes on to say she would be likely to help us, if we asked."
"I remember her from my visits to Ponyville,” Luna said. "Zecora is skilled, experienced and wise in her use of magic. We should send some guards to find her and bring her here before she leaves."
With that guards were dispatched throughout the capitol and within a few hours a gold ringed, zebra mare was brought before the diarchs. As she was brought forward the mare looked around with interest and curiosity.
"Thank you for responding so quickly to our summons, Darwisa Zecora," said Luna. "We have need of your skills."
"For as long as I dwell within your land, I shall always be at your command,” Zecora said, bowing low before the monarchs to show her obedience and respect to the Crowns.
"Thank you, Darwisa Zecora," said Celestia, waving her hoof toward a doorway. "Please come with us. My sister and I will explain the situation on the way."
As the trio walked down the hallway toward the guarded room holding the mirror, Celestia explained what was known of the mirror, and what had occurred the times that Twilight had traveled through it. More importantly Celestia also described the sudden change to the mirror, and how both she and Luna desired someone to examine it.
"So Princess, you need me to make a brew that can duplicate what Twilight would do?” Zecora asked quietly as Celestia finished her explanation of why the zebra had been summoned.
"Quite correct,” said Celestia from the other side. "I have never known Twilight to not throw herself fully into a research project. In fact, when she was my personal student here in Canterlot, I often had to quite literally, issue her Royal Commands to get her to eat and sleep during some of her research projects." She smiled in fondness at the memory as they reached the room where the mirror was kept. A pair of guard ponies were busy unpacking large amounts of glassware, herbs and other ingredients.
"It is good that you love Twilight, to whom you are both mentor and friend," said Zecora, as she began to examine the alchemical equipment and supplies that had been provided for her. "Else I would worry that you saw her as an asset to expend.”
"That is the burden of the crown, Zecora,” Celestia said, gentle reproof in her voice. "To protect those who depend on you, sometimes you have to send those you love into danger." Zecora bowed her head, acknowledging the point as the trio opened the door to the room holding the mirror and looked inside.
“Returning to the matter at hoof," said Luna. "We have kept everypony out of this room until you could have a look. I admit to being unfamiliar with Zebrican magic. But I must ask when you think you might have some clue as to what is happening with the portal?”
“The possibilities are wide and vast. But I should have something by breakfast,” said Zecora.
“We will leave you to your task then, Zecora,” said Celestia. “If you need anything at all, merely ask one of the guardponies and they will fetch it for you.” Zecora nodded and began to get to work. Inventorying the supplies and equipment the two guards were still in the process of unpacking.
"Come sister," said Luna. "I am tired, and we will only be in the Darwisa's way if we remain."
The two sisters left and went about their day. Luna to her rest, and Celestia to the challenges of her Day Court. While their routine continued as normal, they both dwelt on the mystery of the mirror at times, as the day and then the night passed. So, it was with some pleased anticipation that they saw a guard come before them, the next morning at breakfast.
“Your Highnesses,” said the guard. “Darwisa Zecora requests that you join her at the mirror room.”
“Thank you, Steady Pace,” said Luna, over her dinner tea. “Tell the Darwisa that we will be there shortly.” The guard left as the diarchs finished off the bites they were on and headed down to the room where the portal mirror was being kept.
“Sister, do you think it is significant that the guard asked us to met Zecora at, and not in the room, where the mirror is kept?” Luna asked her sister.
“We will know soon enough,” said Celestia as the pair walked back toward the room holding the mirror. Several guards were in the hall, many of whom had been pressed into service as impromptu assistants. As they approached, Celestia and Luna could see Zecora standing by several tables that had been set up in the hallway, near the door leading to the room itself. The sisters glanced at each other as they noted that the door had been painted with several alchemical signs and symbols.
“Darwisa Zecora,” said Celestia. “Good morning.”
“You and your sister are good to see,” said Zecora. “But you need not stand on such formality.”
Celestia gave a small laugh, “As you wish, Zecora. From the markings on the door I am guessing you have had some success.”
“Princess, I have learned some things indeed,” said Zecora. “To take in magic, the portal has a need. So, of my own accord, I have made a ward.”
“Why is that?” asked Luna from her sister's side. “Is there some sort of danger?”
“Some, and I can show you this thing,” said Zecora. “But first, for safety, put on a ring.” Zecora waved a hoof toward the table which had some completed potions and a small bowl of magical inhibitor rings.
“Inhibitor rings?” asked Luna, raising an eyebrow at the zebra.
“The portal is trying to drink in magic,” replied Zecora. “To enter without precautions could be tragic.”
“I understand,” said Celestia. “The rings will cut us off from magic and reduce our magical signature. Otherwise. the portal might try to drink us or any other unicorn in.”
“It is as you say, Princess,” said Zecora. “These kept your guards from being one less.” Celestia and Luna gravely dropped the inhibitor rings over each others horns. They were not sealed on in any way so they could be taken off by hoof or even a vigorous toss of the head would flick them off.
“Zecora, if you would?” asked Celestia. To which the zebra opened the door and led the alicorns into the room.
It was a large, well lit room, about thirty feet square. The early morning sun streamed in through a pair of windows and fell upon the sullen gray of the portal, lending contrasting colour to the light purple frame it was held in. The floor of the room had been painted with a large white warding circle and the remains of several broken potion bottles littered the floor. The room had also been home to a large number of books, chairs and magical lights for reading during the night. Nearly every book was off the shelves, some of which were piled against the walls, along with chairs. Every magical light was gone.
“Is it safe?” Luna asked.
“The safety of you and your sister is everything,” said Zecora. “All should be well, so long as you touch nothing.”
“Did the portal pull in all of the magic items in room?” asked Celestia as she stepped into the room.
“That is quite correct,” said Zecora. “It left the room rather wrecked.”
Luna followed her sister in and began to examine the large ward on the floor. “Is the ward designed to keep magic in or out?” she asked.
“It took all my potions skill,” said Zecora. “But I have blocked both with a will. You may look closer if you wish. Have a care, the lines you do not squish.”
The diarchs began to look around, examining everything closely. Luna raised a hoof and was about to touch the edge of the mirror when Zecora suddenly called out, “Stop! You risk too much. Please, do not touch!” Luna heeded the warning, lowering her hoof and she turned in place, looking toward Zecora to speak.
“I forgot, Zecora. Thank you for the AH-” shouted Luna suddenly. As Luna had spun, her tail, her magical flowing tail of stars, had brushed against the surface of the mirror. In response, the mirror had flowed out tendrils of silver gray mirror stuff, grabbing onto the magic inherent in Luna’s tail and swiftly braiding their way up toward her dock. Luna’s forward motion was instantly arrested by that sudden, implacable grip on her.
“Sister! Help!” Luna called out. Even as she said the words, the gray tendrils finished braiding their way up her tail and wrapped firmly around her dock.
“Luna!” Celestia yelled and grabbing onto her sister’s neck, began pulling.
“AHHH!” cried out Luna as her tail was painfully pulled between the mirror and her sister. Zecora jumped in as well, pulling with all her strength on the lunar princess. “PULL, Sister,” Luna urged as Celestia had slacked off at her sister’s cry of pain. “Even if you pull my tail out from the root. PULL!”
Even as Celestia braced herself to pull again, the tendrils from the mirror wrapped themselves around Luna’s hips. Flowing down her sides and back up and around the circle of her hips, the tendrils completed a pair of silver grey loops about her. It’s prey snared, the mirror then began to pull Luna towards it. Luna and Celestia panicked. Their hooves scrabbling on the floor even as half the length of Luna's tail disappeared into the mirror. The mirror tendril’s pull stopped for a moment, as if the mirror was taking a breath before continuing.
Taking advantage of the pause, with a toss of her head, Luna flung the inhibitor ring from her horn, and turned to unleash a blast of power at the mirror. The sudden dip and sweep of Luna's horn forced Celestia to release her sister and back off slightly.
“Princess, do not!” warned Zecora. “It will worsen your lot!”
Luna, in her panic, either did not care or did not hear the zebra. A blast of pure lunar power blasted toward the mirror. The mirror merely drank in the power and with a pulse, the thin tendrils around Luna’s hips and dock swelled and flowed. In the space of a few heartbeats, Luna’s entire hindquarters were covered in the silver gray matter of the mirror. She gasped as an icy cold sensation flowed over her sensitive areas, shocking her out of her panic. She looked at Celestia, who was about to fling her own ring off in an attempt to aid her sister.
“Tia, No!” shouted Luna. The warning had the desired effect and Celestia stopped even as she was winding up to fling away her ring. Her face was full of desperation to help her sister.
“Tia, it will be okay,” said Luna, trying to calm her sister. She felt a sudden calm acceptance come over her, as she realized that she was well and truly caught. Barring a miracle, there was to be no escape for her, from whatever the mirror had in store. Even as that thought crossed her mind, she could feel the mirror stuff begin to slowly wrap around her barrel. The tendrils tightly weaving a net like pattern across her body. It’s chill was spreading down her rear legs as well. All that remained for her was to ensure that her sister did not throw herself away in some vain attempt to save her. And to meet her fate in a manner befitting that of a Princess of Equestria.
“Luna,” said Celestia as tears began to flow from her eyes. “I can’t lose you, not again.”
“It will be alright, Tia,” repeated Luna and she pushed her sister further away from her, as the mirror’s tendrils reached her forequarters. The mirror tendrils began to spiral down her forelegs and circle the base of her neck. Celestia tried to grab onto Luna again, heedless of the danger. Zecora put herself between the two, barely keeping the tearful monarch of the Day from joining her sister in her ensnarement.
“Princess! Think it through,” pleaded Zecora. “We cannot lose you too.”
“OUT OF MY WAY ZECORA! ” Celestia thundered. She could see that Luna’s hindquarters were beginning to enter the mirror. The entire web woven about Luna’s body began to tighten and drag her sister in as the mirror resumed its pull. Celestia began to push past Zecora.
“STOP! ” bellowed Luna in the Royal Canterlot Voice, stunning her sister into immobility. “Tia, it will be okay. I swear, I will return to you. No matter how long it takes. I will come back. But you need to promise me something in return.”
“I...what is it Luna?” asked Celestia, regaining some semblance of control, even as tears openly flowed down her face. The constricting net now folded up Luna’s legs alongside her body. Without that resistance Luna was now steadily being pulled in. At the rate she was being drawn in, Luna realized only a minute or so remained until she was completely in.
“You have to promise me that you will wait for me,” said Luna. “Promise me that you and Equestria will still be here when I return. Promise me that you will be the beacon for me to find my way home.” Luna was halfway into the portal now. She shuddered from the cold enveloping her.
“I swear it, Luna,” said Celestia. “I swear Equestria will be here when you return. I swear that I will be here when you return, and be the light that calls you home. Should the sun grow cold and the stars burn out, still will I be here waiting for you.”
“Take care of her, Zecora,” Luna said addressing the zebra. “Get Twilight and her friends here as quickly as you can. My sister will need them.” Now, it was Zecora’s turn to cry.
“I will do as you and your sister say,” said Zecora. “I have been the cause of a horrible day.”
“Nay,” said Luna. Only her forequarters, neck and head were still outside the portal now. “T’was an accident. You bear no fault.” Only seconds remained.
“Luna! I love you,” cried Celestia.
“I have always known that,” smiled Luna. “I love you-”
And she was gone. Swallowed up by the mirror that slowly began to return to normal.
Author's Note
Hello, and welcome to my new story. This is going to be my next major project and my first try at a real adventure story that does not rely clop or similar elements. Though they may sneak in a bit from time to time. Comments are highly appreciated and every comment will be read. I'd like to start out by thanking Mix-Up for the tons of information he has been sending me. Any technical errors or unrealisms are purely my fault and not his.
If you are wondering about the "Darwisa" title I've given Zecora in this chapter, it is an African word for a female shaman.
Thanks to Damaged, for giving things the once over, yet again. And to my wife, DJ Mooncheeks, who lets me spend hours writing instead of doing chores.
As the silver mirror stuff closed over Luna’s head, she suddenly felt a surge of motion. She felt as if she was falling from a great height and involuntarily, she tried to open her eyes and her wings. To her surprise, she was able to do both. Luna could see she was falling down what seemed to be a vast, wide tunnel and despite them being open, her wings were doing absolutely nothing to affect her course within that tunnel.
She could see various concepts of time and space rushing past her. A train. A ticking clock. A spinning disk with constellations on it. “Twilight described seeing similar her first time through the mirror ,” thought Luna. “At least that seems to be working normally .” Her course plunged her past both a broom and spinning blue box. She continued to plunge through the space between worlds. As she did she noticed there was a light ahead and that she was falling towards it.
“If this is anything similar to what Twilight Sparkle reported, I should emerge transformed ,” thought Luna. “I need to be ready and mark the exit so I can find my way home. ” The light swiftly grew closer and a roaring noise filled Luna’s ears. Then, everything whited out.
Seemingly moments later, Luna’s senses returned to her. She was lying on her side on some hard rocky ground. As she opened her eyes they were dazzled by the low sun shining into them. She squinted and began to look around. She was lying near the foot of what looked like a small glacier. A stream of melt water was running away from the glacier, and it flowed a few feet past her. The rock wall of the mountain to her other side.
As Luna rolled herself upright she could feel the cool crisp mountain air ruffling her fur, as her movement exposed more of her body to the slight breeze. Looking around at the ground, she saw she was in the middle of a debris field of objects. Books, candlesticks and other items from the library, were strewn all around in the late afternoon sun, spread out in a fan pattern from the rock wall in front of Luna.
“The wall there ,” she thought. “That must be the portal .” Luna scrambled to her hooves, or rather, she tried to scramble to her hooves. Her legs were...different. She looked down at herself. Her legs were long. Nearly impossibly long, and lean, with a gracefulness her normal form lacked. But Luna also discovered, just as quickly, that the solidity of Equestrian hooves and legs allowed greater control at the hoof. The dead things at the ends of her legs could barely be termed “hooves.”
Carefully, Luna stood herself upright. And noticed something else about this body. It was very tall. She was a full head above where Celestia would have stood beside her. The stream flowing past her had formed a small pool near her and she looked at herself in it.
“I’m...I’m beautiful ,” Luna thought to herself, as her reflection looked back up. Her coat was a blue black, like the night. Small, but clear eyes looked up at her from a long, narrow face. A matching black mane and elegant black tail accented her movements as she shifted from side to side. Her ears moved expressively and independently. In the reflection of the melt water, she could see she still wore her peytral over a slim, yet strong chest.
Then she realized that one thing was missing. Her wings were gone. Not even a trace of them remained. But surprisingly, her horn was still in place on her head, it’s long and spiraling length comforting, even if her crown was missing from in front of it. She looked around for it. If her peytral was here, surely her crown had made it through as well.
“There it is ,” Luna thought, spotting the crown where it lay on the stone. “Now to put it back... ” It was surprisingly difficult to lift with her magic, but eventually, it was done. The sun was just beginning to dip beneath the horizon now. The sun had been lower than she had thought, she realized.
“It’s too late to head down this mountain ,” thought Luna. “Staying here longer than overnight isn’t an option. While there is water, there is no food. ” Other than some lichen and moss the mountainside was barren of life. Luna judged it to be early spring here and it was going to be a cold night with nothing to even graze on.
“Thank the stars, I still have my magic ,” Luna thought. Then to her horror, she realized that the little magic she had used to place her crown back on her head had not been replenished. She opened her magical senses and looked around for any sources of ambient magic in the area. There weren’t any. She was the only source of magic in the area. Even the books and the other items that had been pulled here from the library were completely drained of any magics their enchantments had.
Luna decided to take shelter in the lee of the rock wall that held the portal she had emerged from as nothing further had come out from it. The temperature was beginning to drop as darkness fell, and Luna could tell it was going to be a very cold night. She huddled on the bare rock shelf. There was a little heat coming from the stone, but it was fading fast, and Luna curled herself up to conserve heat. Then, Luna saw something that made her head lift and heart stop in wonder.
The moon of this world rose above the horizon. It was a tiny thing. Barely half the size of Equestria’s moon, but it was bright, oh, so bright. Its silver, white disk shining with a brilliant fury. So much light was coming off that moon that it was casting shadows. Even better, Luna could feel a diffuse magic filtering down from that heavenly orb. As if the hopes and dreams of millions, and perhaps even billions had been focused on it for millennia. Maybe it had, Luna didn’t know.
What she did know, was that magic was slowly sifting down from that orb. Magic she could use. It might be weak and feeble compared to Equestrian magic, but it was there. Luna got up from her huddled spot and looked down the mountain, stretching her senses as far as she could. By the moonlight she could see her position overlooked a massive, treed valley. Between her aerie and the valley floor there was a high plateau lit by the silver light. Golden lights were springing up in the woods, and distantly, Luna could just barely sense a few sources of magic.
“Thank the stars ,” Luna thought. “There is magic here, but it is obviously rare and weak .” She looked at herself with her arcane senses, “I’m leaking magic, if I don’t do something about it soon I will have no power left at all. And an alicorn without magic...isn’t an alicorn .” Luna looked down at the deepening night over the valley below, lost in thought.
Eventually, an idea came to her. Weaving carefully, she layered a self-regenerating spell into her peytral. It’s purpose was to slowly absorb what magic she ran across and be a storage point for magic. Like water in a canteen. The magic coming down from this world’s moon would be a source, but only a small one. Come the dawn, she would have to make her way down the mountain to find those small sources she could sense in the valley below, past the plateau. If she could absorb enough magic, she could rip open the portal to make her own way home.
Content with her workings, Luna settled back down to rest. She decided to lay in the moonlight and feel it’s magic slowly flow into her. Curling around herself, she shivered throughout the night, sleeping in fitful dozes, somewhat comforted by the slow inward flow of magic. Luna welcomed the sun as it rose, standing to revel in its warmth after the long, cold night. Which is why she did not notice the predator sneaking up behind her.
A rippling snarl rang out at the same time as a blinding pain erupted from Luna’s shoulders, and a heavy weight landed on them. The impact and pain shattered Luna’s reverie. A great tawny beast had leaped onto her and using the claws, it had dug in to her shoulder even as it tried to swivel its maw onto a death grip upon Luna’s windpipe.
Ignoring the paralyzing pain, Luna reared up. As she did so, she could see that her attacker was some sort of giant cat. Gravity shifting as Luna rose on her rear hooves, the great cat slid downward, its claws dragging furrows through the flesh of Luna’s shoulders. The slide of claws through Luna arrested itself as the cat’s claws hooked into her peytral.
Its downward slide stopped, the cat again tried to reach up and clamp its jaws to cut off Luna’s air. But Luna’s forehooves were already rising into place. As they drew even, she began to rapidly pinwheel her hooves at the body of her attacker. She landed blow after blow into the soft underbelly of the creature. For its part, the beast hung grimly on. Luna’s shod hooves were inflicting fearful damage, but the cat had tasted equine blood and all it could think of was to sate its hunger and thirst on the flesh and blood of its prey.
Finally, the fastenings of Luna’s peytral could take no more and they parted. With a few final blows of her hooves, Luna sent her attacker flying in an arc. The peytral still hooked in its claws, the beast went sailing out into space and down the slope of the mountain. It bounced several times down-slope only to finally fall off a cliff edge below.
Gasping in pain, Luna collapsed to the ground. Blood flowed freely from her wounds and its iron smell filled her nostrils. Six long, deep gashes ran from her back down through her shoulder, stopping at her chest where her peytral had been. There was even a shallow chunk of flesh missing, where the beast had actually bitten out a piece of Luna’s shoulder muscle.
“I’m losing a lot of blood ,” Luna thought. “If I don’t heal myself, and now, these wounds could prove mortal .” She summoned her power and despite the drain to her magic, cast the spell needed to heal her vicious wounds. Slowly the wounds closed, blood slowing and stopping to a slow ooze. Luna poured even more power into the spell and the divot of missing flesh in her shoulder was restored. When it was done, her wounds were mostly closed. Only six very long but now also very shallow, cuts remained.
“I’ll have to remember to thank...thank...somepony, for teaching me that spell ,” Luna thought. She tried to remember who had taught her the spell to heal such large wounds. Star...something? “No matter. I will think of it later ,” thought Luna. “For now, I need to get out of here. That creature could have a mate, or a pack. Worse, I’ve spilled a lot of blood here. It could draw other predators or scavengers .”
Luna took a deep drink of the ice cold glacier water, as quickly as she could to replace lost fluids, and began to make her way down the rocky mountainside. She passed the body of her attacker during the descent. It was very messily and very definitely dead. There had been no sign of pursuit by any other such creatures, nor any other predators, so Luna began to slow her pace and ease her way to the high plateau.
It took most of the morning, due to her making her descent a slow and careful one. To slip and fall in some places would have been fatal. When she finally reached the large plateau she attacked a swath of grass that grew at the edge of the area. It had little taste and it was raw, but it was edible and Luna hadn’t eaten anything in nearly twenty-four hours. Head down and hungry, Luna began to amble from spot to spot, nibbling away at the combination of surviving winter grass and new shoots as she did so. After an hour or so, she had nearly filled her empty belly and was looking around to plan her next moves when she began to hear a rumbling noise.
Luna looked around to find the source of the noise. Was it thunder? Was it something else coming to try to eat her? The source crested a small ridge line and to Luna’s relief it was a group of fifteen to twenty equine figures. “Hello!” she called out. Or tried to. All that emerged from her mouth was a loud braying sound. The equines seemed to take little notice of her bray and merely fanned out around her in a rough semi-circle as they came to a stop. Luna decided to wait to see what they would do before she acted.
Nothing happened for a minute, during which time Luna noticed that, as far as she could tell, the pony like creatures around her were all mares. Then, without a word, most of the mares began to graze. Luna looked around at these big ponies. She wasn’t sure what she had expected but being ignored wasn’t one of the things she had expected. Only one of the big not-ponies was still focused on her. A very large mare. Almost as large as...Celestia. As large as Celestia would be, if she was here.
She was a chestnut brown mare with a long mane and tail who slowly approached Luna. This was the mare’s territory, so Luna lowered her head to show she meant no harm. The other mare approached Luna and snuffled all over her neck and head. Luna could smell the earthiness of the mare and feel a sense of authority from her. Luna held still as the mare finished her inspection and proceeded to nuzzle Luna in approval, giving a slight nicker as she did.
“They’ve accepted me into their group ,” Luna thought, as she gave a friendly nuzzle back that tasted of wind and sun. The mare in charge, accepted the nuzzle and moving to stand beside Luna, began to graze as well. Luna was about to return to her own grazing when another not-pony trotted up. He was a stallion. Tall, deep chested, with piercing eyes and a confident gait. His exotically coloured blue roan coat drew Luna’s eye at once, as her gaze took stock of the healthy stallion who was obviously in his prime. He immediately took notice of Luna, and she felt a tingle run through her, from forelock to fetlocks, as the handsome stallion examined her as closely as she had examined him.
“These equines are little more than animals ,” Luna thought to herself, as their lack of speech and mannerisms brought her to that conclusion. As the stallion approached her though, Luna could not help but move to meet him. Primitive beast or not, she was entranced by the flow and play of the powerful muscles in his chest and shoulders. “But that doesn’t mean I...i...oh my... ” Luna’s thoughts began to fray as the stallion nuzzled her neck where it met her shoulders. The stallion traced a line with his nose down Luna’s flank, and the tingle she had felt moments before flared anew within her.
“why...why am i acting like this ?”, Luna thought. It was becoming harder to think as those most primal of drives and urges manifested themselves.. So very hard to think or reason. It was easier just to let her body drive her actions. The tingle she was feeling, settled in her loins as the stallion reached her hips with his muzzle. He was obviously as entranced with Luna as she was with him. The stallion began to nudge her hips, moving her, positioning her. Luna wanted what was going to come next. Some part of her tried to object. To point out these were primitives, that this was foolish, careless and impulsive. Luna felt a warmth and weight on her hips and all thought, all comprehension, and all sentience vanished. Washed away by the primitive pony within. What made Luna, “Luna” went away.
The next thing Luna knew, it was night and she was standing in among the group of not-ponies she had met during the day. Looking around, she could see the silver moonlight streaming down from the light of this world’s moon. The magic flowing from it was stronger than the previous night and it flowed into her. She reached within and noted with alarm that her magic had fled her completely. Only the weak magic flowing down from the moon had restored her.
“This should not be ,” Luna thought. “The spell woven into my peytral should have prevented... ” Her peytral was gone, she realized. She rewound her memories of the past day. “The fight with that cat creature. When I kicked it off of me, it tore my peytral loose. I’m still leaking magic and combined with healing myself of my wounds I completely drained myself .” Luna recast the spell she had performed on her peytral. Only this time, using her own body as the anchor for the sorcery.
She looked over at the herd stallion, who was asleep not twenty feet away from her. “I wish I could remember what we did, ” thought Luna with a sad smile. “But what I can remember, showed me this world is trying to force me into its rhythms and ways. Staying with you and being one of your mares would be nice, Stallion. You and yours accepted me openly, but to stay with you would be the life of an unthinking animal, a beast, and Luna of Equestria is not a beast. Only my magic keeps me from becoming what is normal for an equine on this world, it would seem. ” Luna began to move carefully and slowly away from the herd so that she did not wake any of them.
“If I am to remain ‘Luna the Princess’ and not become ‘Luna the Animal’ I need to find and stay near sources of magic ,” The treeline into the valley proper was about a mile away. Between the bright moonlight and her excellent night vision Luna was able to pick her way in that direction with little difficulty. “I need to limit my magic use as much as I can, until I can find one of those sources I felt earlier. So long as that moon rises every night I shouldn’t lose myself to ‘Luna the Animal’ again .”
Author's Note
FiMFiction ate my first afterword.
So, a bit of a slow chapter. Surprisingly hard to write as well with no one for Luna to really interact with. Next chapter, we will shift focus to two more of the main characters in the story.
Two notes:
A lone figure knelt by a forest pond underneath the waning moon. The night was clear and cold, holding the bite of early spring with the promise of warmer days to come. Looking up to the slim crescent in the sky, the young blond woman shucked her way out of the long grey cloak she wore. She wore nothing beneath the cloak, not even footwear. Her revealed body was slim without being lean and carried modest breasts, which were already reacting to the chill air around them. Thus skyclad, she leaned over towards a plain wooden box beside her and removed a silver cup, a plain largish hunting knife and a pair of candle holders with candles.
With calm, practiced motions the woman placed the candles about a foot apart and set the silver cup between them. Using a wooden match she brought both candles to light. She doused the match in the pond’s water and set the blackened wood back into the box. She then pulled a large plastic baggie labeled “Gunther’s Butchers” from the box. The baggie contained a red, viscous liquid, which flowed heavily back and forth within the bag. Opening the bag, the woman careful poured some of the liquid into the silver cup. The metallic tang of blood filling the air as the level in the cup rose to the three quarters mark.
The woman looked around. All was quiet and still. Not even a hint of a breeze disturbed the flame of the candles or moved the scent of blood and death in the air. The waters of the pond cleanly reflected the light of the crescent moon above. Nodding to herself in satisfaction, the woman took up her knife in her left hand and holding it to the sky began a quiet chant:
Quiet is the night, Dark is the Moon I ask Hecate, the Crone To come take Her throne.
Sleep, sister, sleep Do not be alarmed For the Great Goddess Will keep you from harm
Quiet is the night, Dark is the Moon I ask Hecate, the Crone To take Her throne.
Sleep, brother, sleep Do not be alarmed For the Great Goddess Holds you safe in her arms
Quiet is the night, Dark is the Moon I honor Hecate, the Crone Who has taken her throne
Chant complete, the woman reached forward, and was about to pour out the blood from the cup onto the ground when the sound of cracking branches reached her ears. She froze, looking around. Only one person knew she came to this specific place for her devotions, and her landlady would never think of interrupting her for anything less than a major emergency. The crackle of a few more twigs sounded. The woman looked around but could see nothing. Then, realizing the glare of the candles had ruined her night vision she blew out them out and looked around.
Wisps of smoke rose from the candle wicks into the air, and long seconds passed as the woman’s eyes adjusted to the near total darkness. The crackling of crushed undergrowth grew closer as the woman grasped her knife in a hard grip and tensed for a fight. Then, she sensed as much as saw a tall dark shape reach the edge of the pond’s opposite side. A single, heavy footfall sounded. It was too dark to tell what the large shape was, but the woman could tell it was bigger than she was. She could hear great lungs take in a pair of deep, snorting breaths. Suddenly, perhaps smelling the pigs blood in the cup, the shape turned smoothly and left. The occasional pops and snaps of forest debris faded away, as the creature, whatever it had been, left.
“Hecate,” breathed the woman. “Thank you,” she said, in a louder voice. “Thank you, Hecate, Goddess of wisdom, of darkness and the crossroads, for sending me a sign. Thank you, Crone, for sending your messenger to collect my offering.” The woman then reached out, and, grabbing onto the barely visible cup, poured out the blood onto the ground. Ritual complete, the woman lit one of the candles, and by its light returned the items back to their box. She dressed herself by putting on a pair of sturdy work boots and donning the long cloak she had brought with her. As she left the area, she happened to notice the deep imprint of horse hooves in the soft soil at the edge of the pond near the area where the mysterious large shape had been.
As Chiara Walsh left the woods to return to her cottage, she mused on how blessed the evening had been. The pond in the woods where she made her offerings was a magical place, but it was a rare thing indeed for any aspect of the Moon Goddess to send a sign. Rarer still for Hecate, the Crone, to send one. Something important had to be coming. Hecate was a goddess of the crossroads. Perhaps something was going to be changing in her life soon. She hoped not. She finally had a stable life here on the farm, and didn’t want to see it end any time soon. As she reached her dark cottage she made a mental note to ask her landlady about any missing horses in the morning. As an avid horsewoman, Mrs. Norris would know if anyone had lost a horse recently.
Entering her small cottage, Chiara used her lit candle to light other fat candles around the room and finally used it to light the sturdy airtight fireplace that was the cottage’s main source of heat. The candles spread around the room lent a golden glow to everything. Her cottage consisted of two rooms. The main room had a small couch, a computer desk with chair and several bookshelves. A kitchenette added an alcove to the main room. The sole interior door lead to her small bedroom and shower.
Taking off her shoes and cloak, she put away her ritual box and leaned over the iron fireplace. As a naturalist she had become used to cold temperatures, but only somewhat; the growing heat from the fire was very welcome. The cottage was built sturdily and well insulated, so that within twenty minutes, the candles and fire had combined to warm the place nicely. The slight smell of wood smoke adding to the comfort of the fire. Warmth accomplished, Chiara padded across the floor's throw rugs to sit down at her computer and turn it on. The glow from the screen shed a harsh contrast to the golden candle glow.
Checking her email, Chiara saw that she had received two new proofreading jobs. Neither was urgent and could wait for a few days to be done. Closing out her email, she logged onto the Paranormal Network, or Paranet for short, an online forum and gathering place for Wiccans and Pagans of all stripes. People would chat, share devotions, spells and encounters. She went into the forum section and wrote a post describing the events of the past couple of hours. How Hecate had sent a messenger to collect her offering. Within minutes there were dozens of replies, ranging from advice to expressions of envy to disbelief.
Post done, she shut down her computer and blew out all but one of the candles. She made her way to the bedroom and, after blowing out the last candle climbed into bed. As she drifted off to sleep, her mind went back in time to the events that had led to that terrible afternoon four years ago, when she had found herself stranded in this small ranching and farming community with no food, no money, and no way out.
“The Good Book says ‘suffer not a witch to live!’” her father had thundered at her from across the kitchen table. “You became an adult a few months ago, so I cannot discipline you as you deserve for your heresy. But I raised you as a God fearing woman and, I will NOT suffer a witch to live under my roof. You have until morning to be gone from this God fearing house.”
Her father had not taken the revelation well that, after years of being raised to follow the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, his oldest daughter instead wanted to follow the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. He had always been a strict but loving father to her. So she made one more attempt to get him to see reason.
“Father, I love you and I respect all you taught me,” she had said. “But I’ve found a different path. One that works for me and has as much love and -”
“Be. Quiet,” Father had said, in a harsh voice. “I will not hear heresy at my own table. If you renounce these Devil teachings of yours, you will have a place here again. But until you do, you are not my daughter.” There was nothing more she could say. Once her father was set on a course, nothing short of divine intervention could move him. She had gone to her room to begin to pack. Then she heard her mother loudly demanding that their church elder be called to "drive the Devil out of their daughter." She had heard enough stories of such "spiritual interventions" to fear them. So, she threw what she could into a bag and ran from her childhood home as quickly as she could. She spent the night at a homeless shelter and the next morning found her at the bus station. The bag with her few belongings at her side, a bus ticket in her pocket.
The next week found her traveling across the continent. She met people and saw places she had only heard about in the past. Her goal had been to reach the pagan communities she had read about in California. Particularly the ones in Marin County. She had thought she had enough money to reach her goal. But she was traveling during the wrong time of year and her funds ran out near the Mississippi river.
From that point on, she adopted a work and move strategy. She would work for a week or so at odd jobs, building up precious cash. Then she would buy a bus ticket for as far as she could go, and then repeat the cycle. For a couple of weeks it had worked well, until an encounter with a molesting “employer” had made that plan too dangerous to continue. She had run out of money, food and hope at the bus depot here.
The depot manager had flat out refused to give her a free ticket and she remembered crying on the wooden bench of the depot out of pure hopelessness. She had no idea how long she sat there, but she did know how it ended. A hand laid itself on her shoulder and Chiara looked up to see a gorgeous woman with long dark hair looking down at her. The woman was well into older active middle age, but still had a trim waist with an enviable bust, both covered by a classic plaid work shirt. Jeans and boots covered full hips and strong legs. Chiara had never seen a better personification of “The Mother” in all her life.
“The manager told me about your situation,” the woman had said to her without preamble. “I’m willing to give you three square meals and a couch to sleep on tonight. No strings attached.” Chiara was speechless. One of the Three had sent someone to her in her time of greatest need. With her throat frozen in awe, she just looked up in gratitude and nodded to the woman.
“Right,” said the woman. “Follow me out to my truck.” After her near rape the week prior, Chiara knew she should have been more wary, but she was desperate and the older woman’s directness lent her an air of trustworthiness. She got in, and as the two began to drive out of town the woman spoke again.
“My name is Edith Norris,” said the woman. “You can call me, ‘Mrs. Norris.’” Chiara nodded, still unsure of her voice. “I’m taking a chance on you,” Norris continued. “My gut tells me you’re a good girl in a bad situation. Drugs?”
“No Ma’am,” Chiara replied meekly, keeping her head down.
“A boy? You pregnant?” asked Norris.
“No Ma’am,” said Chiara. “I was trying to reach California and ran out of money.”
“Huh,” said Mrs. Norris. “Middle of nowhere, on your own, that’s plenty bad enough for a girl your age.” Norris’s voice trailed off as she seemed to ponder some things as the truck cleared the tiny town and headed into the local farming country.
“Okay, here is what is going to happen,” said Mrs. Norris. “I’ll give you those three square meals fit to eat and a couch to sleep on tonight like I said before. After that, if you wanna head back out onto the road I’ll drive you back into to town myself, and see you on your way.” Mrs. Norris paused for a breath, “However, I run a small dairy farm out here. There are always odd jobs that need doing, and I could stand to have someone doing them. If you want, you can be that someone. I can’t promise you much money, but it will be honest pay for honest work. You interested?”
“Yes Ma’am,” said Chiara. “I’d like that very much, Ma’am.”
“Well, I have to say, girl,” said Mrs. Norris, “whoever had the raising of you certainly taught you to respect your elders. Now, two things. First, I will never use it to pry, but from now on if I ask you something you give me nothing but the full, honest truth; no matter how embarrassing or bad it might be. Second, no drugs; unless a doctor gives it to you. Can you work with that?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” said Chiara. “Neither of those will be a problem, Ma’am.”
“Right,” said Mrs. Norris, holding out one hand to Chiara. “Welcome to Norris’ Dairy Farm. And I said, call me Mrs. Norris. Knock it off with the ‘Ma’am’s.'”
“Yes Ma-” said Chiara, as she took the offered hand. “I mean; yes, Mrs. Norris.”
That had been almost four years ago. Since that fateful day Chiara had worked hard on the farm, building up muscle, endurance, confidence and knowledge. She had gone from surfing Mrs. Norris’s couch to sleeping in the hay loft to renting one of the last transient worker cottages on the property from her employer. After four years, countless shared meals, and more than a few heart to heart talks about life, Chiara knew she had found a mentor and second mother figure in Mrs. Norris. With that knowledge warming her heart, and the blankets warming her bed Chiara drifted off to sleep.
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Chiara woke a little before dawn, ate breakfast and was about to start on her proofreading work when the phone rang.
“Hello,” she said, into the phone.
“Good morning, Chiara,” said Mrs. Norris from the other end of the line. “The hay delivery is coming in early, and I could use a hand getting it in to storage before it rains.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” said Chiara, having never broken the habit of calling Mrs. Norris “Ma’am”, despite Norris’s objections. “I’ll be there right away.”
“Oh, and Chiara, make sure you are dressed this time,” said Mrs. Norris. “I know you prefer being bare, but Bob Halstad has some new fellows on his crew apparently, and they might do something stupid if they see a naked girl on a loader.” It was a bit of a joke between the two, Norris knew Chiara was smart enough not to operate equipment unclothed, but she couldn't help but try to nudge Chiara toward a more clothed lifestyle.
“No problem, Mrs. Norris,” said Chiara. “Hay is pretty scratchy on bare skin anyway. See you in thirty minutes.” Setting down the phone, Chiara began to swiftly dress in sensible jeans, work shirt and boots. Getting on her bicycle, she rode across the fifty acre farm down to the main farm buildings. Within thirty minutes of leaving her cottage she was warming up the farm’s small excavator, having hooked up the forklift attachment to the front. Fifteen minutes after that she was driving the machine and offloading pallets holding bales of hay and silage. The hay farmer’s unloading crew was somewhat taken aback by the slim blond girl attacking the job in front of her.
Two hours later, the job was finishing up and Mrs. Norris was settling up with the owner of local hay farm. She finished writing out the cheque and held it out.
“Thanks, Edith,” said the man, taking the cheque. “Always a pleasure. So, same load next month?”
“Same load,” said Mrs. Norris. Then looking at the middle aged man in front of her, she noticed that he was hesitating about something, "Unless there is some sort of problem?”
“No. No problem,” he said. “It’s just that the Cattleman’s Association is having a dinner and dance at the end of the month and I was wondering if you would like to come as my guest.”
“Guest or date, Bob?” Norris asked, eyes narrowing.
“Fine. As my date,” said Bob, his voice becoming somewhat exasperated as he took in the dark look Norris was giving him. “C’mon. You’re a fine looking woman. Jon’s been dead and gone for what, ten years now. He would want you living life. Not spending all your time on this farm. Besides, people are starting to talk.”
“Talk?” said Norris, real heat beginning to creep into her voice. “About what? About how I’m a successful, single woman in a male dominated business? About how I have the nerve to run a profitable farm? About how I’m not crying myself to sleep every night over the grave of the best man I've ever met? What?”
“About the unnatural relationship you have with that...that witch of yours,” Bob shot back. “People have seen her charging around the woods and up on the plateau, not a stitch on her, chanting away to some demon or something. If this was the old days, folks would be measuring her for a hemp necktie.”
Norris suddenly stood, anger in every line of her body, as she put her herself into the face of the larger hay farmer. “That witch, as you call her, is a good and kindly person,” Norris said, the acid in her voice etching the words into Bob’s brain. He tried to take a step back from the suddenly angered Norris. She matched him, step for step, and backed him up to the kitchen wall. The crackling power and rage of a mother bear defending her cub fueling her fury.
“She believes in a higher power,” continued Norris, almost shouting the words, “and while she may not call that power ‘God,' I have never seen her act in anything other than a godly way. God knows His own, and through her actions I have no doubt, He looks kindly on her. Four years ago, I took a chance on that girl and not once, NOT ONCE, has she failed in that trust. Now, take your money and-” A shouted commotion from outside suddenly interrupted the finale of the withering cascade of words.
Norris turned from the thoroughly cowed hay farmer, crossed her kitchen in three quick strides and yanked open the door to see what the disturbance was. Looking out into the delivery and loading area, she could see Chiara on the loader surrounded by five men. Chiara was trying to get them to clear her path. Four of the men who had brought the hay delivery were shouting at her, she was yelling right back, trying to get them to move away from the loader. One man was beside the operator seat and kept reaching up to pull the girl down. Chiara was swatting the man’s hand away yet again when Norris interrupted things.
“What in the name of Samuel Houston is going on?” Norris yelled. At the sound of her voice everyone stopped what they were doing and turned toward the farm’s owner. Chiara turned off the loader and it’s engine spun down into a sudden silence. Norris noted that all the men who had turned to face her were new hands of Bob Halstad, the hay farmer.
“I said,” repeated Norris, to the unfamiliar faces. “What in the name of Samuel Houston is going on?”
“Your...hand,” said one man, with Hispanic features and a heavy accent. “She was not driving well. We only wanted to stop her and show her how to do it properly.”
“Chiara?” asked Norris.
“I was offloading like we’ve always done,” said Chiara. “Then these...people, decided they could do better and demanded I let them drive. I tried to explain to them that I was trained to operate the loader, and unless you said so, I couldn’t let them operate your equipment. So, I kept going. Then they got in my way and tried to make me let them drive. That’s when you showed up.”
“She is lying,” said the first man. “She is just trying to hide her own incompetence!” He failed to notice his boss making frantic “shut up” motions from behind Norris.
“You don’t know me,” said Norris, spearing the man on her gaze. “But if you did, you would know that my people don’t lie, especially not her. Which means you are lying. So I would suggest you go back to your trucks, now.” The man sputtered, clearly not used to being called a liar to his face. Particularly not by an attractive older woman. He was about to protest again when he finally noticed his employer’s frantic motions.
“As you say,” said the man, and he and his fellows headed back to their trucks, muttering to each other. They made no real attempt to hide their anger at being summarily dismissed, and both Norris and Chiara were both still able to make out the words puta and bruja coming from the group. Norris spun on Halstad, who had his face in his hands. He had also heard the muttering and knew the storm his employees had just unleashed onto him.
“Robert Halstad,” said Mrs. Norris, in a voice as inflexible as solid stone. “I may not be fluent in Spanish, but I do know the meaning of puta and bruja . And while Chiara, as you so charmingly pointed out earlier, is indeed a witch, neither of us is a whore. Nor do I appreciate either myself or my employee being called such on my own land. I think you can forget about next month’s delivery. I think I might find myself a new supplier for my hay after this.”
Halstad blanched. “You...You can’t do that. I’m the only provider of bulk hay and silage in a fifty mile radius,” he protested to Mrs. Norris.
“Well then,” she said. “I guess I’ll just find someone fifty-one miles away. Now get off my land.” The hay farmer opened his mouth to protest, but he knew there was no point. He had screwed up from beginning to end and while he might have been able to salvage things somewhat, his work crew had dug him a hole too deep to get out of. Closing his mouth, he silently nodded and got back into the lead delivery truck. Norris’s eyes tracked him like the barrels of a shotgun, waiting for him to try something. But he didn’t, and he and his crew left the farm without another word.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Norris,” said Chiara. “I shouldn’t have yelled at them.” She walked slowly over to Mrs. Norris, head hanging down, blond bangs covering her eyes.
“Dear,” said Norris gently and lifted Chiara’s chin with one hand, looking into the younger woman’s eyes. “You did absolutely nothing wrong. Those idiots were in the wrong, not you. Now, finish getting the hay in and come in for some tea. I think we could both use a cup.”
About fifteen minutes later, the noise of the loader came to a stop for the final time and Chiara stepped into Mrs. Norris’ kitchen. Tea had been brewed and its fragrant smell filled the room. Chiara patted off the few scraps of hay that were still clinging to her jeans, and taking off her footwear down to her bare feet, made her way to the table. Norris was already sitting at the table and poured Chiara a cup.
“You doing alright? They didn’t hurt you, did they?” Norris asked.
“No Ma’am,” answered Chiara. “Just scared me a bit.”
“And got you a little mad,” said Norris, who smiled at Chiara’s sudden embarrassment. “Don’t be embarrassed. There is a time and a place for wrath, and that was it. I don’t know where Bob got those idiots from, but he sure made a mistake bringing them and not his regular crew.”
“I've seen some of them before, in town,” said Chiara. “They’re day workers.”
“And they work cheap because they're desperate to make a few bucks,” said Mrs. Norris with a sigh. “Bob has always been notorious for cutting corners and costs wherever he can. But this time it’s going to cost him.” Norris picked up her teacup and took a sip. Chiara mirroring her.
“Anyone in town been a problem for you lately?” asked Norris. Halstad's words had hinted at some possible issue for her young employee. Chiara had encountered some problems in the past with a few of the rowdier locals. Particularly after her naked paganism had become known in the area.
“Nothing new,” said Chiara. “Oh, that reminds me. Last night, when I was up at the pond in the woods. I saw something, and afterwards I saw some horse tracks in the ground. Has anyone lost a horse lately?”
“Not that I’ve heard of,” said Mrs. Norris. “But I’ll ask around. I worry about you sometimes, up there at the far end of the property. Especially with those cougar sightings we had two or three weeks back.”
“My Goddess protects me,” said Chiara, with a slight smile. “Worst case though, my athame would make a pretty good weapon in a pinch.”
“That reminds me,” said Norris, putting down her cup. “Next week marks four years you’ve been with me. And I have a question for you.”
“What is it, Mrs. Norris?” asked Chiara.
“When we first ran across each other, you were in a pretty desperate place,” said Norris. “From what I see of you now, you’re doing okay and if you wanted to, you could probably get back on the road to California any time you wanted to. So, my question is, how much longer do you intend to stay here?”
“Well, Ma’am,” said Chiara. “Thanks to you, I am doing pretty good now. I feel comfortable working and living here, safe even. And I think you have a lot more to teach me. If it’s okay with you, I’d rather stay on for some time yet.”
“I thought you might say that, so I got you a little something to mark the occasion,” said Norris, and slid a slim box across to the younger woman. Chiara opened the box, reflected silver light covering her face from the object within.
“It’s beautiful, Mrs. Norris,” said Chiara, marveling. “You shouldn’t have. It had to be horribly expensive and there is no way you bought it around here.”
“Nonsense, girl,” said Norris, pleased at Chiara’s reaction. “Every woman needs something nice to wear every so often, and young Peter Browning in town is apprenticing as a silversmith. When I told him who it was for, he almost wouldn’t take money from me when I asked him to make it for me. Go ahead, try it on.” Nodding, Chiara lifted a thick black velvet choker from the box. Attached to the black band was a silver emblem of the three visible phases of the moon, showing waxing crescent, full moon and waning crescent. All as a single piece. She spent another moment looking at it before putting it on.
“It suits you,” said Norris. The black band contrasted nicely with Chiara’s blond hair, and drew the eye to the silver glow of the emblem attached to the choker. Chiara went over to a wall mirror to have a look at herself. “You know,” said Norris. “I think young Peter might be a little sweet on you.”
“He’s nice,” said Chiara, as she turned back and forth to see how the silver moon emblem caught the light. “But I get the feeling he’s really only interested in one thing.”
“Child,” said Norris with a smile. “At that age, all men are pretty much interested in only one thing.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Chiara. “I got something for you too. I wasn’t going to give it to you for a couple of days, but...” Her voice trailed off as she again touched the black band on her neck and then pulled a small box from her pocket and passed it to the older woman.
Norris opened the box to reveal a small gold cross on a delicate chain and laughed. “Aren’t we just a pair,” she said. “I get you something of your faith and you get me something of mine.” The two hugged. “Go on girl,” Norris said. “Take the rest of the day off. Go have some fun. Let me know if Mr. Halstad or his crew cause you any trouble.”
“I will, Mrs. Norris,” said Chiara. “And thank you.”
Author's Note
So, here we introduce the two main human characters of the story. Chiara Walsh, pagan and naturalist. Along with Edith Norris, owner and proprietor of the Norris' Dairy Farm. If anyone is curious, here is a rough image of what the emblem is on Chiara's choker.
So, next chapter things will begin to pick up with our main characters and setting in place.
Two weeks after Chiara’s encounter with the what she had assumed to be a messenger of Hecate, she was again readying her ritual box, for another late night devotion to one of the aspects of her goddess. The week before, she had visited the pond in the woods to perform a ceremony to Artemis, who was the Maiden aspect of the Triple Goddess. Once again, she had sensed and heard the presence of something large nearby.
She had first believed the presence was that of a lost or escaped horse from one of the local farms, considering the hoof prints she had found by the pond on that first night. But, her landlady, Mrs. Norris, had told her that no one locally seemed to have lost a horse, or had one run away. In light of that, Chiara dearly hoped the strange presence was a messenger of her goddess, sent to gather her offerings. It was, however, also possible that it was a wild mustang from the high plateau that overlooked the valley, even if those wild horses usually preferred to stay as far away from civilization as possible and had never been known to wander anywhere near town or any of the local farms.
As much as much as Chiara responsibly tried to find a mundane explanation for the presence, more and more it seemed the only explanation was a supernatural one. That her offerings were being blessed by the personal attention of the Triple Goddess. Looking into her ritual box, Chiara sighed. She wanted tonight’s offering to be something special, but all she had were her regular items. She needed some advice. Walking over to her computer, she reluctantly turned it on and accessed the internet.
Paranet Chat Advice channel
Periander: Blessed Be, MidWestWitch92. Welcome. MidWestWitch92: Thank you, Periander. I need some advice.
Periander: That is what we are here for. How can I help? MidWestWitch92: During my past two rituals, I’ve felt and heard a presence that might have been a messenger from Hecate, and later Artemis. Tonight I want to do a ritual for Selene and I would like it to be something special. Any suggestions?
Periander: You have already been visited by the Crone, and the Maiden. Being visited by the Mother would complete the cycle, so I can understand why you would like to offer something special. Honeycakes are a traditional offering. MidWestWitch92: Okay, I have time to make some of those. Anything else you can suggest?
Periander: Wheat, preferably on stalk. Or any other grain. MidWestWitch92: We have oats, would those do?
Periander: Are they on stalks? MidWestWitch92: No, so I guess they won’t do. Any other ideas?
Periander: Fruit that is native to your area is also a good choice. MidWestWitch92: Oh! Yes, I can get plenty of apples. Thank you.
Periander: Glad I could be of help. Was there anything else? MidWestWitch92: No, I think I should be okay for tonight then.
Periander: One favor, MidWestWitch92, can you let me know how it goes for you tonight? MidWestWitch92: Of course, Periander. I would be happy to, and thank you again.
Periander: Merry Meet, have a blessed evening.
That evening found Chiara once again walking through the woods to the small pond within them. The brilliant disc of the moon was blazing silver overhead to such a degree that her flashlight almost wasn’t needed. Chiara had walked this trail so often, over the past couple of years, that she probably could have walked it blindfolded, if need be. The air around her was crisp and cool with barely a breath of a breeze. It would probably freeze tonight, but it would likely be one of the last frosts of the season.
All in all, it was a very good night for a ritual, and Chiara was looking forward to it. As she reached the pond she once again began to set up her small altar. She set up her beeswax candles first, and as she lit them, the area around her was lit with a golden glow. As Chiara stood up from lighting the candles, she noticed that the air around her had grown very still and quiet, as if the world was holding its breath. No wind moved the tree branches or stirred the bushes. The moon’s brilliant circle was visible through the gap in the trees made by the pond and its silver twin lay upon the waters beside her. The light from the moon was nearly a solid thing, and everything beyond the glow of the candles seemed to have been given silver edges by the moonlight.
Between the candles, Chiara set up a silver plate and put on it the several small honey cakes she had made that afternoon. She also took out her athame, using it as one might a mundane knife, quartered a pair of apples and placed them on the plate by the honey cakes. After cleaning the blade respectfully, she lay it aside before she stripped, as she would perform her ritual the way she always did, skyclad, with one exception. Reaching into the box one last time, she pulled out the black velvet choker Mrs. Norris had given her and fastened it snugly around her throat. It’s silver moon emblem gleaming in the light.
She then knelt in the rough grass by the pond's edge, and holding her athame high, chanted out her ritual invocation.
Selene, white-armed mistress of the shining moon, the silver circle crowns your ebon hair; cloaked in darkness you cross the cold night sky, O goddess. To you, O Selene, I offer my greeting, my praise, and my thanks for your many gifts
Mother Moon, come to me, I call and ask this of thee…
Her chant was interrupted by the crackling sound of brush and twigs. Chiara stopped at the sounds and held her breath as she strained to try to see what the source of the sound might be. It had to be coming from the strange presence she had sensed before, she was sure of it. Whatever it was, it drew closer, then closer still. The brush and branches parted as a magnificent black horse stepped through the undergrowth, and suddenly stood before her. For several moments the horse did nothing but look at her, as Chiara stared up in awe at the night-black creature only a few feet away. As she knelt transfixed, the wind rose, blowing past her, blowing out the candles of her altar, and the moonlight silvered all.
The wind swept up the horse’s mane and tail. It was as cold as the depths of space, and filled those flowing banners of hair with twinkling stars that it had carried along with it. Chiara began to weep in pure joy, as the avatar of her goddess manifested the spiraling horn of a unicorn, followed by blue-black wings coming from it’s back. The winged unicorn looked down majestically at the small creature before it. Every inch of fur, feather and horn slamming the same message into Chiara’s soul, “I am not of this world. I am of the stars, and I have judged you worthy to look upon me.”
The winged unicorn stared mutely at the creature in front of her who stared back.
It was several moments before the unicorn remembered that once, this was the correct occasion on which to introduce one's self. That it had a name to introduce with. The unicorn opened its mouth. Sluggishly, it recalled why it never did so to speak anymore, and shut its mouth again. Only whinnying and braying noises would come out, nothing more.
The creature was on its knees before her, and began to make strange sounds, even as it held out its...forelimbs toward her.
Life rushed back into the unicorn's mind, bringing thoughts, concepts, and connections.
Luna. Her name was Luna. The creature before her was chanting. It was... she, by the looks of the anatomy she had bared, was... praying before her, to her? Supplicant--
Everything was coming back so quickly. Luna drew herself up to her full regal posture, as she felt life and power flow into her, energizing both mind and body. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the simple joys of dignity and thought.
Many moments later, she opened her eyes and looked down. The female biped was still there, trembling with... joy? The creature's facial features were much like a pony's, though Luna reminded herself that she couldn't be one hundred percent certain. The tears and wide smile certainly suggested joy, however.
Cautiously, Luna smiled back. Friendliness should be encouraged after all. Then, with the scraps of this world's weak magic she had held in reserve from her long near-mindlessness, she disappeared. Invisibility took too much effort; she simply cast a perception filter over herself, even as she dismissed the magical manifestation of her horn and wings. As far as the biped could now tell, there was no longer anything unusual here. Luna could not be completely sure the creature was friendly. After all, it did have a bladed weapon on the ground beside it. Some careful observation was clearly called for.
From Chiara’s point of view, the great avatar of Selene simply disappeared between one breath and the next. Slowly, she pulled her shattered thoughts back together as wind died back down to nothing. Selene had been here . She had found favor in the eyes of the Goddess and been deemed worthy of a personal visitation. There was no way anyone would believe her, if she told them about what had happened. But she knew it had, and that knowledge warmed her like no fire ever would.
“Thank you, Selene,” Chiara said out loud. “Thank you for finding me worthy, thank you for your gifts. I will leave my offerings in this place that you have blessed with your presence.” She then began to clean up, putting away her athame and the extinguished candles first. She left the honey cakes and apple slices in place but took the silver plate. It had cost too much for her to leave behind. Turning, she began to put on her boots and cloak.
From behind the perception filter, Luna examined the biped near her. The creature was small compared to her current body, but appeared well-formed and healthy. If nothing else, the creature looked like an undersized minotaur, with odd legs and a distinct lack of fur over most of its body. The fact that the creature had put away its weapon bode well, and Luna could definitely feel magic from the creature. It wasn’t strong, but it was steady, unlike that of the inconstant moon of this world, which had ebbed to the point where Luna had lost her sentience.
What was most telling was that the creature had left the food behind. It had been a long time since Luna had eaten a proper meal and the smell of honey, oats and apples tickled her nose and caused a rumble in her belly. The creature had not made a single hostile move, so Luna decided to take a chance and dropped the perception filter.
Chiara was just settling her cloak around her shoulders when she heard a gentle, wet crunch from behind her. Turning around, she once again saw the beautiful black horse behind her. The horse no longer had the wings or horn Chiara had seen before, and it was daintily crunching one of the apple slices she had left behind. The horse raised its head and Chiara gasped in surprise at how close she was, and their eyes met. Chiara unconsciously sank to her knees in awe at the kind intelligence she saw in those dark eyes. The horse leaned forward, and took a deep snuffling inhalation of Chiara’s hair, breathing in her scent. Thinking quickly, Chiara stretched out an arm to grab the remaining apple slices, and offered them up to the horse on her flattened palms.
The horse nimbly used its lips and gathered up another of the slices munching away on it, obviously relishing the out of season fruit. Moving slowly, Chiara gathered up her things, placing the few remaining apple slices and honey cakes into her pack. She motioned to the horse. “Come home with me and I can feed you properly,” she said. “C’mon...please?”
Luna looked up as the creature spoke to her. Considering the rather generous anatomy the creature had been showing before, Luna assumed the creature was also female. It’s minimal clothing seemed to indicate either low social or economic status. As well, both its manner of offering the food to Luna and the moon symbol on the creature’s neck, indicated that the being was likely a worshiper of either herself or the moon. It would explain the power coming into Luna from the creature. Freely offered worship and devotion could be potent sources of power.
The creature again made the beckoning motion. After a moment's thought, Luna decided to allow the not-minotaur to lead her. It did exhibit a number of civilized behaviors, and it was probably heading back to civilization. It would be good to have hot food again, and especially to have safety--the encounter with the great cat beast had been entirely too close of a thing.
The creature talked excitedly the whole way. Its speech patterns seemed similar to those of Equestrians, and Luna listened for linguistic similarities while trying not to appear too interested. She might not be able to speak the language of the intelligent ponies--minotaurs -- of this world, but it would be good to be able to at least understand them. They walked together for some time, first leaving the woods, then passing a small cottage. Eventually, the juvenile minotaur crested a small ridge; following her, Luna could see a cluster of large buildings ahead.
Most of the buildings were clearly farm structures similar to those on...somepony, she couldn’t quite remember, farm. Luna could hear the sounds of sleeping cows coming from one of the buildings. She had to assume that they must also be dumb brutes on this world, just like equines were. For now, Luna decided it would be best to adopt the persona of one of the equines who she now looked like. She would try to stay near her supplicant, and take in the offered power from her not-minotaur worshipper.
Mrs. Norris grumbled at the sound of a knock on the door, and nearly yelled back before realizing how late it was. Sighing, she pulled herself out of her comfortable chair where she had fallen asleep reading, and trudged over to the door.
"Evening--" she started. Then she sighed, at the young woman in front of her door, cloak gaping to reveal far too much flesh. "Chiara, I know you don’t like clothes, but I am fairly sure I asked you to be dressed the next time you came down." She was about to shut the door, she wasn’t good company when she was tired, when she realized just how late it actually was.
"Chiara, what are--" Mrs. Norris blinked, shook her head, and averted her eyes from Chiara’s bouncing breasts. "Fine. Say what you need, just please stop bouncing like that."
Chiara managed to still herself, but her exuberance still showed in her tone. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Norris. This just couldn't wait! To keep a long story short, I found this wild horse while I was conducting my ritual out in the woods, and he seemed to take on the aspect of Selene! Can I please, ask you for some space in the horse barn and some feed for him?"
Mrs. Norris flipped her porch light on and looked out over Chiara's shoulder. Sure enough, a perfectly ordinary black horse stood there, patiently waiting at the foot of the steps just behind Chiara. Her mind was far, far too tired to deal with this right now.
"Hmph, fine. Boarding is usually three hundred plus feed and vet," she decided, cudgeling her mind into gear. "I’ll charge you only a hundred if you promise to help out with most of the care.”
"Of course, Mrs. Norris!” agreed Chiara enthusiastically. “Thank you so much for this. I'm not really sure what’s involved with horses but like everything else, I’m willing to learn.”
“Get that horse to the barn and use the double stall. You’ve no idea where that horse has been,” said Mrs Norris waving Chiara away. “First lesson, new animals need to be quarantined. You get the animal put away and see me in the morning. I have got to get some sleep.”
With that, Edith Norris closed her door and padded off to bed. She had a feeling she was going to be needing her rest soon.
Luna had watched the exchange between the two with interest. “Obviously, my supplicant is a filly of the older one in the house ,” Luna thought. “She must have been asking her dam permission to lodge me here .” Her supplicant began to lead her toward the barn like structure. Luna kept pace as they walked to the large structure, impressed when the filly in front of her moved their hand over a small lever, and the interior of the structure became bathed in light.
“Well, these pon...minotaurs, definitely seem to have a reasonable civilization, ” thought Luna, taking a moment to look around. She could see a series of stalls with wooden walls and gates, three of which were occupied by equines like those she had encountered up on the high plateau. They all seemed to be sleeping, even through the lights suddenly coming on. A sudden thumping noise caught Luna’s attention and she could see her worshipper dumping out the remaining apple chunks from their pack into a bin in one of the unoccupied stalls.
Hunger pushed Luna forward past her follower, and she dipped her head into the bin to begin crunching up another apple slice. As she began munching on the second chunk, Luna heard a clank, and turning to look saw that the stall door had been closed behind her. Chewing on the apple she took a few steps over to the door. The door only came up to her chest and she was easily able to extend her neck out over the door and look back into the barn. Looking down she could see the simple latch holding the stall door closed. A regular equine here would have been locked in with such a simple closure. For her it would be the work of a moment to release herself Even as she thought on this, Luna could see her supplicant quickly scooping up a bucket and filling it with water.
“Hang on, hang on,” chanted Chiara, as she scrambled about. First, she got water into the trough built into the stall. The horse seemed to take no notice of the water. Instead, the horse seemed to be watching Chiara intently as she bustled about. “Oh, of course,” said Chiara, with some heat. “You already had water at the pond, you need food.” Usually, she would use a hand truck to haul over a full bale of hay for one of the horses, but she was in too much of a rush. Instead, Chiara grabbed a bale with her bare hands and half-carried, half-dragged it into the hay bunker for the stall.
Gasping from the effort, Chiara looked on in satisfaction as the avatar of Selene began jerking mouthfuls of hay out of the bunker and chewing with gusto. The way a cow or a horse will when they are really hungry. Satisfied that she had seen to the physical needs of the horse avatar of her Goddess, Chiara leaned against the wall, and slowly brought her breathing under control.
“It has been a very strange and blessed night,” said Chiara, to no one in particular. “If no one minds, I think I’ll just have a sleep over here.” It had been a long, emotion filled night and Chiara was absolutely exhausted. She was simply too tired to make the trek back up to her cottage. After a last check on the horse, who seemed to be doing quite well, she grabbed up a pair of rough horse blankets, found herself a soft area in the hay storage and after turning out the lights, went to sleep.
Author's Note
And now they meet.
Everyone, please thank Trail Cutter , for bravely throwing themselves upon my unedited work and making it readable.
After Edit: I have to apologize here to Door Belle who actually wrote the meeting scene as a quick bit of flash fiction in our Discord chat. Which became the inspiration for the entire story. Sorry about that.
Edith Norris, as always, rose with the sun. As a farmer she was tied to the land, and its rhythms kept time for her as well as any clock. After dressing, she padded around her kitchen listening to the coffee machine chug away, while gathering up some breakfast. When the coffee was done, she poured a cup and deeply inhaled the steam coming off her mug, the dark earthy scent kicking her mind into gear. Carrying the cup to her small kitchen table, she sat and alternated mouthfuls of cereal with slurps of coffee as she mentally reviewed the tasks for the day ahead.
Make sure the feed is stored from yesterday. Look for a new supplier. Sterilize all the plumbing on the second milking line, Norris paused in her train of thought. She knew she was missing something, something significant had happened and she just couldn’t remember what. Her eyes caught the sun gleaming off the peak of the horse barn, and the image of Chiara, naked under her cloak and standing in front of a horse as black as night, swam into her mind’s eye.
“Stupid brain,” Norris muttered to herself, setting down her coffee cup and checking the clock. It was still a good couple of hours before the town’s large animal vet opened for work, but she could leave a message asking him to come out in the next few days to examine the horse. Norris stuffed her feet into her boots, abandoned her half finished coffee to cool on the counter, and headed out the door, dialing Dr. Alberto’s number as she did so.
As she crossed the open area between the house and the working farm buildings, a couple of Norris’s other hands waved to her as they brought in the dairy cows for their morning milking. She had a small crew of hands, beside Chiara, and all of them knew their jobs without her having to stand over them. She waved back and, finishing her message for Alberto’s receptionist to get back to her, entered the barn.
It was quiet in the barn, the rising sun filling the main passageway with golden light and the rich, strong smells of an active farm filled the building. Looking around, she saw her three horses dozing away in their stalls. All three were older animals, well trained, well fed and were all superlative therapy horses, which brought in a tidy sum from the local therapeutic riding association, who regularly leased their use.
The fourth stall was her quarantine stall, for use when one of her animals was sick and as Norris sent her gaze at it, she saw a pair of intelligent eyes looking back her. It was the animal Chiara had brought in last night and Norris was able to get her first good look at it.
“Oh my,” said Norris, breathily, as she took in the features of the horse in the stall. “You are a beauty.” The horse was simply gorgeous and the little girl inside of the mature woman squeed in delight. The animal was glossy black, dark as the night, with the best conformation Norris had ever seen, and its ears had pricked forward at Norris’s words, showing an active mind. Even better, the horse wasn’t panicking or looking anxious, as many wild horses would when finding themselves confined in a stall.
“Hello there,” said Norris, walking up to the stall wall and extending her hand, palm down, for the horse to smell. “Welcome to my farm.”
Luna looked at the extended paw of the creature on the other side of the stall, then back to the face of the older not-minotaur. She had been awoken by the sound of her supplicant’s dam entering the building and had watched her approach. Luna was impressed by what she saw. A mature individual with a confident gait and purposeful carriage, wearing sensible, sturdy coverings that was extending a paw in friendship to her with a welcoming tone of voice.
Curse this form, Luna thought to herself. I can’t even touch hooves with her. But then her body instinctively moved her forward and she inhaled the scent of the creature. It must have been the right thing to do, as the creature smiled, and said something in a pleased tone. The not-minotaur grabbed something from a peg on the wall and opening the door, joined Luna in the stall.
“Easy there,” said Norris, in the gentle tone one used with animals, particularly new ones. You never made abrupt motions, you didn’t force eye contact, you stayed in their field of vision, and you kept talking in a calm, steady voice. Norris smiled as she moved to stand beside the strange, black horse who seemed to be taking her presence in stride. “Hi there, I’m going to put my hand on you now, if you don’t mind,” Norris said, gently placing her hand on the animal’s shoulder.
Luna let the minotaur put its paw on her shoulder; it was only trying to be friendly after all. Almost immediately the creature found the healing scars from Luna’s fight with the great cat, and it carefully traced the parallel lines. The creature made soft, comforting noises as it felt out Luna’s shoulder and chest for lingering damage. It was a friendly, caring touch and Luna allowed herself to relax at the physical contact. Shifting her attention, she extended her other senses and she could feel her supplicant nearby, the slow, but steady flow of magic from the filly had brought Luna’s mind all the way back, and it was truly wonderful to be able to think clearly again.
If my worshiper keeps supplying me with magic, I should begin to regain my abilities in a few weeks, thought Luna. Wait...what is she... Luna froze as she felt the straps tighten on the bridle the minotaur had slipped over her head while she was preoccupied. How DARE she? Luna reared back in anger, bumping against the back wall of the stall. The impact shook her out of her indignation at being bridled, and she realized she was being foolish. I’ve been given food, water and shelter by these creatures, and as far as they know I am nothing but an animal. Naturally, they are laying a claim to me, as would any Equestrian farmer with a wild animal they had taken in.
“Sorry if I startled you there,” said Norris, to the horse, as she finished securing the animal by snapping a pair of leads to the halter. “But you were so calm up to that point, I was thinking you weren’t as wild as you looked.” Norris watched as the horse tested the leads once with a tug, and then took a step forward to make the lines go slack. The horse looked at her as if to say, “Well? Now what?”
The creature was stroking Luna’s neck while making noises that were sounding oddly apologetic and Luna looked across to the other three equines in the building and saw that they too wore bridles. She was being treated no differently than they, and none of them appeared abused or harmed. In fact, they all looked to be in excellent shape. It is likely for the best if I act like them for now, Luna thought. A simple, brute animal grateful for food and water. Luna leaned her head over as far as the halter and leads would allow, and briefly nuzzled the not-minotaur’s shoulder to demonstrate her thanks.
“That tears it,” said Norris, smiling as the horse nuzzled her. “No wild horse behaves like you do. Either you are way smarter than you look, or you belonged to somebody at some point, or both.” Norris moved to the horse’s left side, and ran her hands slowly down the front leg as she knelt beside it. “Easy there, I just want to have a look at your hoof and—” Norris paused, as she got her a good look at the horse’s underside. “Huh, I definitely remember Chiara calling you ‘he’ last night. No wonder you’re a little touchy, I would be too if someone kept calling me a man. But you, my dear, are all mare. All right, I’m lifting your leg now.” Setting actions to words she lifted the mare’s leg, bending it at the knee and setting it to rest on her own bent leg.
“And that is what we call a solved mystery,” Norris said, smiling in satisfaction as a metal horseshoe glinted back up at her. “No one shoes wild horses, which means you belonged to someone at some point. All that wildness was just what you had to do to survive.” Norris heard Chiara’s quiet snores from the hay loft and smiled as she looked over at some tack hanging on the wall. “Let me do a good check on you girl, and then we’ll see if we can’t get you reacquainted with a saddle.”
The sun poured through the glass window in a golden stream, motes of dust shining like tiny stars in the wide beam of light, which fell full upon the young woman wrapped in a horse blanket on a pile of loose hay. Golden hair spilled around a head that was pillowed on a folded cloak of sturdy grey wool and the steady purr of restful slumber came from the woman. As the sun continued its shining caress on the woman, it warmed her and the blanket she was under, until the sun’s warmth slowly moved from comforting to excessive, and the woman began to stir under her cover.
At first, the woman slowly pushed more and more of the blanket off of her, in an unconscious effort to cool herself, but as perspiration began to bead her forehead, and her sleep became more and more restless she rolled on her makeshift bed and flung out an arm, throwing most of the blanket off of her. Her torso now naked to the world, the woman should have begun to cool, but the direct sunlight she was in prevented that, and sweat began to gather under her modest breasts and in the hollow of her navel. Finally, the heat, her sweat, and the scratchiness of the hay under her outstretched arm combined together to bring the woman to wakefulness.
Chiara opened her eyes and just took in the sun for a moment, lazily taking in the scene around her while her brain worked out where she was. Back in the hay loft , she thought, as she listened to the sounds of the farm around her. All farms have a rhythm and a pace to them, and Norris Dairy Farm was no exception. So, as the various sounds filtered through the barn’s walls to Chiara’s ears. the back of her mind slowly added those sounds together to come up with a time of day. A time of day that was well beyond both Chiara’s normal rising hour and the time she should have been on the job.
“Crap!” Chiara exclaimed, bolting upright as adrenaline dumped into her system. “Crap, crap, crap. I’m late. Oh...Mrs. Norris is gonna kill me.” She scrambled up, off of her bed of loose hay and grabbing up her cloak, swung it around her naked body and fastened the clasp at her throat. All of her clothes were back at her cottage. She would have to run back home, get dressed for work and bike back as fast as she could. She turned toward the door to leave but was brought up short as she saw a note pinned to the door.
Chiara,
I’ve let you sleep because I figured you needed it. There are clothes and some breakfast for you on the other side of the door. Join me at the paddock when you can.
Mrs. Norris
Thank the Goddess, Mrs. Norris isn’t mad at me, Chiara thought, breathing a sigh of relief. Carefully opening the door in front of her, Chiara saw a small tray holding a bottle of water, a pair of muffins and folded stack of clothes. Grabbing the tray, she began to wolf down the muffins with one hand while going through the clothes with the other. She recognized them as the backup clothes Mrs. Norris kept on hand for her in case the weather got bad while she was working. A near new pair of jeans, button up flannel shirt, undergarments, socks, belt and a broken in pair of work boots awaited her and as she inhaled the last piece of muffin she dove into the clothes.
Chiara stepped into the passageway through the middle of the barn, stuffing the ends of her shirt into her pants as she did so. Looking around in the light of the new day she saw three horses looking back at her from their stalls. Daisy, Clover and Muffins were always happy to see her and she smiled back at them until she remembered that there should be a fourth equine face looking back at her.
“Where are you?” Chiara asked herself, as she looked into the quarantine stall. Then she remembered Mrs. Norris’s note and her eyes widened in shocked surprise. “No, no, no,” she babbled and sprinted for the exit. As she pelted out of the building to the nearby paddock she blinked as her eyes adjusted to the direct sunlight and then blinked again at the sight she saw in the fenced in area.
Her landlady, Mrs. Norris, was slowly riding around the paddock on her sacred horse. The very animal that had manifested wings and a horn as an avatar of the Goddess was being ridden around like a common beast of burden. Norris saw her young hand standing by fence, looking like she’d been hit in the face with a two by four, and smiled to herself as she directed her mount back toward the girl. When she had first mounted this mare, half an hour ago a wild and wonderful plan had leapt into her mind fully formed, and with Chiara now here it was time to set it into action.
“Good morning, Chiara,” said Mrs. Norris pleasantly as she reined her mount to a stop by the girl. “I trust you had a good sleep?”
“I...you...he...” Chiara stammered out, jaw hanging open.
“Well girl, spit it out,” Norris said, enjoying Chiara’s reaction far more than she let on. “Don’t just stand there like a landed fish with your mouth gaping open.” Chiara closed her mouth with an almost audible snap and took a deep breath through her nose.
“Mrs. Norris—” Chiara began, and Norris blinked as Chiara took the most assertive tone she had ever heard out of the young woman. “—with all due respect, that horse is, or at least was, an avatar of the Goddess. He should be treated with respect as such and not be ridden around like a common animal.”
“Chiara, I love you like a daughter, and it does my heart good to see that you’ll stand up to anyone, even me, that does something you think is wrong,” Norris said, as Chiara’s body language relaxed at the praise. “But there are a few things you’re wrong about here.”
“Oh,” said Chiara, in a much less confrontational tone. “What am I wrong about?”
“First off, this isn’t some magic horse,” began Norris, reaching down to pat the glossy black neck of her mount. “She’s flesh and blood, and though she may have been wild for awhile, she didn’t start that way. She’s shod, and one of the gentlest and most intelligent mounts it’s been my pleasure to be astride. Finally, you notice I’ve been calling this horse ‘she’? That’s because you got it wrong. This is a mare. Not a stallion.”
“I’m sorry,” said Chiara, hanging her head. “I shouldn’t have talked back to you, especially when I know you know more than I do.”
“It's fine, and besides I already said I was okay with it,” Norris said, in assurance as she dismounted. The three of them, Chiara, Norris and the horse were now clustered together closely at the fence, and Norris looked intently into the face of the young woman she had known for the past four years. “Chiara, do you trust me enough to let me run every bit of your life for the next three months?”
“Ma’am, I don’t think I’m exaggerating much when I say that you saved me back when we first met,” said Chiara, in a quiet voice. “I trust you. What do you need me to do?”
“In three months time the ‘New Riders and Horses Dressage’ happens,” said Norris, as Chiara’s eyes opened wide in realization. “I want to enter you and this horse in that competition.”
“Me?” squeaked Chiara. “But I’ve never ridden a horse in my life. I mean, I’ve fed and watered them, mucked out their stalls, but that’s it.”
“I know,” Norris said. “That’s why you’ll be perfect for it. And Blackie here might have been owned at one point, but she’s been wild enough, long enough, to be considered a new horse. Hmm, ‘Blackie’ is a silly name. She needs something better, something befitting a lady like her. Any ideas?”
“Selune, Artemis, um...Moonie?” said Chiara, as she said whatever came to mind. “Wild or not, she was granted the aspect of Selune, so she should have a name that has to do with the moon.”
“Hmmm, something to do with the night or the moon would suit her,” said Norris, pensively, then nodded. “I’ve got it. Come close and put your face right in front of hers.”
“Okay,” said Chiara, putting her face a few inches away from the mouth of the night black horse. She looked up into the great eyes of the mare before her, who looked back directly into her own eyes and she began to lose herself in that inhuman regard. “Now what?”
“This is an old Irish ritual to bond horse and rider,” said Norris with a quiet, intent voice. “Breathe in as she breathes out, breathe out as she breathes in. Share each other’s air, like you will share a saddle. Share each other’s lives, because you both are gonna depend on the other.” Norris waited until she saw Chiara obey, new mount and incipient rider sharing each other’s air and unbidden, Norris felt the hairs on the back of her arm start to rise.
“I name thee, Luna,” Norris said in pronouncement, and the hairs on her arms went straight up. Ignoring the sensation she quietly said, “Luna, this is your rider, Chiara. Chiara, say hello to Luna.”
“Hello Luna,” said Chiara, still lost in those equine depths. “I’m Chiara.”
Luna had found being saddled and ridden a surprisingly pleasant experience. She hadn’t been sure what to make of the saddle the older creature had strapped to her at first, but the being’s calm words and gentle touches had told Luna that no harm was intended. She had allowed herself to be lead out of the stall, without protest, and into a nearby fenced area where the use of the saddle became evident when the creature had levered itself onto Luna’s back. Luna hadn’t been sure of what to do at that point and had shuffled around somewhat nervously.
The creature now sitting astride Luna continued to speak calmly to her, stroking her neck and Luna felt her nervousness abating. This then, was to be her purpose here, Luna realized. The life of being these creatures riding animal wouldn’t be so bad. Her supplicant’s dam was an easy weight on Luna’s back and it obviously meant to take care of Luna in exchange for her service as a mount, as it did the other equines in its service.
Luna decided that she could accept that, and over the next while allowed the creature to command and control her as she learned to move as it directed her. It was oddly like following the directions of a dance partner: Luna learned to stop, start, walk, trot and turn in response to the pressure from a knee, or a pull on her reins. The creature never raised its voice at Luna, even when she made a mistake. It simply repeated the command through its knees or the reins, and spoke again in that same calm voice, until Luna got it right and the creature’s patience and gentleness laid to rest Luna’s last worries about submitting herself to these creatures’ control.
Luna was trotting in a circle with her rider when she caught sight of her worshiper standing outside the fence line and she was reined to a stop opposite the filly. Dam and filly spoke for a moment or two and then the dam got off of Luna.
Magic or not, I need to start learning their language, thought Luna as filly and dam resumed their conversation, which ended oddly as the dam pulled Luna and the filly’s head close to each other. A moment later Luna felt the filly’s breaths waft across her nose and Luna realized that the filly was sharing its breath with her. How do they know this? Luna thought, as the filly’s air carried its magic deep into Luna. This is an old unicorn ritual for parents to kindle a newborn foal’s magic. How can they know this?
“Luna,” said the dam, and as the creature spoke Luna’s name, the magic Luna was inhaling from her worshipper kindled to life the forgotten and banked embers of Luna’s own magic into fitful flame. “Luna, hii ni mpanda yako, Chiara. Chiara, kusema vor Luna.” Luna’s ears went back as she realized the creature was introducing its filly to her.
“Vor Luna, ni Chiara,” said the filly, deeply inhaling Luna’s breath as it did.
Chiara. Her name is Chiara, thought Luna. Hello Chiara, I’m Luna . Luna nuzzled the short yellow mane of the filly and as she did Luna felt something latch into place between the two of them.
“Now, that’s what I call bonding,” said Norris smiling, as she watched Chiara nuzzle back against the side of the horse’s face. It always gave her a warm feeling to see a horse and rider begin the relationship between them.
“Not that I’m complaining, but why do you want me and Luna to bond like this?” asked Chiara, one hand still on the horse’s neck as if she never wanted to take it off.
“Other pairs for the competition have been training for months already,” Norris said, smile changing to a determined look. “If the two of you are going to be at all competitive, you need to be with her and riding her as much as possible. You need to bond with each other to the point where the two of you are in perfect sync. You need to know Luna’s every move and mood, and she needs to have complete trust in you, as well as learn all the moves she will need to know.”
“Do you really think we can do it?” Chiara asked, eyes wide at the enormity of the task.
“You’ve got a good shot at it,” Norris said, smile returning. “She’s gorgeous, and you aren’t bad to look at either.” Chiara blushed. “Plus, you’re a light little thing and Luna’s smart as a whip. You both have a hell of a good shot at doing well. So, first things first. We’ll start out with you learning the proper way to curry, wash, and dry a horse.”
Author's Note
So, this was an interesting chapter to write in that I constantly had to switch from one viewpoint to another. I tried to make it not too jarring. I'm also trying out a few things differently with my dialogue. Hopefully it worked well.
As my followers may have noticed, I've gone back to story rotation writing. Writing just one story at a time wasn't getting the job done, so the next chapter will be along much sooner than it took this chapter to arrive following chapter four.
This chapter is brought to you through the assistance of my current patrons:
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“Well Doc, what’s the good word?” Edith Norris asked, her aching foot propped up on one of her kitchen chairs as she leaned back on another. It was mid morning in the kitchen and Edith had spent the past half hour having her foot poked and prodded by the local doctor.
“Well Edith,” the doctor said, as he washed his hands in the kitchen sink, his somewhat faded white coat with “Jamison” on it catching some of the splash, “this likely isn’t a shock to you, but your foot’s broken. That’s what tends to happen when a thousand pound horse steps on it.”
“Dammit, that’s just what I needed,” Edith said, biting off a curse. “Well, it’s not so bad, I guess. I can hobble around on some crutches for a couple of weeks around the house, ride one of the tractors around when I’m outside.”
“A couple of weeks?” Doctor Jamison said, chuckling. “Oh Edith, someday you’re going to have to tell me why all you farmers keep trying to work yourselves into the ground. I’m going to have to put that foot into a cast, and it’s going to be six to eight weeks before it heals.”
“What?!” Norris exclaimed, bolting upright in her chair. “I can’t afford to take that kind of time off work. Are you crazy?”
“As I recall, Edith,” Jamison said, still smiling as he pushed his patient back down to a resting position, “you have an excellent group of farmhands and that young horse witch of yours has been coming along quite well as your second-in-command, from all reports.”
“Chiara isn’t ‘my’ anything,” Edith said, crossing her arms and sending a stern look at the doctor. “She’s an adult woman coming into her own. I’m proud of the turnaround she’s made in her life.”
“Uh huh,” Jamison said, getting a few things out of his kit bag. “I noticed you didn’t object to the whole ‘horse witch’ part of that.”
“What’s there to say?” Edith asked, a hint of a smile starting to soften her own features as she thought of the young woman who was fast becoming her protege. “She’s a witch, she rides a horse.”
“Edith,” the doctor said, pulling out an electric shaver and beginning to lightly remove the hairs from the injured foot, “you ride. So do I, and I’ve seen her in town on that mare she found in the woods. That girl sits a saddle like she was born to it, and with that horse under her… Well, let’s just say there’s something special going on with those two.”
“Being special didn’t stop Luna from stepping on my foot,” Edith said, with a wince as the shaver’s vibrations buzzed the broken bone in her.
“Even the best make mistakes,” Jamison said, finishing the most painful part of the shaving as quickly as he could. “Any luck finding out where that mare’s from?”
“Not even a little bit,” Norris said, relaxing as the doctor started shaving away from the area where the damage was. “Had Doctor Herriot out here, and he went over her with a fine-toothed comb. No tattoos, no brands, not even a microchip anywhere on her. The only odd thing about her is her shoes.”
“Oh, I’d assumed you’d had her shod,” Jamison said, turning off the shaver and blowing away the few stray hairs remaining.
“The shoes Luna came in with are fine, she just needed a touching up on her hooves,” Norris said, adjusting herself in her chair. “The weird thing is that her shoes are made out of titanium.”
“Titanium?” Doctor Jamison asked, surprise freezing him as he was putting away the shaver and getting out rolls of wrap for the cast. “Who the hell puts titanium shoes on a horse?”
“I did some checking,” Norris said, eyeing the growing pile of things on her table with distaste. “Racehorses are about the only time you see it. 3D printed titanium horseshoes, and let me tell you they aren’t cheap.”
“If she is or was a racehorse she’d be registered somewhere. The mystery deepens,” Jamison said, taking a breath. “Okay, I’ll be right back with the plaster and we’ll get you fixed up.”
“Hi, Mrs. Norris,” Chiara said, walking in through the kitchen door, her eyes intent on her mentor and employer. “How is the foot?”
“Broken,” Norris said, and Chiara’s face fell. “Oh, it was an accident. I shouldn’t have been standing so close when you and Luna were trying that cross-step part in your routine, don’t go blaming yourself.”
“What can I do to help?” Chiara said, leaning over to put a hand on Norris’ shoulder.
“Well, you can… “ Norris said, then paused as she noticed Doctor Jamison trying to discreetly admire the lean form of the girl beside Norris. “Doc, weren’t you getting some supplies from your truck?”
“Oh, right,” Jamison said, shaking himself and flushing slightly. “Back in a minute.”
“Huh?” Chiara said, in confusion and standing back up as the doctor went out to his truck. “Hey… was he checking me out?”
“I’ve told you before, Chiara,” Norris said, wincing again as she moved her foot again by accident. “You’re an attractive woman, especially when you dress for it.”
Norris looked up at Chiara, who was clothed for her practice session in the dressage outfit they’d planned for her to wear in competition. Over her slim frame Chiara wore a long tailed black coat, highlighted with silver stitching on the sleeves, and silver buttons in a dual line up her front. Under that, was a black silk shirt that had been tailored specifically to her measure, the shirt then tucked into black cotton breeches that fit her curves like a glove. The breeches were in turn, tucked into black leather boots that came up to just below the knee, a final flash of silver from the lunar choker Chiara habitually wore completed the outfit.
The intent of the outfit was to make Luna’s rider into a lean dark line, with highlights coming from the gloss of her boots, the shine from the silver on her jacket and choker, and finally from her short blond hair. The effect would be to merge Chiara and Luna visually into a single being instead of two separate individuals. It also had the effect of highlighting the growing athleticism of the young woman and Norris had caught several of her hands staring in frank admiration when they should have been working.
“I’m nothing special,” Chaira said, blushing slightly and moving back to lean against the kitchen counter.
“Peter Browning doesn’t seem to think so,” Norris said, laughing. “Oh, that poor boy. I thought he was going to have a stroke when he handed you the buttons for the backup jacket. When’s the date?”
“Friday, he’s taking me—” Chiara began, then looked over at Mrs. Norris in surprise. “Who told you we were going out?”
“The look on his face last week when he saw you, told me all I needed to know,” Norris said, and she kept chuckling while Chiara blushed, right up until Doctor Jamison came back in with the plaster for the cast.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Chiara. “I’d ask you to help but I’m guessing you don’t want to get that outfit dirty.”
“It gets washed after every session with Luna,” Chiara said, smiling to show the doctor that she forgave his minor indiscretion. “Mrs. Norris says I should practice in the clothes I’ll be wearing at the competition.”
“All right then,” Jamison said, as he began to measure some powdered plaster into a bucket he’d brought with him. “You can be my assistant. Just hand me things when I ask for them. For starters, measure out four cups of water into this bucket.”
Chiara took off her dressage jacket, rolled up her sleeves and got to work as the doctor began the work of creating the cast around Edith’s foot and before long they were working as a well-oiled team. Two-thirds of the way through an insistent chime sounded from the doctor’s jacket.
“Can you get that Miss Walsh?” the doctor asked, holding up arms that were covered to the elbows in plaster. “I seem to be covered in my work.”
“No problem, Sir,” Chiara said, setting down the long strip of cloth she had been holding for the next layer of the cast. “Did you want me to hold it up to your ear?”
“Just put it on speaker,” Jamison said, as Chiara began digging into his jacket. “Phone should be in the upper right pocket.” He stripped some of the viscous plaster back into the bucket as Chiara got the phone out and hit the button for the speaker.
“Hi Bonnie,” Jamison said, before the person on the other end had a chance to say anything. “What’s up?”
“You still at the Norris place?” an anxious sounding older female voice asked, through the speaker.
“Ya, probably be another half hour, why?” Jamison asked, his eyebrows raised at the tone of the speaker. “What’s happened?”
“There’s a young boy,” Bonnie said, over the phone. “Him and some friends were out playing out in the upper section of Halstad’s farm near the old irrigation line, and ran into a bee’s nest. He’s stung pretty bad. One of the other kids had a phone and called in. Said he’s swelling up and starting to have trouble breathing. How quick can you be there?”
“If I dump everything and run, about forty minutes,” Jamison said, standing now and moving quickly to get the rest of the plaster off his arms. “I’ve got to go all the way around Tumblehome Ridge to get there.”
“All right, I’ll tell them you’re on your way,” Bonnie said, and the phone clicked with the sound of a disconnecting line.
“Edith… “Jamison began, sluicing water from the sink over his arms.
“I heard it too,” Norris said, making a shooing gesture. “Get going, come back when you can. Chiara, help the doctor get his stuff to his truck.”
“Yes Ma’am,” Chiara said, scooping up various bags and following the doctor out to his old F-150 pickup truck.
“Just toss those in the back, Miss Walsh. With an allergic reaction I don’t have time to be neat,” Doctor Jamison said, pulling open the door to the truck. Chiara obeyed, throwing the items into the truck bed just as Jamison turned the key. The truck responded by making a horrific screeching noise of metal against metal which stopped only when the doctor released the ignition key.
“What in the name of Satan’s left testicle was that?” Jameson exclaimed, jumping back out of the truck. Bewildered, Chiara followed the doctor as he quickly went around to the front of his truck and lifted the hood. As the doctor poked around at various truck things under the hood, Chiara noticed an odd puddle under the vehicle.
“Sir,” Chiara said, hesitantly pointing to the puddle. “I don’t know much about cars, but I don’t think that’s good.”
“Oh fuck ,” Jamison said, the simplicity of the curse making it all the more vehement. “That’s from the oil pan. I must have put a hole in it on the way here. This truck is dead, for all intents and purposes. You folks have something I can beg, borrow or steal?”
“N-no,” Chiara said, nervous in the face of the intent doctor. “With Mrs. Norris’ foot broken we dropped her truck off at the shop in town to get some work done. All we have left are the horses and the tractors.”
“Horses!” Jamison exclaimed, smacking a palm into his fist, before frowning. “No, that will never work. It would take a horse almost two hours to make it around the ridge.”
“What about over?” Chiara asked, finding her footing at last with a subject she knew something about. “There are a couple of trails to get you to the top and then it’s a straight shot down and across the flats.”
“That would solve the time problem,” Jamison said, then he sighed deeply, “but I’m just not good enough of a rider to take a horse safely down the backside of the ridge. That’s an almost sheer slope of loose soil and gravel.”
“Oh,” Chiara said, crestfallen. “What are you going to do?” The doctor looked around for several long seconds, weighing various possibilities and rejecting them just as fast. Then his eyes fell onto Chiara again, his eyes widening as he saw her dressage outfit anew and an idea came to him.
“I’m not good enough of a rider,” Jamison said, voice filling with hope. “But you are. I’ve seen you on your Luna. You can do it, and she’s already saddled, isn’t she?”
“Um, yes,” Chiara said, “I was about to get some practice in when—”
“Never mind that,” Jamison said, grabbing Chiara by the shoulders. “Get what you need to ride, get your horse, and get back here fast .”
“Yes sir!” Chiara exclaimed and charged off.
Luna looked up as her supplicant and rider came running towards her, and she felt her ears twitch in surprise at the unusual haste Chiara was displaying. Over the past month Luna had been basking in the regular contact with her blond maned rider, the small but steady flow of magic from the filly had slowly reinvigorated Luna’s mind. Luna once again remembered all of who she was, where she was from, and how she had come to be on this world and in this place.
Even better, Luna had begun to feel her ability to use magic return, and as soon as she had been able to, had cast a very minor translation spell on her own ears. Over the past week her ability to finally understand the words of the not-minotaurs around her had explained many things to her.
Her rider Chiara, along with herself, were being trained for some sort of competition that involved precise movements on both their parts by Chiara’s dam, Norris. Luna had also learned that the two were not related by blood, but Luna would have had to have been blind to miss the true mother-daughter bond that existed between the two. Despite being able to understand what was being said around her, Luna had decided to keep to her policy of appearing to be a simple riding animal for now.
Chiara’s weight was slight, the training was gentle and kindly if not thorough, and Luna couldn’t fault the care she’d been receiving. Everyday, her worshipper gave her food and water, brushed her down after their many practices and even slept beside her on most nights. In many ways it was almost like having a foal of her own. Perhaps later, when Luna had enough magic to actually speak to her caretakers, would she consider revealing her true nature.
All of this however, had made Luna feel terrible guilt when she had made a misstep yesterday and stepped on Norris’ foot, breaking it. Luna had felt the bone break under her hoof, and while most things about this world were advanced, it seemed their physicians were brutes.
Luna had been forced to suffer under the attentions of a supposed doctor who had been ham hooved at best. Everything that had been done to her during her examination had either been too loud, too short, or painful. Luna had finally had enough after the chirurgeon had stabbed a needle full of some sort of medicine into her, striking a bone as he’d done so and Luna had expressed her displeasure by rubbing him against the wall of her stall. A short time ago Luna had seen another of these “doctors” go into where Norris lived, and Luna did not envy Chiara’s dam for what she was about to experience.
As these memories went through Luna, Chiara reached the practice area they used and where Luna had been patiently waiting with her elegantly tooled saddle and bridle gleaming in the sun. As Luna turned her head to track Chiara she saw with surprise that the filly was wrenching open the gate with extreme haste and that she appeared to be very anxious.
“Come on, Luna,” Chiara said, almost leaping onto the saddle on Luna’s back. “We’ve gotta run like he… ck. There’s a little kid we’ve got to save.” Luna’s ears went back and she was already moving as Chiara went to dig her heels into Luna’s sides to get her moving.
If there is a life on the line, subtlety be damned, Luna thought, letting her rider direct her. Chiara shifted them up to a quick trot, as they rounded the back side of the barn and brought them up beside the thing the doctor had arrived in. There was a reek like something from deep within the Everfree coming from the metal wagon, and Luna automatically shied away a bit from it, but responded when Chiara pulled her back in line.
“Okay, Miss Walsh here is what you need,” the doctor said, passing Chiara a small backpack which her rider spent a few moments tightly strapping to her body. “There’s four epinephrine injectors in there. Pull off the cap, stab him in the thigh or shoulder. The medicine will go in automatically. If he doesn’t improve in five minutes or so, give him a second shot. If he starts getting worse afterwards, you can give him another shot.”
“Anything else I should know?” Chiara asked, as Luna listened in.
“There’s an air ambulance on the way, about forty or fifty minutes out,” the doctor said, talking quickly. “There’s a flare in the pack too, so you can signal them when they get close. Now get going, every second counts.”
Chiara pulled Luna around, and again Luna was on the move at a brisk trot a split second before her rider’s heels made contact with the sides. Chiara seemed not to notice Luna’s anticipations as she guided her mount the back way out of the farm and toward the steep rise that formed the rear boundary of Norris’ property.
“Luna,” Chiara said, as she moved the black mare into a canter. “I’ve never stopped believing that you’re something special, something not of this world. I honestly don’t know if you’re an avatar of my goddess or not, but I do know that there’s a little boy out there who needs our help. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to push you, okay?”
Luna responded with a quick snort and toss of her head, and Chiara patted the side of her neck as she guided the two of them up the most used trail that lead to the top of the ridge. Tumblehome Ridge ran like a spine out from the main mountains in the area. Once you were on top of it, you could see for miles and you could even use it as a reasonable pathway to climb back up into the mountains.
Together, the two climbed the ridge quickly and Chiara paused at the crest for a moment to get her bearings. From their vantage point they could see a large chunk of the farming valley spread out before them. To one side, Chiara could see the farm, the pastures, and the wooded area that held her cabin and where she had found Luna. To the other side of the ridge, began the Halstad farm, and in the distance Chiara could see the blue line of the irrigation canal and the old pump house on it, their destination.
“See that Luna?” Chiara asked, pointing. “That’s where we have to go. Come on, let’s fly!” Chiara turned Luna and started easing them down the far steeper, scree covered slope of the back side of the ridge.
This is not flying, my Chiara, Luna thought, chafing at the slow speed of their descent. I don’t have the magic for actual flight, but perhaps there is something I can do. Luna reached inside of herself to where the slowly growing core of magic lay within. Luna touched it, spoke to it and reached out to the Earth Pony nature of her spirit with it. There was an immediate and dramatic effect.
“Whoa!” Chiara shouted, as Luna shifted on her own from the careful half stepping, sliding walk they had been doing down the slope, to a full trot. Chiara’s heart leapt into her mouth as she realized how quickly they were now moving down the loose, nearly sixty degree slope. It was a recipe for disaster. No horse or rider could maintain that sort of motion for more than a few seconds without a destructive tumble and fall happening, but somehow her Luna was doing it and Chiara realized what had to be happening.
“Thank you, my Goddess,” Chiara whispered, into Luna’s ear as she bent low over her mount’s neck. “Find your best speed, but let me steer. My eyes are higher than yours.”
Luna responded with a loud whinney and sped up to a medium trot, which was as fast as even she dared to do on the loose slope. Loose rock and shale exploded from their passage, titanium shoes spraying sparks behind them and within a minute they were nearing the bottom of the slope.
Now, my filly, Luna thought, as the ground began to level out. Now I will show you how an Equestrian Princess runs when she is truly in a hurry . Opening herself to magic once more, Luna let the speed and endurance of the Earth Pony tribe take hold of her as she ignored the canter altogether, going from a trot directly into a full gallop.
Chiara “eep’ed” in surprise as Luna put on a turn of speed that made a car seem slow by comparison, and she struggled to pull herself up into the classic jockey gallop position Mrs. Norris had taught her was best on a speeding horse. Chiara felt her legs moving with Luna’s motions, her body rising and falling as they galloped onward. A strange quiet came over her as she felt her breathing and pulse begin to merge with that of the ebon mare beneath her, even her perceptions began to blur.
What’s happening? Chiara asked herself in thought, and she nearly slipped when she received an answer.
We are becoming one, my filly, Luna thought to her rider. We will speak later, if we can. For now, we have a life to save, do we not?
Yes! Oh, my Goddess! We will— Chiara began, now fully sensing the presence of her deity beneath her.
Hush child. Concentrate on our task, Luna thought, through the strengthening bond between them. You said you would be directing our travel, yes?
Chiara mentally and physically nodded, going back to guiding them as they hurtled across a massive field of growing grass meant to provide hay in a few weeks. As they moved, the thunder of Luna’s hooves echoed through her entire being and by the end of the first mile Chiara and Luna had reached that wonderful synergy that all riders seek to find with their mounts, and then they went beyond it. They ceased to be horse and rider, ceased to be individuals working together toward a common goal. They were one.
One pounding heart, one driving mind, one set of thunderous hooves catapulting them forward, and Luna’s core filled with power as Chiara gave everything she had to the being she worshipped, driving them forward even faster as they raced the clock to beat death itself.
But there was something in their path...
Author's Note
It's alive!
But in all seriousness, it feels damn good to be able to pick up this story again and start working toward its completion. I promise, the next update won't this long.
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Canary in the Coal Mine,
Alessandro Flores wiped the sweat off his brow as he lifted another heavy section of pipe into place. Summer was still a full month away, but the heat was already rising day by day and with it the need for water to irrigate the Halstad farm. A wide irrigation ditch, almost a river itself, flowed past him. His was the job of replacing all the worn out or otherwise corroded sections of pipe for the irrigation pumps along the canal.
Water pipe was thick and solid by design, so that it could hold up under the loads placed on it and the piece he was lifting made a solid “thud” as Alessandro dropped it into place. He paused for a moment, breathing heavily and listening to the pounding of his heart. The pounding was loud and getting louder. Puzzled, Alessandro put his hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. His heart felt normal, so why was the pounding sound getting even louder?
Chiara and Luna thundered along at full gallop, and the young woman gloried in their flight across the ground. She had never ridden a horse this fast, she had never known a horse could be this fast. Then she saw the obstacle in their path, the irrigation canal. It was twenty to thirty feet wide with a good ten feet deep of water in it. Chiara could see a man on the far bank working on an intake pipe for an irrigation pump, and in that moment Chiara decided to make the leap.
“C’mon Luna,” Chiara shouted. “Let’s fly!”
Unlike Chiara, who was blinded by the exhilaration of their run, Luna was fully aware of how hard the jump was going to be. Even with her abilities augmented by her Earth Pony nature it was going to push her abilities to the limit. Actual flight was far beyond the amount of magic she had at hoof, but then again flight wasn’t needed, distance was. Acting quickly, Luna cannibalized the magic that had let her commune with her rider, and aimed it toward another part of her alicorn nature.
Chiara waited until the very last moment, then urged Luna up into a tremendous leap. As they soared across the gap everything seemed to slow and she felt like they were floating along. From her height she glanced down at the poor workman, who stared up at her and Luna as they passed overhead with open-mouthed astonishment.
Alessandro, on the other hand, had a far different perspective on things. Luna’s thunderous approach had warned him something was coming, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of the black mare flying through the air towards him. Her lean black-clad rider speared him with her gaze, and stars flashed at him from her body. Darkness spread over him, like night covering the land as the horse and rider passed just over his head.
A moment later both horse and rider were gone, and Alessandro scrambled to the top of the embankment to check if what he had seen had been real. Cresting the top of the bank in seconds, he could just make out the departing dark horse through the dust cloud of her wake, hooves sparking fire.
“Dios ,” he said, still not truly believing that what he had seen had been real. He stood there for a moment trying to make sense of what the beautiful and terrifying vision he had seen was. A bit of motion caught his eye and he put his hand out in an instinctive reaction. Something soft landed on his hand and he closed his fingers on a dark blue feather that was as long as his forearm.
Chiara didn’t see any of that though as she and Luna raced onward. They’d found the old dirt and gravel road the workman had used to get to the canal, seconds after touching down from their leap, and used it to hurtle forward even faster. Chiara knew where they were now. Roughly five miles ahead, off a bend in the old road, was the old pump house where the stricken boy was.
“Not much farther to go now, Luna,” Chiara yelled to her mount. “We just follow the road now, give it all you’ve got.” Chiara flicked the reins, asking for more speed and Luna responded by accelerating to a rate of travel so fast that the wind began to tear at Chiara’s eyes and she was forced to blink rapidly to keep them clear.
At the far end of the farm Robert Halstad was on top of a tall water tower along with a work crew. They needed to get water moving into the tank today, before water levels in the canal dropped to the point where they wouldn’t be allowed to pump anymore. He was caulking yet another leak closed, when a streak of dust caught his eye. Setting down the caulking gun, he picked up a pair of binoculars he had near him.
With its height, the water tower made a great vantage point to look down on his farm. Bob never told anyone, but on some days he would come up here with a lawn chair, sit on the roof of the tank and just look out over his farm. Everything he could see had come to into being because of him and his family, and he was damn proud of it.
He focused the lenses on the head of the dust trail and was easily able to pick out the shape of a dark horse rocketing along at incredible speed along one of his gravel service roads. He found himself counting the seconds as the horse ran past the regularly spaced power poles and the number he came up with made him whistle in appreciation. He counted off a second set of poles, then a third. Each time the numbers added up to the same incredible rate of travel.
That’s the horse Norris’ witch found. What the hell is it doing on my land? Halstad asked himself, then frowned as another thought occurred to him as he recognized the blond rider on the horse’s back. Where the hell are they going in that kind of hurry? Reaching into his pocket he pulled out his phone, which he habitually kept turned off to save battery life. Powering up the device he saw that there were twenty missed calls, all from his farm office.
“Terry, what’s going on?” he asked his foreman without preamble, as the line connected.
“Mr. Halstad, thank God,” his foreman said, relief plain in his voice. “We’ve been trying to get ahold of you for the past fifteen, twenty minutes.”
“Ya, I saw all the missed calls,” Halstad said, letting a little anger come into his voice. “What’s going on and why is Norris’s witch redoing the Kentucky Derby across my land?”
“She’s already here?” the foreman said, voice taking on a surprised tone. “Damn, that horse of hers must be fast.”
“Damn fast. I’ve never seen a horse move like that over a dis—” Halstad broke off, realizing he was getting distracted yet again from his original question. “Dammit, Terry. Forget the horse. What the hell is going on on my farm?”
“Some of the workers kids were playing up by the old secondary pumphouse,” Terry explained, at long last. “There’s some bees there and one of them got stung pretty bad. The doc was over at the Norris place but his truck broke, so her girl offered to ride in with some medicine. The kid’s not doing so good. There’s even supposed to be a medevac chopper on the way in.”
“God, I’ve told those people a hundred times to keep their kids away from working areas,” Haldstad growled at the phone. “Somebody's getting fired over this. Anyway, I’m headed over there. I want to see this wonder horse I’ve been hearing about for the past couple of weeks anyway.”
Unaware of scrutiny or phone call, Chiara and Luna made the turn onto the smaller gravel road that led to the pump station and Chiara could see a cluster of people in the distance.
“There they are, Luna!” Chiara shouted, exhilaration and exhaustion warring in her body. Her knees ached and her thighs burned with the effort of making herself move with her Goddess instead of against her, but it had been worth it. She didn’t know how fast her and Luna were travelling, but she felt in her bones that no horse and rider could have done what she and Luna were doing.
Sergio sat on the edge of the road and held his friend, listening to him wheeze. It seemed like every breath Alonso took was louder than the one before, and that there was a bigger gap between each one. He’d used the old phone he had to call Momma for help, and she had called all the others. There were many people here now, clustered around him and Alonso.
“Momma,” Sergio said, fear evident in his eight year old voice. “How long until someone gets here with the medicine to help Alonso? You said they would be here soon.” Vero looked down at her young son with the most comforting smile she could manage.
“They should be here any time now,” she said, to her boy, “and if they aren’t, the doctor said he sent a helicopter too. Just… look, here comes someone now.” The small crowd looked up and they could see a dark horse and rider closing in on them fast. Some of the people began to back up to get out of the way of the onrushing duo, and less than a minute later they were there, slamming to a halt as the rider kicked free of the saddle into a running dismount.
“Move!” the black clad rider shouted, coat flaring behind her like a pair of wings, legs pinwheeling to eat up the momentum given her by the ebon steed that thundered past, slowing themselves at a slower pace than their rider. The crowd gasped as the woman drew something from her clothing even as she skidded to a halt beside the stricken boy, and stabbed him with it.
Sergio looked into the eyes of the blond woman beside him, her green eyes and the strange shining symbol at her throat marking her as the bruja , the witch from the other farm that his friends had told him about. Bruja were scary, but they also had great power, and Sergio felt a burst of hope as he heard her cast a spell on his friend.
“Artemis, goddess of the hunt. You, who care for beasts and little children. The first aspect of the Three. Help this young one in his time of need. Grant him healing, and the strength of the earth,” Chiara said, barely breathing the prayer and then looking up to see a pair of young eyes locked on her own.
She was about to tell the boy that his friend was going to be okay, or at least say something reassuring, when the child she had injected took a sudden deep breath. There was a pause that seemed to go on forever, and then the boy took another breath, sucking air into his lungs, and then a third. Colour and life seemed to flow back into the child as his breathing stabilized. An older woman snatched the boy up, hugging him to her, and sobbing with happiness.
“Curandera ,” the boy who had been holding his friend said to her, before leaning over to hug Chiara with every ounce of strength in his small frame.
“It’s okay,” Chiara said, hugging the boy back. He was babbling something in spanish to her and the people around them, but Chiara’s near total lack of knowledge of the language kept her from understanding what was being said. The word “curandera ” kept being repeated though. A sound of hooves echoed behind her, and Chiara looked up to see Luna looking down on her. Luna was covered with a fine sheen of sweat and road dust, but otherwise looked good.
Luna could feel the power coming off the group. The collective belief that those gathered around her worshipper had in both herself and her rider was feeding itself into Luna. It wasn’t as good as her rider’s direct worship, but it was enough that Luna could feel the expended power of their run beginning to be replenished. She also knew that something was wrong with her rider, even as she used a bit of the magic flowing into her to wash the fatigue poisons out of her body.
“Hi Luna,” Chiara said, then gasped as she tried to stand up, pain stabbing in her ankle. “Dang it. I knew I didn’t get that landing right.” Luna’s head swiveled around, nuzzling her in sympathy as her rider leaned heavily against her.
“I can help you up, Curandera ,” a girl in her early teens said, her eyes shining. Chiara nodded her thanks and let the girl help her get up and over Luna, biting her lip to keep from crying out in pain as her hurt ankle hit the stirrup on the other side. She looked down at the half-dozen or so people there, and for the first time there was neither fear or anger in their eyes, but respect and something she couldn’t put a finger on.
“We need to keep an eye on his breathing,” Chiara said, cautioning the group gathered around her and Luna. “The medicine I gave him is temporary, something to keep him going until the helicopter gets here. Keep him lying down.”
“Yes, Curandera ,” said the woman who had hugged the boy joyfully when his breathing had cleared. Chiara made a mental note to find out what the word meant. It was obviously a title of some sort, and one that seemed to carry a lot more respect than “Bruja .” A few minutes later, the helicopter hadn’t arrived, but a pickup truck had. As the driver stepped out Chiara was surprised to recognize the figure of Mr. Halstad, the farm’s owner.
“You should be walking that horse. Make sure she cools down okay,” the older man said, getting right to the point.
“She seems okay, Sir,” Chiara said, respectful of the older man. “I think she walked around a bit on her own before coming back to me. But if you want to check Luna over I’d appreciate it.”
“Well, I was going to anyway,” Halstad said, stepping close but where Luna could see him approach. “No offense, but I understand you’re still a little new to a saddle and it’d be a shame to see a horse like yours go down like—”
Everyone stopped talking as the sound of the medevac helicopter arriving from the hospital at the big city made its presence known. Digging into her small backpack, Chiara handed Mr. Halstad the smoke flare, which the older man took a short distance away and activated to guide the helicopter in.
Less than fifteen minutes later, the helicopter was lifting up and away from the gravel road and Chiara turned Luna away from the water bucket she’d been drinking out of, protecting both their faces from the downwash that scattered dust and small stones in equal quantities. The paramedics on the flight had told Chiara she had probably saved the boy’s life, and their praise filled her with a warm glow. The respectful nods and words of thanks from the migrant workers made even the pain of her hurt ankle a minor annoyance.
“Well, your horse is probably cooled down by now, but you mind if I give her a look over anyway?” Mr. Halstad asked Chiara. There was something that worried Chiara in the way he looked at Luna. She was about to tell him “No,” but instead her years of submitting to her father’s authority had her nodding permission to the older man instead.
“Thank you,” Halstad said, and he began his examination of the mare in front of him. He wasn’t sure of her breed, but she wasn’t one of the larger ones. Nor was she an Arabian, he was sure of that. He ran his hand over the smooth muscle of the horse’s chest, feeling the mare’s breathing. Smooth and even, and he noticed something else. There was barely a trace of the incredible run he had seen this horse pull off. If anything, she looked as if she could do it again if her rider asked.
“Where did you get her?” Halstad asked, trying to think as he ran his hand over the animal’s flank. He marvelled at the deep, rich blackness of that hide. It was like looking into a night sky, with the few remaining beads of sweat catching the light like stars.
“It’s more of a case of Luna getting me,” Chiara said, laughing a bit before she noticed the older man’s frown. “Seriously sir, she found me at the pond near my cabin and basically adopted me.”
“So technically she could belong to anyone,” Halstad said, lifting a rear hoof to check leg, hoof and shoe. Again, the horse seemed in near perfect condition and no worse for wear.
“Well, Mrs. Norris did a search for missing or lost horses, and the vet ran a search as well,” Chiara said, and again, something was sounding warning bells in her spine. “She filed registration papers for Luna last month.”
“‘Luna’ eh?” Halstad asked, setting down the hoof. “Is that because of the crescent moon mark she has on her hips?”
“What?” Chiara asked, swiveling around in surprise. Sure enough, on either side of her horse’s hips, a white crescent marked the otherwise dark perfection of Luna’s coat. A mark that hadn’t been there at the start of their day. “Oh, yes. That was part of it anyway.”
Halstad looked up at the girl. He knew she was lying, just as he knew that neither she nor Norris had any idea of the incredible piece of horseflesh that had fallen into their laps. Secretariat, the famous horse who won the Triple Crown, had run the Kentucky Derby at a speed of just under fifty miles an hour. This “Luna” had been doing fifty-five, and had held that speed over the length of three or four miles, at least. This horse was wasted on the dressage Norris and this girl had her doing. In his hands, the horse she could make him a literal fortune, and Robert Halstad decided in that moment that he had to have her.
“Look, you work on a dairy farm,” Halstad began, making his voice as pleasant as possible. “I’m a hay and silage fellow, but I’ve got a string of horses. Let me buy this mare off of you. How does five thousand dollars sound?”
“Sir…” Chiara began, in protest. Sell the avatar of her Goddess? The man had to be nuts!
“Fine, I can see that you have a real bond with her, and I can respect that,” Halstad continued, pressing the issue. “Ten thousand, and you can come ride her whenever you like.”
“Mr. Halstad,” Chiara said, trying to work her way through the shock and find a polite way to tell the man, “No.”
“Fifteen thousand,” Halstad said, pulling out a checkbook. “My final offer. You won’t ever get a better offer for her and I’ll make sure she has the best of everything.”
“Sir,” Chiara said, finding her voice at last. “Luna isn’t for sale. Not for any price, not now, not ever. Now, if you will excuse me, my horse and I have a long walk home.”
“At least let me give you a ride back,” Halstad said, seeing dollar signs on four legs walk away from him. “I can have a horse trailer here in fifteen minutes and we can talk on the way.”
“Thank you, Sir. But, no thank you,” Chiara said, trying to remain polite but failing a bit. “Mrs. Norris said Luna and I should do everything together. I’ll be off your property right away. Good day, Sir.” Chiara wheeled Luna and they started off at a walk, before shifting to a distance eating trot.
“He offered you how much?” Edith Norris said, handing Chiara a cup of tea. Dr. Jamison had stayed at the Norris farm while a tow truck came out from town to collect his truck and bring him his motorcycle, which had given him time to finish Edith’s cast and be there for Chiara’s return. He’d wound up carrying Chiara into the kitchen when she’d collapsed after dismounting from Luna.
“Fifteen thousand,” Chiara said, accepting the cup and wincing as the doctor cut off her boot with a set of shears. “Oh, I really liked those boots.”
“If you had taken them off right after you had gotten hurt, you could have saved them,” Jamison said, hearing the familiar complaint. “As it is, the swelling is at the point where the boots are actually becoming dangerous. What did you do?”
“I tried doing a fast dismount off of Luna to save time,” Chiara said, wincing again as the boot fell away to reveal a blue and purple joint. “I almost managed it, but I caught a rock at the last se—Ahh!”
“Sprained pretty badly, near as I can tell,” Jamison said, taking his hands off the ankle. “You’re damned lucky you didn’t break it. As it is you need to be off it for a few days.”
“Yes sir,” Chiara said, bowing her head in obedience to the doctor. “Sorry Sir.”
“I wish I got that level of respect from more of my patients,” Jamison said, chuckling. “I’ll wrap it for you, and leave you a pair of crutches. Ice it, keep off it, take ibuprofen for the pain if you need to.” The mention of respect twigged Chiara’s memory of the deference the migrant workers had shown her.
“Do either of you know what the word ‘Curandera ’ means?” Chiara asked. Norris looked puzzled, but Doctor Jamison started to laugh immediately.
“They started calling you that?” he asked, to which Chiara nodded. “It means ‘healer’ and specifically refers to a shaman… or a witch with healing powers.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Chiara protested, as both Norris and Jamison tried to keep from laughing. “All I did was what you told me to do, sir.”
“Is that all you did?” Jamison asked, smiling. “Everyone for miles around knows how important your beliefs are to you. You sure you didn’t… “ His voice trailed off as he made random quasi-mystical gestures with his hands.
“Well, I said a little prayer right after I used the injector on the boy,” Chiara said, now well distracted from the doctor wrapping her ankle tightly. “It’s not like I actually performed a ritual or did anything magical.”
“Oh, I bet it looked pretty magical,” Norris said, not trying to hide her laughter now. “I can see it now. You swooping in on Luna, leaping off her at the last second and using your magic wand and mystic words over the boy, who makes a sudden and spectacular recovery—”
“But I didn’t do any of that!” Chiara protested. “I just did—”
“What you were told to do. I know,” Norris said, putting her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “But for good or ill, you’ve made quite the impression on those folks.”
“Oh,” Chiara said, blinking. “What do I do now?”
“For now, heal,” Jamison said, finishing the wrapping. “Down the road, we’ll see. In the meantime how about we get you moving?”
“Yes sir,” Chiara said, as the doctor helped her up and handed her a pair of crutches.
“Ask one of the hands to help you out with getting Luna washed down and taken care of,” Norris told Chiara, as she was hobbling out the door. “You’re off for the next week. I want that ankle fully healed. Understood?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Chiara said, but as she reached the ground she turned back to look at her employer and benefactor. “But what about you? Your foot is broken. I just have a sprain, I can—”
“Understood? ” Norris asked, putting an edge of command in her voice that brooked no dissent.
“Yes Ma’am,” Chiara said, looking at the ground. “I’ll do as you say.”
“Good girl,” Norris said. “Now, off you go. Doctor, can I have a word with you before you head off?”
“Certainly,” Jamison said, watching the byplay with interest. “Ms. Walsh, come by the clinic if things don’t get better in five days.”
“Yes sir,” Chiara said, before hobbling off toward the barn.
“That girl makes for quite the doormat, doesn’t she?” Jamison asked Norris, once they were back in the kitchen.
“She has a problem standing up to authority unless it’s about something really important to her,” Norris said, easing back into her chair. “I don’t like ordering her like that, but you see how she is. She’d work herself into the ground just to make me happy.”
“Just like any good daughter would do for her mother,” Jamison said, snorting at Norris’ shocked expression. “Don’t give me that look. You two might not be blood related, but sure as hell is hot, she looks to you like a mother and she’s the daughter you never had. I’ll go easy on you though, what did you want to talk about?”
“Just… Oh, fine,” Norris said, recovering her composure. “I saw how you looked at Chiara just now. You’ve got something in mind for her, don’t you?” Jamison had to bite his lip to stop from snorting out loud as Norris’ question again showed the relationship between the two women.
“I want to train her as a field medic, or at least as a first-aid attendant,” Jamison said, knowing that Norris was not in the mood for any sort of teasing. “I’ve been having trouble all along getting medical care into the immigrant worker community. They listen to me, but they don’t trust me. If Chiara’s already gotten their respect I can use her to get some real preventive medicine going with them. Maybe even an immunization program.”
“She’s got enough on her dance card right now,” Norris said, frowning slightly. “Down the road, after the competition, we’ll see. But only if it’s something she wants to do. I won’t have you pressuring that girl, even if it is for a good reason.”
“Fair enough,” Jamison said, then he frowned as well. “Speaking of pressuring. I’m assuming you would like to talk about fifteen thousand dollars.”
“Yes,” Norris said, her face going stormy. “You and I both know Bob Halstad’s reputation. If he offered Chiara that much money on the spot for Luna… “
“Then he saw something in Luna that makes him think she’s worth that kind of money,” Jamison said, mind racing. “More, most likely. A lot more, and when Bob Halstad sees something that can either make him money or save him money—”
“Then he’s likely to do pretty much anything to get it,” Norris finished for the doctor. “His ethics are pretty loose when it comes to getting something he’s focused on. It’s how he ran the four other hay and silage outfits out of the area. Do me a favour. Ask around and see if you can figure out what he might have seen that’s got him focused on Luna?”
“Will do,” Jamison replied, picking up his large case. “Well, if there’s nothing else I’ve got to head back in. I’ll let you know if I run across anything.”
“Safe travels, Doc,” Edith Norris said, waving goodbye with a worried look.
Author's Note
Things are moving along now and I think we can see some conflict on the horizon.
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Canary in the Coal Mine,
Sighing, Edith Norris shut down the engine of the tractor and looked with equal parts disgust and curiosity at her visitors. The silver SUV with “Halstad Hay & Silage” on it, had pulled into the working area and Edith could see Bob Halstad behind the wheel. He’d kept himself away from her farm ever since she’d kicked him off it, so something must have driven him to come now, and she had a pretty good idea what it was.
The part she couldn’t figure out was what the three other people who were in the vehicle were there for. Edith could make out the faces of a young man and woman, barely as old as Chiara, maybe even younger than her. With them was an older man in his late thirties by her estimation. He had the look of someone who was used to hard work. All three of them were obvious members of the migrant worker community, and all three looked to be nervous.
“Good morning, Edith,” Halstad said, getting out of the truck. “Lovely weather we’re having isn’t it?”
“Robert Halstad,” Norris said, aggressively leaning forward in her seat. “You’ve got sixty seconds to tell me why you’re here before I boot you off my land… again.”
“Woah! Don’t shoot, I’m unarmed,” Halstad said, holding up his hands in mock surrender, a smile on his face. A smile that slowly faded as Norris’ expression remained as stony as ever and she made a show of checking her watch.
“Either say your piece or get gone,” Norris said, still fixing Halstad with her disdain.
“Fine,” Halstad said, deciding to be serious. “Can we talk in private?”
“We can go into the barn,” Norris said, and she hooked a thumb at the three others who had now gotten out of the SUV and were standing by it, looking around. “What about your people? Why are they here?”
“Oh, they aren’t my people,” Halstad said, a sour look on his face. “Well, up until an hour ago, Jorge was. I just finished firing him and giving him his last pay. He and his brother’s kids asked for a ride here, and as a last favor to him I gave them a lift.”
“Huh,” Norris said, before addressing the others. “You three stay right there until I get back, you hear?”
Switching the tractor back on, Edith drove the short distance to the barn, and pulled in beside it while pointedly not letting Halstad ride. She hopped off the tractor and hobbled her way over to Luna’s stall. She suspected Luna was going to be the subject of this conversation so she sat herself down on a barrel with her back to the stall door. Edith felt Luna’s breath whuff on the back of her neck as Halstad entered the barn’s main passageway.
“Not now, girl,” Norris murmured to the big black mare, as she watched her foe approach. “I’ve got a rattlesnake to deal with.” A nicker answered her and she felt rather than saw Luna back away.
“How would you like to make fifty thousand dollars?” Halstad said, as he drew within arms reach.
“Straight to it,” Norris said, cocking an eyebrow at Halstad. “Well, I did tell you to be direct. What do I have to do to earn this princely sum?”
“I want to breed one of my stallions,” Halstad said, and Norris could see that the man was nervous. He was hiding it well, but Edith's husband had taught her how to read people and she could see the sweat on Halstad's lip.
“I only have the one mare, and she’s a therapy horse, not a broodmare,” Norris said, frowning. “But you didn’t mean Sunrise, did you?”
“Your witch told you, did she?” Halstad said, while Norris rolled her eyes at the term.
“Robert,” Norris said, her words still heavily salted with disdain, “unlike some people I could mention, Chiara doesn’t hide things from me.”
“The offer stands,” Halstad said, intent. “Fifty thousand dollars right now, for a foal from your Luna. I’ll cover all the other costs.”
“That much, for an unknown foal from a feral mare,” Norris said, laughing and watching Halstad’s face blotch with anger. “You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s no one stupid enough to make that offer, or accept one like it without conditions.”
“Fine,” Halstad said, a growl in his voice now as he took a step closer. “I’ll buy the horse herself off of you. $100,000. It will take me a day to arrange a bank draft but you know I’m good for it.”
“Before I even begin to entertain that offer, impressive as it is,” Norris said, wondering how far she could push the man. “I need to know why you would be willing to lay out that kind of money for her. No one, especially you, offers that kind of money without good reason.”
“You really don’t know, do you?” Halstad asked, trying his own turn at sarcasm. “You have no idea what that mare is capable of, do you?” Luna, hearing her name, looked out over the stall door and Mrs. Norris suddenly felt like either Horatio or Gandalf at their respective bridges, in her sudden need to defend the ebon mare.
“Why don’t you tell me, Bob?” Norris said, reaching up and unlocking the stall door. “What is it about Luna that’s making you act like such an idiot.”
“Idiot?!” Halstad said, exploding and stepping forward so that he was directly in front of Edith. “Only an idiot would pass up a chance at the greatest racehorse since Secretariat!”
“Go on,” Norris said, in a calm voice that seemed to infuriate Halstad even more.
“You’ve got her doing dressage when she’s the fastest thing on four hooves!” Halstad exclaimed, waving his arms toward Luna and not noticing that Edith had unlatched the gate itself. She wasn’t sure why she was undoing the door for Luna, but a little voice inside her kept assuring her she was doing the right thing.
“Oh, she’s not that fast,” Norris said, goading the man. Now that he was good and riled it wouldn’t take much to keep him going.
“I timed her,” Halstad said, finger upraised in emphasis, face florid. “With your witch on her back, on a gravel road, she was running at fifty miles an hour. That’s as fast as a Quarter Horse.”
“Well, that’s nice, but it still doesn’t explain why you’re willing to hand over six figures for her,” Norris said, keeping to that calm voice that seemed to be egging the man on. “Just go out and buy yourself one of them. It’s got to be cheaper.”
“Argh!” Halstad exclaimed, throwing up his hands and turning in a circle before facing Norris again. “You don’t GET it! Quarter Horses can keep up that speed for a quarter mile, maybe a bit more. It’s why they are called ‘Quarter Horses’ in the first place! But not Luna, oh no, not the horse that dropped into your lap from almost literally the heavens. She kept up that speed for at least three miles.”
“You did that, Luna?” Norris said, reaching up to stroke the animal’s muzzle, who nickered softly back to her. “Good girl. Chiara must be very proud of you.” The casual display of affection seemed to pour salt on the wounds, Edith’s feigned ignorance of horses was cutting into Halstad.
“That’s not all of it,” Halstad said, his voice dropping to a strangled whisper. “Chiara let me examine Luna afterwards. A horse, any horse, should have been lathered and on the near edge of dropping from exhaustion after a run like that. Luna looked ready to do it all over again. The horse is a gold mine I tell you, name your price and I’ll find the money to meet it.”
“No,” Norris said flatly, and with as much emotion as she would use wiping her boot off after some time in the pasture.
“What?” Halstad said, blinking in shock.
“I said, ‘No’,” Norris repeated. “I realize it’s a word you aren’t used to hearing, but that’s my response. ‘No’.”
“I get it. You don’t want to sell her. You want a partnership,” Halstad said, nodding. “I can work with that. We’ll form a racing syndicate. I’ll get my lawyer to draw up the papers. This is great! We’ll make millions.”
“You aren’t listening, Bob,” Norris said, feeling her anger rise and beginning to have serious doubts about the man’s sanity. “Luna isn’t mine to sell, trade, or hire out. She’s Chiara’s horse, and she already gave you the same answer.”
“No! This is the opportunity of a lifetime!” Halstad said, whirling and seizing her by the shoulders, digging in with powerful fingers. “I’ll make you see reason!”
That will be quite enough of this, Luna thought. She had been watching and listening to the exchange and while she had been confident that Norris would act as she had, it had chilled her to be reminded that here she was property, a thing that could be bartered and sold. Protecting the older mare wasn’t just the right thing to do, it was the safe thing. Luna pushed the gate open hard, deliberately knocking it into the man’s shoulder and breaking his grip on Norris.
In her time, Luna had been both a Mistress of Shadows and a warrior, both martial professions told her that you never gave an enemy an even break, or to let up once you had your foe off-balance. Pressing her advantage, Luna surged forward out of the stall past the older mare, and drove her heavily muscled chest into the man who had the temerity to try to buy a Princess of Equestria.
Halstad didn’t know what hit him. One moment he was trying to shake some sense into that idiot of a dairy farmer, and the next he had been sent flying by a wall of black furred muscle. He landed heavily on his back, the impact driving the air out of his body and leaving him stunned for a moment. A second later he tried to get up, but something was on his chest. He managed to focus his eyes on a column of black fur rising up to the dark mare who was now standing over him, her hoof placed delicately on his chest.
Robert Halstad had been a farmer, a rancher, a horseman, and an outdoorsman all his life, but for the first time ever he found himself afraid of an animal. All Luna had to do was to fully put her weight down and she would shatter his ribs like balsa wood. He tried to slide out sideways from underneath the mare, and she responded by pressing down just a bit more to keep him in place, while making a deep rumble of warning in her chest that sounded like the thunder of an approaching storm.
“That would be three times a lady has told you, ‘No’,” Norris said, hobbling the few steps to stand beside Luna. “Now, are you done?”
“Yes,” Halstad said, with a squeak and unable to tear his gaze from Luna’s.
“Okay girl, you’ve made your point,” Edith said, patting Luna’s side. “Let him up before you slip and I have to clean up the barn again.”
With a final snort of contempt Luna took her hoof off the downed farmer, setting it down on his opposite side so that she still stood over him to demonstrate her superiority. Halstad scrambled back as quickly as he could, finally standing up about fifteen feet away from the pair with his entire back stained and soiled from contact with the barn floor.
“Robert Halstad,” Norris said, her voice as hard as the gavel of a hanging judge. “You are forbidden from ever coming on my land again. I see you here again and I’m calling the sheriff. You are not to contact me or Chiara about Luna ever again, neither is anyone working for you. You do that and I’ll involve the law. You’ve got five minutes to get off my property before I get my shotgun and deal with you like the snake you are.”
“Y-you haven’t heard the last of this,” Halstad said, sputtering, his face pale where it had been florid earlier.
“Yes, I have,” Norris said. “Unless you want to see either the inside of a prison cell or the barrel of my shotgun. Try me if you think I’m bluffing.” Halstad looked from one female to the other, and saw neither pity nor mercy in either gaze, and turning he strode quickly from the barn and a minute later Edith heard his car start up.
“Thanks girl,” Norris said, knees wobbling as she leaned heavily against the horse, who nuzzled her shoulder. “That took a lot out of me, just let me rest here for a second. Wish I could ride you instead of that stupid machine, you’re a lot better than some tractor.”
You would make a good pony, Luna thought, careful not to project the words to her worshipper’s mother. Maybe there is something I can help you with. With slow care Luna got down on her knees causing Norris to flop over Luna’s back. It was an obvious invitation for Norris to mount and ride bareback.
“Luna,” Norris said quietly, addressing the horse directly. “What are you? Bob was right about one thing, you aren’t a normal horse. There’s too many things about you that are just… more than a horse.” The horse, of course, said nothing other than to nicker softly as she nuzzled Edith at the spot where her neck joined her shoulder.
“Hee hee… stop it,” Norris said, giggling. “Okay, okay. No more questions.” Norris got her injured foot over the black horse who slowly rose back up to her hooves. Grabbing hold of Luna’s neat mane, Edith guided the two back out of the barn to where the other three were still waiting for her.
“Okay, I’m not up to much chit-chat after dealing with that worm that brought you here, so let’s make this short and to the point. You, ‘Jorge’ was it?” Norris asked of the older man, who nodded, looking up at her with something like awe. “Why did Halstad fire you? Give me the short version.”
“It was my son that La Curandera saved,” Jorge said. “Mr. Halstad fired me because the accident made his insurance rates go up. He said it increased his liability and he could convince the insurance company to lower their rate back down if my family wasn’t there any more.”
“That sounds like him,” Norris said, nodding. “You want a job?”
“Yes Doña ,” Jorge said, as Edith raised an eyebrow at the title. “I’ve worked for many years on—”
“You’re hired,” Norris said, and a broad smile lit Jorge’s face. “Two week trial basis. You start tomorrow. My foreman is over in the milking barn, tell him I said you could use the farm truck to bring your stuff over.”
“Thank you!” Jorge said fervently, grabbing Mrs. Norris’ hand. “You don’t know what this means to me.”
“Actually, I do,” Norris said, a smile ghosting across her lips. “On top of that, hiring you sticks a thumb into Bob Halstad’s eye, and right now I’m all for that. Now, off you go and I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early.” Jorge was so happy he almost levitated his way to the milking barn, and while he went to see his new supervisor Norris turned her gaze to the young pair in front of her.
“Now, what can I do for the two of you?” she asked, feeling a little better already.
“I’m Matias and this is my sister, Carmen,” the young man said, indicating the young woman beside him. “Alonso is our cousin.”
“How is the lad, anyway?” Norris asked, already having a suspicion where this conversation was going to go.
“He’s going to be okay, Mrs. Norris,” Matias said, smiling. “Carmen and I wanted to show you and La Curandera our thanks for what she did, but we do not have much money to buy you a gift.”
“Don’t really need much of anything,” Norris said, running a hand along Luna’s long strong neck. “Everything I could want is pretty much here.”
“We heard that La Curandera, Miss Walsh, had gotten hurt when she brought the medicine to Alonso and we heard that your foot was broken,” Carmen, the woman, said. “We thought we could cook, clean and do chores around your home to show our appreciation until you go better.”
“You know,” Norris said, taking a moment to think, “that’s a damn fine idea. I’ll take you up on that.”
“Thank you!” Carmen exclaimed, pleased. “Where is La Curandera so that we can tell her?”
“She has her own place up near the woods,” Norris said, pointing to a service road. “You’ll have to ask her if she’s willing to have you folks a.. Oh, wait a moment.”
“Is there a problem, Mrs. Norris?” Matias asked.
“Not yet. Look, don’t take what I’m about to say as a threat. More of a friendly warning,” Norris said, to the confused looks of the siblings. “When you go up to talk to her, you’re likely going to see things that may… take you by surprise.”
“She is a woman of power,” Carmen said, shrugging. “We are expecting to see unusual things.”
“Fair enough,” Norris said, leaning forward. “But hear me on this. Nothing you see is to be considered her offering anything, and I so much as even think either one of you is taking advantage of her and I will tan your hides and use them to make a new saddle. Got that?”
“Yes Ma’am”, “Yes, Mrs. Norris,” came from both immediately.
“All right then,” Norris said, sitting back on her mount. “Off you go.” The pair headed on up the service road on foot while Norris sat on Luna, resolving to dig out her book of Irish folklore later on.
Sighing, Chiara leaned back in her chair and propped her aching foot up on the stool by her desk. It was the second day of her enforced rest and her foot hurt worse than ever. Grudgingly, she admitted that it might have been possible that spending yesterday cleaning up her little cabin home might have been a mistake. It had just been so boring sitting around doing nothing that drove her to it.
Now her foot was telling her that she should have listened to the doctor and rested, or taken things a little slower. At least she was able to be properly naked, as she had come into the world and as the gods and goddesses saw her. No pretensions, no masks, just herself in her natural form. Smiling, Chiara pulled the keyboard into her lap and surfed the internet until she found what she was looking for.
Paranet Log in: MidWestWitch92
38 messages waiting
Chiara frowned at seeing the number of messages. Although it was true that she hadn’t logged into the Paranet site for weeks due to spending time training, and being trained for the dressage competition, there shouldn’t have been that many messages.
“Periander!” Chiara shouted out loud, in sudden realization and clicking frantically on the message stack. With the events of recent weeks, she had completely forgotten her promise to Periander to let them know how the ritual to Selene had gone. Memory of that ritual, and its results, filled Chiara with happiness that dulled the increasingly concerned messages from Periander. Clicking through the last messages Chiara logged into the advice channel that Periander was a moderator in.
Paranet chat
Advice channel
Periander: MidWest! Where have you been? No one has heard from you in weeks!
MidWestWitch92: Sorry, things have been crazy busy here.
Periander: Are you okay?
MidWestWitch92: I’m fine, but have I got a lot to tell you.
Periander: This have anything to do with the ritual?
MidWestWitch92: EVERYTHING!
Over the next twenty minutes Chiara told Periander, and the rest of the channel, all about the past few weeks. How the ritual had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Of befriending an avatar of the Triple Goddess. About spending nearly every waking moment with Luna, and most of all, how the Goddess had spoken to her during their desperate ride to save the life of the young boy having an allergic reaction.
Periander: And she spoke to you?
MidWestWitch92: Yes, it was a calm, cool voice, as old as the universe itself.
Periander: What did she say?
MidWestWitch92: That I shouldn’t ask questions, because we had a job to do.
Periander: Ha! You have any pictures?
MidWestWitch92: I don’t have a camera or a phone, so no.
Periander: I’d really like to see what Luna looks like. I’ve got an old phone I could send you?
MidWestWitch92: I’m not really comfortable with that.
Periander: Sorry, I should have realized. I’m just so blown away. I mean this is huge.
MidWestWitch92: That’s okay. I’ve had time to get used to it all. You just had all this dropped in your lap.
A knock sounded on Chiara’s door, interrupting her conversation.
MidWestWitch92: Someone’s at my door, gtg. I’ll try to borrow a camera and send a pic if I can.
Periander: Okay, MidWestWitch, stay in touch, and Blessed Be!
Chiara turned off the computer and hobbled her way over to the door, a crutch under her arm helping her as she reached the door of her cabin. Opening it, she saw a young man and woman standing there in front of her. Both were migrants and both looking shell-shocked as they looked at Chiara.
“Uh, excuse us, Curandera,” said the man, who was nearly the same age as Chiara, and sporting a very impressive blush. “But we heard that you had been hurt, helping little Alonso. So Carmen and I… “ The young man trailed off and he seemed to be trying to look anywhere but at Chiara. The woman, named Carmen apparently, was keeping her face focused on Chiara’s face, and it took her a moment to realize why.
“Would it help if I put on a robe?” Chiara asked, a small smile on her face. Normally, she wouldn’t even think of accommodating someone who was uncomfortable with her nudity. If they didn’t like it they could leave, but Chiara sensed these two hadn’t come to confront her but rather to help.
“Come on in,” Chiara said, backing away from the door. “Grab a seat, and I’ll make you a little more at ease.”
“Thank you, Curandera,” Carmen said, looking embarrassed. “We are sorry to bother you at home, but Mrs. Norris, she said you were here. We did not realize…”
“That I would be naked?” Chiara asked, limping to her bedroom to shrug on her bathrobe. “I wear clothing as little as possible as part of the way I worship my Goddess. I came into this world naked, why shouldn’t I stay the way I was made as much as possible?” She came back out to see the couple seated on her old couch, wearing relieved looks at her attire. She plopped herself down heavily on her computer chair and turned to face the pair.
“So, what can I do for you?” She asked, before putting up a hand. “By the way, I don’t put spells on people, or do animal sacrifices, or ride a broom. I much prefer to ride a horse.”
“So we have seen, Curandera,” the man said, steadying himself with a breath. “My name is Matias. This is my sister, Carmen, and little Alonso is a cousin of ours.”
“How is he doing?” Chiara asked, unconsciously touching the silver moon emblem at her throat.
“The doctors at the big hospital say that he will be able to come home tomorrow,” Carmen said. “We came up to ask you something, if we might?"
“Go ahead, and you don’t have to call me ‘Curandera’,” Chiara said, lifting her foot to prop it back on the stool. “‘Chiara’ is fine.”
“You were hurt helping our cousin, so we thought it would be a good thing for us to help out around your home while you recovered. If that is okay with you?” Matias asked, spreading his hands wide. “A lot of times we would just go up to the person and start helping them, but with you, Curandera, there are complications.”
“My being a pagan, for instance,” Chiara said, then spoke again at their look of confusion. “A witch, a bruja .”
“That, and Mrs. Norris insisted we have your permission first,” Matias said, frowning. “And bruja is not a word we use politely, but yes, that is part of it too.”
“So, if I get this right, you two want to basically cook and clean for me over the next few days, while my ankle gets better?” Chiara asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Carmen said, nodding firmly. “We have little money to properly repay you for what you did for our cousin, so we thought this was the best way to show our appreciation.”
“Well, I don’t make much mess,” Chiara said, chewing her lip in thought for a moment. “But it would be good to keep my foot up for the next couple of days. So, I accept. There is one condition though.”
“What is that?” Matias asked, and Chiara could tell he was dreading the answer.
“That you understand that I’m not going to change who and what I am to make you more comfortable,” Chiara said, to which the man seemed to breathe out a sigh of relief. “I’m going to be naked almost all the time. If you can’t deal with that, there’s the door. I won’t be mad, if you decide that it isn’t something you can handle, as long as you tell me now and not later.”
“Will we have to do anything to help you with your… worship?” Carmen asked, nervously fingering a small cross on a thin gold chain.
“Not unless you want to,” Chiara said, smiling to try to put the couple at ease. “Part of my beliefs is that everyone has their own path, and they are the ones to best decide how to walk it. If your path is close to mine, that’s great. If not, that’s fine too. So, in or out?” Carmen and Matias looked at each other for a moment and nodded to each other.
“We would like to stay,” Matias said. “Is there anything in particular you would like us to start on first?”
“Hey Steve, Bob Halstad here. You still work in that pharmaceutical warehouse right? Good. Any chance you can get me a supply of ketamine and some fast injectors?”
Author's Note
Just a quick note, the title of Master or Mistress of Shadows is an old term for a spymaster.
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Canary in the Coal Mine,
The last slivers of the moon’s waning crescent looked down on the quiet and tranquil farm. All was at peace as beasts and humans alike slept beneath the star filled sky. Only a few fluffy clouds moved across the skyscape, pushed along by gentle winds high aloft. Things were not however, as peaceful as they looked.
A dark coloured vehicle that looked like a small pickup truck moved with eerie silence along the gravel road among the farm buildings. The soft crunch of the small rounded stones beneath its tires was the only sound that could be heard as the truck approached the horse barn. The vehicle came to a stop and two men got out taking obvious care to move in silence. Two more men joined them from the horse trailer that had been towed along behind the electric vehicle.
One man of the quartet appeared to be in charge, if his exaggerated hand motions were any indication. Several times though, he had to repeat his motions before his companions seemed to understand his intentions. Frustrated, he made an almost universal gesture for his fellows to follow him to the barn. As he walked along, one of the other three made a different, equally universal gesture toward their leader’s back.
The unlocked door to the horse barn yielded to the attentions of the intruders with ease, and a minute later all four were inside the barn and shutting the door behind them. Their leader flicked on a low powered flashlight and examined the interior walls until he spotted a series of switches. He flicked the first one, biting back a curse as nearly all the lights in the barn began to come on. Moving with speed, he flicked the first switch back off, and after a few more attempts he found the switch that lit only the lights that went down the barn’s central corridor.
“What the hell do you think you’re playing at Bob?” asked one of the men in a harsh whisper.
“Shut up Keith,” the leader said back, his voice just as low and harsh. “I don’t even know why you came along on this.”
“Because you needed a fourth person on this. As well as someone who could write up and file a false pedigree asap,” Keith replied, not backing down. “Figured if I’m in this deep, I may as well go all the way.”
“Fine, fine,” Bob Halstad said, his features ghoul-like under the few lights. “Steve, you got those injectors ready?”
“Yup,” said a short man with a short bush of ill-kept dark hair. “Where’s this wonder horse that’s going to make us all millions?”
Luna was sleeping. Not only sleeping but dreaming as well, trying to reach out and touch the realm of dreams once more with her ingrained disciplines as the Princess of the Night. While she had not been able to actually dreamwalk, she had been able to touch the dream realm and sense the sleeping and dreaming forms of Mrs. Norris, two nearby farmhands, and the majority of the nearby cattle.
It still came as something of a shock to her that so few species on this world possessed any level of real intelligence. Perhaps if she reached out just a bit harder, and used a bit more focus she could contact Mrs. Norris’ dreams.
Luna touched the magic inside of her with her will, and began to use it to try to contact the older mare’s dreams. Only to feel a small spike of pain from her physical body and everything went fuzzy on her with sudden, dizzying speed. Her thoughts began to come at a slow and languid pace, and she felt the connection with her magic disappear under that same soft, fuzz as she began to feel the sensation of movement from her physical body.
It felt like the work of a hundred earth ponies to open her eyelids and lift her head but Luna managed it, forcing herself to look around at her surroundings. Almost immediately she felt someone grab onto her bridle and use it to hold her head still. Luna brought her eyes into focus and saw that she was being held by a strange man who was clipping a lead to her bridle.
“She’s awake,” a voice she recognized hissed in anger. “I thought you said this stuff would knock her out.” Luna tried to remember where she had heard that voice before. It was familiar, very familiar, but she just couldn’t seem to make her mind work hard enough to bring the memory to the fore.
“The term is ‘conscious sedation’ for a reason, you moron,” said the man holding the lead, to the human whose identity Luna couldn't remember. “If I put her completely under we’d have to haul her to the trailer ourselves. I told you that. C’mon girl.” The man began to pull on Luna’s bridle and to her slow horror she felt her body take an automatic couple of steps forward.
Stop! No, not another step. Why won’t you stop? Stupid body, Luna cried out in her thoughts, as the lead pulled her forward another few paces. 'Sed-ation' means drugs. Great whickering stallions, I’ve been drugged!
“Easy girl,” Keith said, as the dark mare he was guiding forward staggered to one side, pressing him up against a wooden interior wall.
“This is taking forever,” Halstad said, impatience overriding his previous caution with the volume of his voice. “Get her moving.”
“We have to take this slow,” Keith said, levering Luna into halting motion again. “An animal in this state is moving more on instinct than anything else. They’re more asleep than awake. We go fast, the mare could stumble and break a leg. You want to break a leg on this 'Hundred Million Dollar Horse,' as you call her?”
“Fine,” Halstad grumbled, as the horse took another slow step forward.
Please stop, Luna begged, in the vault of her mind as she kept moving forward. I’ve been drugged. I can’t stop myself, I’ve been drugged. Luna’s despair became total as they neared the door. She knew that once her captors had her through that door she was good as gone from the place that had given her care and comfort. Two steps before they reached the door, it opened.
“Señor Robert,” Jorge said, a pitchfork in one hand. “What are you doing here? And with La Curandera’s horse?”
“Jorge, thank God,” Halstad said, breathing out in relief. “You scared me half to death. Give us a hand here and I’ll make it worth your while.”
“That is not your horse, Señor Robert,” Jorge said, switching the pitchfork from a carry position to one where he could use it as a weapon quickly. “You should not be here, this is not your farm.”
“You stupid… I’m stealing the damn horse,” Halstad said, rolling his eyes at how dense the migrant worker was. “Help me get her to my trailer and I’ll pay you a thousand dollars, cash.”
“You want to bribe me?” Jorge asked, his eyebrows climbing. “After you fired me? After you threw me and my family out because of an accident?”
“It was a mistake, and I’m big enough to admit when I’ve made a mistake,” Halstad said, nodding. “Come back with us, Jorge. I’ll rehire you at double what you were getting paid before and I promise you’ll have a job for life. I’ll even put it in writing.”
Keith, the former veterinary assistant, began to start backing up, letting slack the lead line on the horse. He could see that things were starting to fall apart with this caper. It had seemed like easy money and a bit of a thrill ride, when his old sponsor had given him a call with a chance to pay back his student debts from veterinary college. He shot a look over at Steve on the horse’s other side, and flicked his eyes toward the barn’s rear entrance. Steve caught the motion and nodded his head a tiny fraction to show he was in agreement.
“No, Señor Robert,” Jorge said, jaw clenching and his grip tightening on the pitchfork. “Doña Norris is my employer now. She took us in, and I will not betray her trust. Not for any amount of money. Now, put the horse back.”
“I wish you hadn’t said that,” Halstad said, drawing out a large calibre pistol and aiming it at the farmhand. “I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if you don’t get out of my way.”
“You shoot and everyone will hear,” Jorge said, face paling but holding his ground.
“Are you really willing to die for someone you’ve only worked a couple of days for?” Halstad asked, raising the pistol to draw a bead on the farmhand’s head. “I can shoot you and be gone before anyone gets out here to see what’s going on.”
Jorge gulped, and began to shift his weight for a sudden surge forward. If he could get under Halstad’s aim he would be able to use the pitchfork and cripple or even kill his former boss. Even if he was shot, he was close enough that his momentum should carry him into Halstad. His foot began to leave the ground...
“Everyone drop your weapons, or I swear the next person who moves will have a hole in them big enough for me to ride through,” Edith Norris said, stepping out of the pre-dawn gloom, her voice freezing everyone in place. She was dressed in an old, faded emerald, dressing gown, and wearing a pair of slip on shoes on her feet. What really caught everyone’s attention though, was the barrel of an ancient rifle she had trained on the drama before her.
“Now Edith—” Halstad began to say, just before all hell broke loose.
“Screw this,” Steve said, bolting for the back door of the barn. Keith and his helper dropped Luna’s lead lines and were right on his heels. Edith Norris was many things, but a trained shooter she was not and the sudden movement drew her eye and her body turned to follow, pulling the ancient Sharps 50 rifle away from Bob Halstad and toward the runners.
Halstad saw a chance to salvage his attempt to steal Luna and shifted the aim of his pistol toward Norris. Jorge, already poised to act, leaped forward and grabbed Halstad’s gun hand just as he squeezed off his shot. The bullet tore a burning zephyr through the skirt of Norris’ dressing gown, but she was otherwise unhurt.
Startled by the shot and taken by surprise, Norris brought her gun back to bear on the struggling duo. Jorge had dropped his pitchfork in order to grab Halstad and now the two surged back and forth, with Norris moving from side to side trying to find an angle where she wouldn’t hit Jorge or Luna with a shot. The other three men ran unopposed out the barn’s rear door and into the night.
Robert Halstad was a fit man, and he had six inches along with a good fifty pounds on his opponent. Jorge was short and lean, but it was all whipcord muscle honed by a lifetime of hard work and for nearly half a minute the two seemed to be evenly matched despite their disparate sizes.
Then the older, smaller man pushed hard, sending Halstad back into Luna. Still heavily drugged and barely conscious, Luna staggered back from the impact far more than she should have. Halstad, who had been still holding onto Jorge all the while, rebounded off of Luna and used the combined momentum to send the migrant worker sprawling on the ground near his feet. Halstad brought his pistol to bear, murderous fury in his eyes at the scum who had dared lay hands on him.
“Time to die, you poor ass mother—” the deafening report of the ancient rifle cut Halstad off in mid-sentence. His gun tumbled from suddenly nerveless fingers and he looked down in shocked surprise at the widening stain on his shirt front. His gaze went from the old buffalo gun had torn a hole in his chest, and up to Edith Norris, who calmly levered another fifty calibre bullet into position.
“Time for you to find out if you can buy your way out of hell,” Norris said, as Robert Halstad, the richest man in five counties, sank to the ground, breathing out his last while his lifeblood watered the ground around him.
Jorge got up slowly, staring at the dead man in disbelief, and his voice shook a bit as he spoke. “Why, Doña Norris? He knew you were there. Why did he try to shoot me?”
“Man always was obsessed with money, and the power that came with it,” Norris said, feeling the beginning of the shakes now that the crisis was over. “He never really thought that anyone else was really real, that everyone and everything around him was just a piece in a game he was playing. Maybe, he thought I wouldn’t shoot. I don't know. We’ll never know for sure.”
“What about the men who were with him?” Jorge asked, moving around the body and moving to check on Luna, who had sunk down to her knees. “They will get away.”
“Nope,” Norris said, making sure the safety was on the old rifle before she set it down. “Five years ago we had some problems with a bunch of teenage yahoos. So, I had alarms and low light security cameras installed. The alarms are what woke me up, and the cameras will have plenty of pictures of Bob’s accomplices. Anyway, you check on Luna while I go call the sheriff and the vet.”
An hour later things around the farm were in a state of ordered chaos. The farmhands, most of whom had been awoken by the thunder of the old buffalo gun, had come down to find a scene of death and carnage, with their employer sipping from an Irish coffee that was much more “Irish” than coffee. Norris put them to work making sure the dairy herd was okay and getting an early start to their day.
The sheriff had been suspicious when first told of the sequence of events that had led to Halstad’s death, even with an obviously drugged horse still lying in the barn’s passageway. A quick replay of the footage from the security cameras put his doubts at rest, and he soon had his deputies out scouring the countryside for Halstad’s accomplices. On foot, with the morning beginning to lighten the sky, they were easy to spot by deputies who knew the countryside well. All three were brought back in cuffs, where they had to confront an absolutely furious young woman.
“WHAT DID YOU GIVE HER?” Chiara roared in furious anger as she surged up to the three prisoners. “I WILL END YOU IF YOU DON’T TELL ME!” Almost everyone looked in bemusement at the young woman who was naked beneath her hooded cloak. An amusement that dissipated in an instant, as Chiara whipped her athame out from beneath her cloak and held it to one of the men’s throat’s, as she drove him back against the barn.
“Drop the knife, Ma’am!” ordered the sheriff, drawing his weapon. His deputies following suit a heartbeat later.
“Not until he tells me what he gave Luna!” Chiara yelled, her fury as bright as the gleam on her sacrificial blade.
“I know you’re upset Miss,” the sheriff said, trying to de-escalate the situation. “But all you’re doing is making things worse. Besides, it’s just a horse.”
“JUST A HORSE!” Chiara screamed incredulously, her eyes fairly crackling with rage, and the deputies took an involuntary step back from the avatar of fury in front of them. “SHE IS NOT 'JUST A HORSE.' SHE IS MY—”
“Chiara, what is the Rede?” Norris asked, gently touching the enraged woman on the shoulder. “What is that you told me is the first thing a pagan is supposed to follow?”
“Do no harm,” Chiara quoted automatically, though she kept her blade in its place. “But they hurt her. They hurt my Luna.” Tears leaked from the corner of Chiara’s eyes, and Norris wasn’t sure if they were tears of rage or sorrow.
“And what would your goddess say about you using your sacred knife to spill blood?” Norris asked, in that same quiet voice. “No matter how deserved it was?”
“That it would be wrong,” Chiara said, in a much smaller voice as she let her arm fall and the knife clattered to the ground. “I—I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, dear,” Norris said, folding Chiara into her arms, and the young woman's rage turned to guilt and fear as her charged emotions released in a series of racking sobs, and she allowed herself to be drawn away from the men and toward Luna's unconscious body.
“Fellows,” said the sheriff in a cold, hard voice to the three shocked men his deputies had arrested. “Either you tell us right now what you dun shot up that horse with, or I’m going to hand you over to those fine women and walk away. Your choice.”
“Ketamine,” the shortest of the men gasped out. “We gave her two doses of ketamine. She should be fine in a couple of hours.”
“You had best pray to your dear fluffy lord that is exactly what happens,” the sheriff said, motioning one of his men to go pass the information along, “because if anything bad happens to that horse, I might just have to leave you here for a couple of hours while I go bring the coroner up.”
“I’m sorry,” Chiara said, sitting on the floor of the barn with tears still coming from her eyes as she stroked Luna’s neck. “I didn’t mean to… I was just so angry .”
“It’s natural to be angry when someone you love gets hurt,” Norris said, her arm still wrapped around Chiara. “You can’t help your feelings, but you can help what you do about them.”
“I could have killed that man,” Chiara said, her tears slowing to a stop as she took stock of herself. “I was going to kill him, but you stopped me.”
“Bah, I didn’t stop you,” Norris said, her mouth quirking a bit. “All I did was remind you of what you are. You’re the one who did all the stopping.”
“Ketamine, ladies,” said a young deputy, stepping up and tipping his broad hat to them. “The fellow says it was ketamine and that your horse should be fine in a couple of hours.”
“Thank you,” Chiara said, looking up at the deputy, her face still blotchy from her tears. “Sorry to have caused a fuss.”
“Heard about your ride, Ma’am,” the deputy said, nodding in approval. “That’s a special horse you have there. She’s got herself a pretty special rider, too. Not surprised you two would go all the way for each other.” The deputy tipped his hat once more to both women and went back to assist the sheriff.
“So where do we go from here?” Chiara asked, checking the strong pulse in Luna’s throat yet again.
“We do what women have always done after something like this,” Norris said, smiling as Chiara leaned back into her. “We clean up, we carry on, and get ready as best we can for whatever storm is on the horizon.”
Author's Note
Growing up my parents had a set of Zane Grey novels. Thunder Mountain, Riders of the Purple Sage, and Majesty's Rancho were special favorites. I might have been influenced by them a bit.
My Patreon is still shuttered, and will remain so until I feel I can produce enough to warrant it's reopening. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the whatever tidbits I'm able to generate in the near future.
“And in other news, there is a state-wide Severe Storm Watch, going into effect as of 9pm tonight,” the radio said, in Mrs. Norris’ kitchen while she made herself a small pot of soup to go with the baking powder biscuits that were rising in the oven. “Thunderstorms are likely, along with high winds as well as the possibility of tornadic activity across the state. Residents are advised to check their emergency supplies and take all necessary precautions.”
Norris frowned and started shutting down her preparations for a small dinner. An incoming storm on the scale that the radio spoke of meant a lot of work to get the farm ready, and make sure its most valuable asset, the dairy herd, was safe. It was going to require an “all-hands evolution” as her dear Jon would have said. Norris stepped away from the cooling stove to pull her old phone off its hook on the wall.
“Chiara,” Edith said, a moment after the younger woman picked up the other end of the line. “We’ve got a big storm coming in. I need you and everyone else to get things ready. How’s the ankle?”
“Still a little sore, but the doctor said I can use it as long as I don’t try lifting any weights,” Chiara’s said, her voice getting louder and quieter as the young woman began dressing on the fly. “I can be down in about twenty minutes or so.”
“Take it easy on the way down with your bike,” Norris said, cautioning the younger woman. “When you get down here I want you supervising the newer hands. You can sit on Luna while you do it.”
“I’m on my way,” Chiara said, obvious pleasure in her voice at being able to combine her favorite activity with her job.
The line disconnected with a “click” and Norris took a moment to smile. She’d had a feeling about Chiara and Luna, that the two would make a pair like none other, and it warmed her heart to see what had been a hunch become reality. Of course, it helped that Luna wasn’t a horse. Edith’s old book of Irish folklore had helped her discover the true heritage of the creature that lived in her barn. Luna was a phooka, a creature from the realms of Faerie.
Phooka were shapeshifters, but they preferred the shape of equines. They usually appeared in rural or waterfront villages bringing either good or bad fortune depending on how they were treated by the inhabitants. Looking at how Chiara had blossomed and been accepted as Luna’s rider, it was obvious that Luna had decided that Chiara and Norris had treated her well. Norris might worry a bit about whether Luna was going to take Chiara with her back to Faerie, but it was certain by now that Luna intended no harm to the girl.
Norris shook her head at her woolgathering. She had jobs to do and little time to do them in. Flights of fancy and phooka could be handled another time. For now, she had a farm to make ready for some of the worst that Mother Nature could dish out. Maybe having a creature of the supernatural on hand might help. Only time would tell.
The sky seemed to grow darker even after the sun had set and night had come over the farm. Scudding clouds flew past in a skyscape weirdly backlit by the full moon. The wind continued to freshen, and even the most weather blind of individuals could feel the growing power as two massive weather systems approached each other.
“I think that’s everything, Mrs. Norris,” Chiara said, leaning tiredly over Luna’s saddle. Even the indomitable mare looked tired and frazzled, dirt spattering her legs up half their length. Luna and Chiara were not a cow punching team by any definition of the word, but their dressage routine had many moves in it that were based on herding cattle and their training had served them well. As a pair they had moved the rest of the dairy herd into the milking barn where they would be sheltered until the storm abated.
Jorge and the others, under Chiara’s direction, had taken care of the million and one tasks needed to make sure that 150 cattle would be able to stay safe, watered, fed, and milked for the next day. Generators had been checked and fueled, hay bunkers filled, water supplies set aside and equipment checked.
“I think we’ve done everything we can,” Norris agreed. “Get Luna settled, then go get some rest.”
“I can take care of your horse, Curandera,” Jorge said, approaching and looking no less tired than either woman.
“She’s my horse, my responsibility,” Chiara said, but exhaustion made the words much less forceful than she intended.
“You have spent all evening delegating,” Jorge said, smiling to show he meant no disrespect. “Do so once more. It would be an honor to care for your horse, the mare who outran Death itself.”
“Fine,” Chiara snorted, before gingerly dismounting and leaning her head in communion against that of her Goddess. “I’m sorry Luna, I’m just so tired.” Chiara wasn’t sure, as the warmth of Luna’s cheek touched her, but she thought she could hear an amused, “Go.”
Chiara staggered off toward her little cottage, some distance away. Alonso and Carmen, who had both elected to stay on even after Chiara’s ankle had healed, pulled up beside her a moment later on an ATV. Norris had caught their attention and motioned them towards the vehicle, while Chiara had been busy arguing with Jorge. As Norris watched in approval, Carmen got off the back of the machine and helped Chiara on. All three of them then made their way back toward Chiara’s home, some distance away.
“Come please, Santa Muerte ,” Norris heard Jorge say to Luna. “Your rider would not like it if I put you to bed while you were still dirty.” Luna gave a snort and then briefly nuzzled the top of Jorge’s head as she allowed the small man to lead her off to the barn’s washing station. The farm was as ready as it could be, and Norris decided to get some rest herself. It would be a busy day tomorrow.
Luna let herself enjoy being washed and cleaned by the farmhand. It reminded her of happier days, in Canterlot with her sister, where ponies would vie for the honor of helping to care for their princesses. The farmhand knew how to clean an equine, and his touch was almost as gentle as Chiara’s. In fact…
Luna paused in thought and opened her arcane senses. Over the past few months she had learned to do much with little. Husbanding even the most meager sources of power into something workable. This world’s moon, Chiara’s devotion and worship, the adulation from the families of the little one she had helped save. All of them had provided the scraps of power that enabled Luna to stay sentient and even perform minor workings, like the spell that enabled her to understand her caretaker’s language.
As Jorge worked on Luna, giving her a thorough if quick brushing, Luna was able to sense a trickle of new power flowing into her from the wiry human. Power that had not been there before and had a familiar taste. It was the same as the flow from Chiara, barely a tenth of the strength of the energy her filly gave her, but it was there. Jorge also worshiped Luna. Perhaps if more humans worshiped her, she would have enough power to return home.
As Jorge clipped a lead to Luna’s bridle and led her back to her stall, Luna fantasized briefly about vast crowds of humans, bowing down to her in worship and giving her the powers that Chiara believed Luna to have through their worship. Luna chided herself at the fantasy. It was not her place to become Mistress and Goddess to these people and it would be wrong of her to try.
After checking Luna’s food and water, Jorge left, turning out the lights as he did. Luna was almost as tired as Chiara had been and sleep began to take her almost immediately. Her last thought before sleep wrapped her in its cloak was, The coming storm is very powerful. I wonder when the local pegasi will be called on to disperse it.
** THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A TORNADO WARNING FOR ALL COUNTIES EAST OF DENVER...UNTIL 1800 MDT. **
ALERT ALERT ALERT
AT 0514, DOPPLER RADAR HAS PICKED UP A SUPERCELL PRODUCING DAMAGING WINDS, SOFTBALL SIZED HAIL, AND LIFE THREATENING FLOODING. ROTATION HAS BEEN SPOTTED IN THIS CELL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL, SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR HOUSE AWAY FROM WINDOWS OR OTHER SAFE LOCATION.
Edith Norris would never know for sure what exactly it was that jolted her out of a sound sleep. Perhaps it was the sound of the rising wind, maybe something had clattered in a strange way, but whatever the cause, she bolted upright in her bed a full thirty minutes before her alarm was set to go off. Calming her breathing, Edith took a moment to try to determine what had awoken her.
Other than the sounds of the storm approaching, there seemed to be nothing wrong, but Norris could not shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. Good farmers listen to their instincts, and Edith Norris had learned to pay attention to hers a long time ago. Egged on by an impulse she could not identify, Norris slid on the slippered shoes she kept by her bedside and shrugged on a housecoat. Just as the wail of the tornado siren from in town began to make itself heard.
“Oh shit,” Norris breathed, and then scrambled downstairs as fast as she could in the darkness. The wailing of the siren also woke the rest of the farm, including Luna.
What is happening? What is that alarm for? Luna asked herself, waking and then extending her senses. The storm is coming this way, and it is incredibly powerful. Powerful enough to destroy this place and all who live here. Why haven’t the local pegasi dispersed or diverted it yet? Luna ambled over, took a mouthful of hay and was chewing on it when the awful truth dawned on her.
Fool of a Mare! Luna berated herself in mid-chew, letting the rest of the hay fall from her mouth. There are no pegasi here, no weather magic to control or calm the storm. Those here have nothing to protect them from the fury of what approaches. Nothing and nopony, except perhaps myself.
Resolved to her course of action, Luna opened the door to her stall, which had never posed a real impediment to her anyway. Moments later she was out of the horse barn and into the central area of the farm. Various humans were running to and fro in the pre-dawn gloom, having been woken from their rest and trying to understand what was going on. In the middle of the chaos stood Chiara’s dam, doing her best to organize the confusion and shouting orders to those who worked for her. Luna approved, and trotted up to the crowd where Norris immediately spotted her.
“Luna! Dear God in heaven, how did you get out?” Norris asked. “Jorge, get her back in—”
“No,” Luna said, both aloud and into the mind of all those present. “I need all of you to listen to me.” Stunned silence followed.
“By all the saints, you are a phooka,” Norris said, her eyes wide in awe.
“I do not know what that is, dam of my filly,” Luna said, trying to keep the amusement from her voice. “If we have time we will talk later, but for now, I need all of you to listen and follow my commands.”
“Of course, Santa Muerte ,” Jorge said, half-kneeling on the ground. “What can we do for you?”
“All of you, gather in the building where the cows are,” Luna said, in a voice of command that Norris recognized. “I will join you there and do my best to protect all of you.”
People looked around in confusion, both at each other, and at the horse who had begun to speak at them. Some began to walk to the barn as Luna had said, others began insisting it was some sort of trick, others just simply stood there unsure what to do. All of that changed, when with the roar of a hundred freight trains, the funnel of a massive tornado touched down less than a mile away, heading straight for the farm.
“Everyone! Go! Go! Go!” Norris shouted over the din. “Into the barn, now!” No one needed any further urging and the galvanized crowd ran into the large building that housed the dairy herd, Norris and Luna hot on their heels. People stopped, looking around the interior of the building, and beginning to cry out in fear as the walls of the structure began to shake.
“Can you do it? Can you save them?” Norris asked, turning to Luna. “Can you protect my people?”
“In that you have given me food, shelter and care, I am also one of your people,” Luna said, taking a moment to reassure the woman, “and I protect my own. Now, let me concentrate. This will not be easy.”
Luna had kept the truth from Norris. What she was about to attempt would be difficult even were she in Equestria and fully possessed of all her power. On this world, with her current meager scraps of ability, protecting everyone present for any length of time would be best described as “impossible.” All she could hope to do was to hold up a defence against the storm long enough for it to pass. Luna doubted that she would survive the effort, but lives depended on her.
Reaching into her core, Luna tapped the small well of stored power there and used it to create a loose dome of protective energy, just over the heads of all those in the building. The walls were shaking violently now and gaps were beginning to appear above as sections of the roof began to be blown away or were sucked into the approaching twister. Luna’s shield flickered in and out of existence as the strain on her resources made itself felt almost immediately.
It isn’t enough, Luna thought in desperation. I don’t have enough strength and the storm is too powerful. Despair began to fill her, even as more pieces of the building began to fly away and people around her cried out in terror.
Then, a thought came to Luna’s desperate mind. Why not tap the power of the storm itself and use its energy to fuel her magic? It was something Luna would never have considered ordinarily, and a working that would have been beyond her skill before she had gone on her strange journey. Months of gleaning every bit of power she could, from every possible source, now showed new possibilities to the lost princess, and she opened herself to the power of the storm, letting it flow into her.
In an instant, Luna was inundated with power. More power than she had ever experienced in her long life poured into her and her barrier against the storm snapped into solid, rigid reality. She was only able to tap the merest fraction of the energy of the F4 tornado, but even that fraction filled her to bursting.
Those gathered around looked on in wonder as the mare in their midst suddenly reared up, forehooves pawing at the air, as midnight blue wings erupted from Luna's back and a horn radiating power spiraled out from her forehead. White light blazed from Luna’s eyes and her crescent moon cutie mark shone with power from her either flank. Wreathed in power and wonder, Luna called forth her defiance to the storm as she held her rearing stance.
“THESE CREATURES ARE UNDER MY AEGIS!” Luna thundered. “YOU SHALL NOT HAVE THEM, DEMON OF AIR AND THUNDER.”
“All who dwell upon this ground are mine, young alicorn,” the storm growled in reply, as it swept over the building, shredding the barn’s walls and trying to breach Luna’s shield. “They are mine, to live and fret and die as I choose. These are my ancient lands that they have chosen to live in. I shall have my due. Give them to me.”
“NOT TODAY, SPIRIT,” Luna roared back. “THIS DAY I DEFY THEE!”
“Why?” the storm asked back, confused even as it swept back and forth, destroying Norris’ house and the horse barn. “You are not of this world. You have no claim of dominion over them.”
“They have given me bread, fire and salt,” Luna called back, her shield not flinching in the slightest as the tornado renewed its attack on her defences. “I was a stranger, and they took me in. Wounded, and they healed me. Friendless, and they gave me companionship.”
“Ah, the ancient compact,” the storm growled back in its voice like a dozen gravel quarries working at once. “I can respect that you honour Odin’s laws. Very well, I shall leave you this victory, but know you well that I shall obtain my due elsewhere.”
The storm flowed on, over and around Luna’s defences, and despite the storm spirit’s claim that it was leaving, Luna kept the shield up as the tornado spun its way up across the hillside that held the northern part of the farm and it’s outbuildings. As the distance between them grew, Luna’s connection with the elemental power she had tapped waned and then faded completely away, leaving the Equestrian princess once more appearing as a common horse, if one with a pair of odd markings on her hindquarters.
“Luna, thank you,” Norris said, walking through the crowd, some of whom were kneeling, to place a reverent hand on Luna’s shoulder. “Anything I can do to re—” Both of them heard the scream in their minds at the same time.
“Chiara!” Norris shouted, as her eyes traced the line of destruction the tornado had left in sick horror. The storm had left the farm proper, winding its way up toward the small cabins at the end of the property where Chiara lived. Norris turned back to see that Luna had gotten down on her knees beside her.
Mount , Norris heard in her head. Mount and ride. Norris needed no further urging, and swung her cast foot over Luna’s back. Luna surged upwards, forcing Norris to grip Luna’s mane tightly in order to maintain her seat.
“I hope I’m not hurting you,” Norris said loudly, as Luna flowed into motion, her hooves beginning to echo a gallop’s drumbeat. “I mean no disrespect to your Folk.”
“None taken, although I am not a fairy,” said the cool voice in Norris’ head. “I am… a traveller. Lost on a journey not of my own making. I owe you and your filly a great debt for your many kindnesses over the past months.”
“My filly?” Norris said, confused. “You mean Chiara? She’s not my daughter. I mean I care for her and—”
“In all the ways that matter, she is yours,” Luna said, amusement touching her words slightly. “Now hush, I must put on speed and we both need to concentrate if we are to reach our filly in time.” Norris wisely closed her mouth and hung on to the horse like a limpet, as Luna accelerated to the speeds she had used on the Halstad farm.
Though it seemed like an eternity, only a few minutes passed before Luna and Norris crested the small ridge that marked the upper area of the dairy farm near Chiara’s home. Luna paused in shock at the scene of devastation before her. Chiara’s cottage had stood at the edge of the small forest where she and Luna had first met. The edge of that forest was much further back now, the trees having been cut down like grass in the path of a giant’s lawnmower.
The boles and branches of fallen trees scattered the landscape, but that wasn’t what held Luna’s gaze in its iron grip. That was reserved for the pile of debris that was all that was left of Chiara’s home. The small cottage had been utterly destroyed, and it wasn’t until Norris applied her heels to Luna’s sides that Luna snapped out of her shock and ran the last few hundred yards to what had been a cozy little home.
Together, mare and woman tore through the debris and wreckage, searching for Chiara and heedless of the damage they were inflicting on their own hands and hooves. At last, Norris pulled up what had been the doorway to a small utility closet, finding Chiara’s body beneath.
“Chiara!” Edith shouted, getting to her knees to check on the young woman. Chiara was breathing, that much Norris could tell, but her body was still covered by bits and pieces of her home. Luna stood by, helpless. Her revealing herself, shielding the others, added to the frantic dash uphill to Chiara’s home, had nearly drained her. She had nothing left for even the most basic levitation spells.
“Chiara!” Edith cried out again, as she began to shift what was left of the closet walls off of Chiara, only to stop as Chiara’s eyes opened with a sudden gasp of pain.
“Oh… that hurts,” Chiara said, conversationally and looking up at Norris. “Hey there. My house fell down.”
“So it would seem,” Norris said, a half-smile curving her lips at the young woman's tone, as she ran a hand across the young woman’s cheek. “Are you hurt?”
“My legs,” Chiara said, her face changing from humorous to a confused, pained look. “They hurt a lot earlier, but then they went numb. At least until you moved stuff around.” Norris and Luna shared a look of worry before turning back and lifting off pieces of boards one at a time with great care. Luna stepped in as close as she dared, moving items with her mouth.
“Oh…” Norris breathed as she pulled off a final bit of drywall. At almost the same time Luna felt a warm liquid flow over her hooves.
“Is it bad?” Chiara asked, craning her head up to look at her now revealed legs, and sucking in a breath as she saw that her left leg had been sliced open from hip to knee by a piece of siding, that was still partly in the wound. “Oh, that’s not good.”
“No, it’s not,” Norris said, firmly pushing the girl back down. “You take it easy. Emergency services has got to be on their way by now. All you need to do is lie still until they get here.”
“You’ve never lied to me, Mrs. Norris,” Chiara said, her pale face even paler now. “Am I going to be okay? Am I going to live?” Norris felt her eyes well up with tears, trying to say something but unable to make her throat work.
“Nay child,” Luna said, as she realized the liquid oozing around her was her worshipper’s blood. “Thy wound is mortal, it grieves me to say.”
“My Goddess!” Chiara exclaimed, and Norris could hear the growing weakness now. “You spoke!”
“Aye, and I should have revealed myself to you sooner,” Luna said, kneeling down and not caring if blood got in her fur or not. “For that, I apologize, my filly. You had done more for me than I can ever repay, and it saddens me that all I can do for you now, is to give my word that I shall see your soul safe to the Summerlands.”
“A goddess, apologizing to me,” Chiara laughed, smiling to Luna, before sobering. “If this is it for me then, I want to die as I lived. I give to you my life’s blood, as a final sacrifice to my Goddess.”
“You need not—” Luna began to protest.
“So mote it be,” Chiara said, in final pronouncement.
As Chiara said the ritual words, Luna felt a power flow into her. The power she had pulled from the storm had been wild, chaotic and unchecked. Using it had been like trying to ride a thunderbolt. The energy that filled her now was deeper, and more resonant.
It was the power of a lifetime that should have been, of decades of loves, losses, joys and pains. It was possibility and certainty, fate and chance, and all the myriad things in between. And Chiara Walsh had just given that power to Luna. Not as something that Luna had taken or stolen, but as a gift, given freely.
This… this is incredible, Luna thought to herself as the power and energy of Chiara’s life flowed into her and filled every cell of her body with vital strength. This is enough power to get me home. I could tear open a portal right here and be at Tia’s side in minutes. I want to, I want to so badly, but there is something better I can do with this gift.
“Thank you, my filly,” Luna said, leaning close to Chiara’s face, “Your gift has opened up a possibility I’d not imagined. I can use what you have given me, to save your life. I can heal you.”
“Then do it!” Norris demanded, before pausing a moment in thought. “Wait, there’s a catch isn’t there? A price. These things usually have a price. Whatever it is, I’ll pay it, just save her.”
“One thing I did need was your permission, dam of my filly,” Luna said, in thanks. “This is your demesne, your lands. The other thing I need is Chiara’s permission.”
“Why… why would you need that?” Chiara said. She was very pale now.
“Because to save you, I must merge your life with my own,” Luna said, by way of explanation. “For a brief time we must become one, so that my natural strength heals your body and restores you to health. But there is a danger. I do not know what long term effects such a merging will have. My magic could mark you, make you different, in ways that might drive you out from among your kind.”
“Chiara will always have a home here,” Norris said, placing her hand on Luna’s shoulder. “I swear it on my life and on the grave of my husband.”
“What say you, my filly?” Luna asked, nudging Chiara who had begun to nod off toward her final rest. “Make your choice quickly, Tempus Fugit .”
“The chance to become one with my Goddess, to be one with the forces of nature?” Chiara asked, rhetorically as she roused one last time. “Even if there was no chance at all for this to heal me, I would say ‘yes’ to that. So, yes, I agree.”
“Very well,” Luna said, beginning to exert her mystical strength to stop Chiara’s slide toward oblivion, even as she faded into unconciousness.
“There’s something else you aren’t saying, isn’t there?” Norris asked, very quietly. “My husband taught me how to read people, and there’s something you didn’t tell Chiara.”
“To do what I must will use up every ounce of power I have,” Luna said, feeling the first tugging of the merging start. “It will drain me utterly, and reduce this body to being that of a simple equine again. There will be nothing left to sustain that which is me.”
“You’re going to sacrifice yourself for Chiara?” Norris asked, eyes widening. “Is that even possible?”
“Yes,” Luna said, bluntly. “This will essentially kill me, but you and the filly gave me months I would not otherwise have had, and I could never leave my worshiper to die when I had the power to save her. I would ask two favors of you after this is done though.” Chiara and Luna’s bodies were both starting to glow now.
“Name them,” Norris said, keeping her hand on Luna’s shoulder in spite of the burning tingle spreading up her arm now.
“Should others of my kind come this way, tell them of me, and that I ended helping a friend,” Luna said, setting the spell matrix into place. “Also, treat this shell kindly once I am gone, if you would.”
“Of course,” Norris said. “We’ll never forget you.”
“Thank you,” Luna said, drawing her focus inward and seeing the core of faded light that was her worshipper, her friend. She drew the light closer to the shining star that was her own power and the two became one. In her mind’s eye Luna could now see the flaws, the breaks in Chiara’s light as if the wounds the girl had suffered were her own.
In the merged state of being the two were in, they may as well have been. Even as Luna watched, the gaps and breaks in the patterns began to fill in and heal. From somewhere in the mindscape came a gasp of astonishment and wonder.
Wow, this is what the universe looks like? Chiara’s voice said clearly. Everything is so bright. It’s so… thank you.
Thank you, Luna thought back, in reply, as the minutes passed and the working completed its task. It is the least I could do for one who has done so much for me. There, it is done. Time for me to be going now.
What? Chiara asked in outraged thought. No! We’ve just come together, just found each other. I can’t lose you already.
Everything has it’s time, and this has been mine. Luna replied, smiling one last time. Separating out and reforming the ball of light that was her friend, Luna began pushing her power into it so that all of the healing changes she had made to Chiara would stay after Luna was gone.
Luna heard Chiara’s protests as she realized what Luna was doing and tried to stop her. Chiara now had the power, but not the skill or knowledge to stop Luna from hollowing herself out, and devoting all her power to the girl. When at last it was done, Luna looked at her work in satisfaction.
Chiara would be healed and safe. That was all that mattered. As the emptied framework that was Luna, began to collapse, she sent a last thought out into the void, “Sorry sister, a life needed saving.”
Thirty minutes later, the first responders began to arrive, and looked on in surprise at two perfectly healthy women holding onto and crying into the fur of an equally healthy, if confused, horse.
In a distant corner of the universe...
Celestia and Twilight were chatting about various methods of finding and extracting Luna from whichever world she was in, when a voice suddenly entered Celestia’s head, "Sorry sister, a life needed saving."
"Luna!" Celestia cried aloud, physically turning her body to the window and staring through it, willing herself to see her sister.
A profound sense of loss filled her as she felt the severing of their bond, a severing that was only meant to occur when death had finally come. In a thousand years of hatred and bliss, Celestia had felt that her sister would always be with her, raising and setting the moon just as she rose and set the sun. "...No.." she whispered, the word sounding frail and sad to her own ears.
"Princess?" Twilight asked in bewilderment, still holding the spell book aloft in her spell while gazing at the rump of the white mare who so earnestly looked out the window. "Is everything alright?"
Celestia gave a low moan, and the tears came.
Author's Note
"Everything has its time, and everything ends." - Doctor Who.
But not this story... not yet.
Edith Norris wiped the sweat off her face as she sat astride her horse while the summer sun beat down. Despite her cast coming off weeks ago her foot still ached abominably, and combined with the heat she was in a foul mood. Half of her farm was still in ruins, the rebuilding of the milking and horse barns along with that of her own home, was going slowly, and the insurance company was trying to push her into an early settlement. Lost in her thoughts, Norris failed to notice a wiry man of late middle years come up beside her.
“Good afternoon, Doña Norris,” Jorge said, his posture relaxed but ready. Unlike Norris, he seemed perfectly adapted to the fury of summer’s heat.
“What the hell is good about it?” Norris snapped back, and felt instant contrition at her outburst. “Sorry Jorge, shouldn’t have bit your head off. Not your fault.”
“It’s okay, Doña Norris,” Jorge said, nodding sadly. “We all miss La Curandera as well. Has there been any word?”
“Nothing for awhile now,” Norris said, adjusting the hat whose broad rim kept the sun out of her eyes. “I know she made it to California just fine, but nothing since then.”
“She will be okay, Doña,” Jorge said, before peering at Edith’s mount. “What of Luna? Any sign of the return of the spirit of Santa Muerte ?”
“Nothing,” Norris said, stroking the neck of her mount fondly. “Luna’s just a horse now. A good horse, but that’s all. At least the number of rubberneckers trying to see her has been going down.”
“I’m sorry if they’ve been a bother to you,” Jorge said, passing a refillable water bottle up to Norris who gratefully accepted the drink. “But after the tornado…” Jorge let his words trail off.
“I don’t blame folks for wanting to see Luna after that either,” Norris said, resealing the bottle and passing it back. “The things that happened that day, what we saw… Well, it almost had me running to find the nearest priest myself.”
Jorge offered no further comment and the two stood for a few minutes in companionable silence, watching the half-shattered farm work its way around the four different sets of construction going on while still trying to remain a viable business. Jorge broke the silence.
“With your permission Doña,” Jorge said, touching his hat, “I will go check on the hay storage and make sure we are ready for tomorrow’s delivery.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Norris said, taking another swipe at the sweat on her brow. “I’m going to head back to my ho— my cabin and get back on the phone with those idiots from the insurance company. See if I can’t pry another payment out of them.”
Moving Luna into motion, Norris rode over to the cabin that she had claimed as her home. Even here, in the area well away from where the storm had passed by three months ago, there had been changes. A small shed had been thrown up to one side of the cosy cottage for the purpose of sheltering Luna, and keeping the animal close to Norris at all times.
Norris pursed her lips as she drew closer and saw that someone had built a small shrine to Luna, or “Santa Muerte” as the immigrant community called her, yet again. It wasn’t that the small shrines themselves bothered Norris. Whoever had been building them had been smart enough to keep them off to one side of the shelter and out of the way. It was the offerings that were left behind that were the problem.
The money was easy enough to deal with. Norris just collected it and used it to buy treats or other things, for the children of her rapidly growing number of migrant hands. The problem was the things that were left that Luna might eat. The fruit was fine, the flowers were mostly okay, but it was the cigarettes that worried Norris.
Most folks didn’t realize that nicotine was a deadly poison to horses. Luna could very easily be nibbling away on the fruit and chomp down on the tobacco offerings by accident. A fifth of a gram of pure nicotine was lethal to a horse, and it was fear of that which made Norris do a ground sweep of the area each night when she brought Luna home.
Norris finished riding up, dismounted and tied off Luna’s lead to the shed, and walking around its corner to check on the latest offerings. Bending down, she collected the small amount of cash that had been tucked in beside the small skeletal statues and votive candles there. Separating out some apples that had been left for Luna to nibble on later, Norris growled softly as she saw two full packs of cigarettes underneath them.
“They aren’t going to stop you know,” said a quiet female voice, from behind her. Startled, Norris leaped up and spun around toward the speaker, only to see the slim form of Chiara Walsh behind her.
“Chiara!” Norris exclaimed, hugging the shorter woman, who returned the embrace. “Saints alive girl, I’ve missed you. Let’s have a look at you.”
Norris leaned back to take in Chiara’s lean form. Chiara was wearing brown, silver stitched cowboy boots, that rose upwards until they disappeared beneath a long, flowing, chocolate brown skirt that came down almost to her ankles. The skirt came up very high on her waist, where a broad leather belt held it in place and formed the anchor point for a loose, western style blouse of denim that rose to Chiara’s neck. On top of her head was a broad rimmed, cream coloured cowboy hat which seemed to be a size too large but sat securely nonetheless.
“This is where you live now?” Chiara asked, nodding toward the cottage that was only a little bigger than what Chiara had lived in.
“Until the new house is built,” Norris said, wondering what struck her as wrong about Chiara’s appearance. Norris watched as Chiara put her head against Luna’s and for a moment the two seemed to share their old bond. Norris couldn’t put her finger on it yet, but whatever was wrong with Chiara was different than what had driven the girl away from the farm.
“Any change in Luna?” Chiara asked, sighing as Norris shook her head in the negative. “Um, any chance we can go inside. I’d rather no one knew I was back, quite yet.”
“Just give me a moment to settle Luna,” Norris said, relieved. That shy, retiring demeanor was much more Chiara’s style. Norris checked Luna’s water, forked some fresh hay into the bunker, and placed the horse into her stall. Norris wiped the sweat off her forehead yet again. She hated summer’s heat, but there was no way she was taking her hat off until she got inside.
As Norris stepped out of Luna’s little shed she saw Chiara waiting by the door. Norris looked at the younger woman anew for a moment, trying to assemble what was bothering her about the girl in her mind. Chiara noticed Norris studying her, dropped her eyes to the ground, and said in a quiet voice that held a hint of desperation, “I’ll explain everything, once we get inside. Please?”
“All right girl,” Norris said, passing Chiara and opening the door to the cottage. “You’ve never lied to me, and you’ve earned more than a little patience on my part. Let’s get you inside and I’ll get some tea going.”
The two went inside the small, two bedroom cottage, that was similar in layout to Chiara’s destroyed home. Norris took off her boots, and noted that Chiara didn’t, but said nothing. Nor did Norris say anything when Chiara turned a kitchen chair ninety degrees to sit on it sideways, letting the back of her long skirt flow over it.
As Norris turned the kettle on to boil, she went to the window to open the drapes and light up the place a little more.
“Please,” Chiara asked, tilting her head up to look out from under her broad hat, “can you leave them closed for now. I really don’t want anyone else seeing me through a window by accident.”
“That explains you waiting for me up here, instead of down at the new barns,” Norris said, leaning back against the kitchen counter. The silence stretched out between the two, as an uneasy, odd sort of quiet between the pair of women. Finally, the kettle began to whistle, startling them both and breaking the stillness.
“So,” Norris said, bringing over a pair of mugs after a moment after filling them up with tea. “You’re back. Everything work out in California?”
“Not really,” Chiara said, accepting the tea and taking a sip while keeping her face under the brim of her hat. “In fact, it went about as bad as it could.”
“Is that why you’re all covered up?” Norris asked, as she realized what had been bothering her about Chiara all along. “You didn’t get some big body tattoo, did you?”
“No, nothing like that,” Chiara said, with a snort before sobering. “I guess I should tell you everything.”
“That would be a help,” Norris said, sitting down and sipping at her own steaming mug.
“Okay,” Chiara began. “Well, after what happened… to Luna, I just couldn’t be around her anymore. It just kept reminding me of all the things she had been. Everytime I sat on her afterwards, I could feel every difference between what she had been and what she is now. I started to get mad at her. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. So I left before I started taking it out on her.”
“It’s a normal reaction,” Norris said, reaching out and taking Chiara’s slim, strong hand in her own. “After my Jon died, I was furious at him for so long. He survived the Middle East, so how dare he up and die like that in a simple car accident?”
“Exactly,” Chiara said, nodding. “So, I left. I finished the journey that I had been on when we first met. I made it to the pagan community in Marin County.”
“What are they like?” Norris asked, genuine curiosity in her voice.
“They were… people,” Chiara said, pausing to find a good adjective. “Just people of all sorts, but we all shared a love of the natural spirits and forces of the world. Periander was there.”
“Who?” Norris asked, puzzled. “Some other boy? I know you broke things off with Peter in town. He dropped off a matched set of engraved silver bracelets for you the other week. Wanted me to let you know he wasn’t mad or anything, just that he had no idea what he’d done wrong.”
“What did you tell him?” Chiara asked, looking up at Norris, mouth quirking.
“That you had gone off to California, and that I would pass on the message when I had the chance,” Norris said, watching Chiara’s reactions. “So, who’s Periander?”
“One of the moderators on the Paranet pagan website,” Chiara said. “We had talked a lot in the past and they knew the active groups in Marin. They introduced me to a lot of people and he was also the cause of a lot of problems when the changes first hit.”
“Changes?” Norris asked, reaching up and making sure her own hat was secure. “What kind of changes?”
“Guess I’ve put this off as long as I can,” Chiara said, getting up from the table. “Pretty much the only way to tell you is to just show you.”
As Norris looked up in curiosity, Chiara grimaced and then with a smooth flowing motion took off the broad-brimmed cowboy hat she’d been wearing since the moment Edith had seen her. A mass of hair, the colour of pale summer wheat, flowed down the young woman’s straight back in a shimmering flow, not stopping until the ends fell to the backs of her thighs.
“That’s an awful lot of hair,” Norris said, a sinking feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. “You didn’t have anything like that kind of length when you left.”
“No, I didn’t,” Chiara said, biting her lip as she began unbuttoning her blouse. “There’s more… just try not to freak out, okay?”
“I’ve seen you naked before child,” Norris said, trying to calm her nervous daughter. “Bother me a bit, yes. Freak me out, no.”
“You’ve seen me naked, but not like this,” Chiara said, shedding her blouse and revealing her torso, and she began to toe off her boots as pale yellow hair flowed around her like a natural cloak.
“You tried getting that cut or styled at all?” Norris said, not letting Chiara hear Norris’ own nervousness at the question.
“More than a few times,” Chiara said, standing and taking off the belt holding her skirt up. “Whatever I do seems to get undone inside of a day or two. I cut it all off one day, and two days later it had all grown back. Brace yourself, this is the big one.”
“I don’t see what’s so… Oh. Oh my,” Norris breathed. Chiara had dropped her skirt to stand naked before the older woman, and nothing had seemed different, until the slim woman turned and presented her profile to Edith.
Chiara, had a tail.
Not a slim tail, like a cat. Or even a slightly bushy one, like a dog. Chiara had a full, wide, horse’s tail emerging from that little notch that everyone has at the base of their spine. It was the same colour as Chiara’s hair, and combined with that bright waterfall, it served to cover the girl’s back from the top of her head to the back of her ankles. Norris watched as the tail, now freed from the confining skirt Chiara had worn, began to move and flick around in the same unconscious manner as a horse’s.
“By all the saints,” Norris said, rising quickly to take Chiara in a comforting hug. “It was the magic, wasn’t it?”
“She said it might mark me somehow,” Chiara said, nodding. “I guess I just didn’t realize it was going to do something like this to me.”
“Not just you,” Norris said, reaching up and taking off her own hat. Rich, full, black hair rolled in a matching flow down the older woman’s back tickling Chiara’s hugging hands as it went past. “This started last month for me. I haven’t had any luck cutting it either.”
“You don’t have... “ Chiara’s tail lashed back and forth in wordless completion of the question.
“No, but I’ve been having a terrible itching there, the past week,” Norris said, running her hand through Chiara’s hair as she compared it to her own. “I’m guessing I’m going down the same road you are, just at a slower pace.”
“There’s more,” Chiara said, looking relieved that Norris was also experiencing changes. “You can’t really see it yet, but my feet are starting to change too. I think, I think they’re getting shorter, and wider. I’m starting to lose some feeling, as well.”
“Hooves, you think?” Norris asked, and Chiara nodded. “And this started happening in California to you?”
“Periander found out first,” Chiara said, sitting back down on the sideways chair, it’s orientation now clearly meant to allow her tail to fall clear. “He and the others, they started trying to form a group around me. Said I’d been blessed by Epona into her avatar. They were going to worship me. So, I got out of there as fast as I could.”
“Came straight back here did you?” Norris said, feeling relief that her own mane could flow freely now, and that her girl had avoided the temptations of the power over others she could have had.
“Pretty much,” Chiara said, before adding, “There is one more thing. Can you make it any darker in here?”
“In here, no,” Norris said, breaking the hug to look at Chiara’s feet but not seeing anything different. “I can make it almost completely dark in my bedroom though. I’ve been having trouble sleeping at night the past couple of weeks, so I’ve been catching up in the early evenings. Come on.”
Norris led the girl to the small bedroom just off the main living area, and began drawing the blinds. Chiara propped herself up on one corner of the made bed, and said nothing while the light in the room dropped to almost nothing. A moment later she felt more than saw Norris sit on the bed beside her and take her hand.
“Okay, what do you need to show me?” Norris asked, ready for anything.
“This,” Chiara said, concentrating. As Norris watched in surprise, Chiara’s hair and tail began to emit a blue glow along their lengths. A glow that slowly brightened in strength until it lit the entire room in soft light. Edith Norris strangely felt no fear as Chiara demonstrated the magic within her, feeling a warmth kindle in her breast at the young woman’s accomplishment instead. That is, until Chiara gasped in sudden surprise and the glow dimmed considerably.
“What? Norris asked, looking around. “What’s wrong?”
“Your hair,” Chiara said, recovering from her surprise to smile at her adoptive mother. “It’s doing it too.”
“It is?” Norris asked, sweeping her free hand back to bring her ebon locks to the fore. Sure enough, points of light, like tiny stars, were moving back and forth in that mass of hair. Too weak to emit much light of their own, but definitely visible. Norris was about to comment on how much it looked like the night sky, when a knock sounded on the front door of the cottage.
“Mrs. Norris,” Jorge’s somewhat muffled voice came through the walls. “I have something here I think you should see.”
“Is it important?” Norris called back. “I’m a little busy.”
“I’m not sure,” Jorge said, “but it may relate to Santa Muerte .”
“Be right there,” Norris said, letting go of Chiara’s hand and getting off the bed. As she did, she noticed that the lights in her hair stopped almost immediately. Chiara seemed to dampen down whatever her own glow was, returning the bedroom to darkness. Normalcy somewhat returned, Norris opened the door to see Jorge standing there.
“Well?” Norris asked Jorge, as she looked down the small set of stairs at her stoop. Jorge was looking up at her as if he was seeing her in a new light, and Norris realized that her mass of hair was fully out in the open for the man to see.
“Um, yes,” Jorge said, stumbling before finding his mental footing again and holding out a large piece of curved metal. “Alonso was on a camping trip in the mountains and brought this back with him. He thought it might have something to do with Santa Muerte .”
Norris took the piece of black metal from Jorge. It was nearly a quarter inch thick and light for its size, shaped like a crescent moon with a length of silver chain coming off of either tip. Norris was puzzled as to why Jorge thought it might relate to Luna, until she turned the enameled piece of metal over. In the center of what was apparently the front side of the light steel, was a white crescent that was a perfect match to the one on Luna’s either hip.
“Thank you, Jorge,” Norris said, nodding to the older man. “I’ll have a look in a bit, but if you will excuse me, I have a guest.”
“A guest?” Jorge asked, before wilting underneath the “none of your business” glare that Norris fixed him with. “Yes, Doña Norris. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Tomorrow,” Norris said in a cool voice, closing the door behind her. Chiara was just coming out of the bedroom and gasped in admiration at the item Norris was holding.
“What is it?” Chiara asked, no longer self-conscious about her tail as she focused on the piece of metal.
“Not exactly sure,” Norris said, placing the curved length on the small kitchen table. “But I’ve got a feeling it belongs to Luna. Now that I think of it, I’m almost certain it does.”
“When I was in California, I did some reading up about horses,” Chiara said, examining the black metal closely. “This looks like a piece of horse armor, and look, there are some scratches in the enamel. This stuff was in a fight.”
“Let me have a look at that,” Norris said, sliding the metal around to look at the series of parallel lines along the upper edge. “Hmm, when you first brought Luna here she had a set of nearly healed cuts along her body that were about the size of these lines. I remember feeling them on her shoulder and chest.”
“That’s it then,” Chiara said with certainty. “Luna was in a fight while wearing this, and it got ripped off during that.”
“Well, there is one way to find out for sure,” Norris said. “We try to put it on her. If it fits, mystery solved.”
“Let’s try,” Chiara said, heading to the door.
“Jorge might still be around,” Norris said, nodding at Chiara’s rear, where her tail lay still for the moment. “You want to risk that?”
“Ma’am,” Chiara said, giving a sad smile. “I don’t think these changes to me are going to stop. I think they aren’t going to stop until… until I’m a horse too. Or something like a horse, at least. I’m going to have to get used to stares and stuff.”
“All right,” Norris said, and the two went outside. Despite Chiara’s brave words, Norris could hear a sigh of relief come from her as it became clear that no one else was around.
“Hey Luna,” Chiara said, stepping into the small stall and letting her former mount inhale her scent. “Miss me?”
“I think she did,” Norris said, holding up the metal to Luna’s chest. “Here, grab the other side.” Chiara did as she was asked and the pair lifted the peytral to Luna’s chest, where it matched the curve of the mare exactly.
“Mystery solved, pretty much. One second now, where did that lock go?” Norris asked, before spotting and grabbing up a small padlock with an attached key. Locks like it were used all over the farm, along with small lengths of chains, as impromptu gate fasteners or other means of holding two things together. Norris ran the hasp of the lock through the links on either end of the chains and closed the lock, fastening the peytral to Luna.
Many months ago, just after she had emerged into this new world, Luna had placed a powerful enchantment on her peytral. An enchantment whose purpose was to soak up ambient magic in the environment and to store it for Luna’s use. Shortly afterward, the peytral had been lost when Luna had been attacked by a cougar.
Lost and forgotten, the peytral had sat on the mountainside where it had landed after the epic battle. It had kept to its purpose all that time though, absorbing energies and power, until it was found by a curious young boy who had come to worship the shining black mare who had helped save his life. The enchantment, feeling itself come into contact with its caster, fulfilled its task and discharged its months of stored power into Luna.
To Edith and Chiara, it felt like there was a sudden, massive inrush of wind all around them, centered on the horse between them. Norris felt something inside of her lifted up by that ethereal force and carried into the mare at her side, and a profound sense of gratitude filled her. The pair watched in amazement as a long horn spiraled out from Luna’s forehead, and a pair of great feathered wings flowed into being along her back.
“I. AM. LUNA!” the restored Princess of the Night thundered. Her utterance blasting apart the small structure around her and sending it flying into the distance.
“Madre de Dios ,” a small voice said. Unseen by anyone, Alonso had followed his father up to Doña Norris’ home. When she had not come out of her house to talk to his father, he had decided to sit at the backside of the cabin and just watch Luna. Now, three pairs of glowing eyes fixed him in place as their owners turned to look at him.
“I know you, child,” Luna said, her voice rich and full as the full power of her alicorn majesty washed over the boy. “Come here, little one. I mean you no harm.”
Alonso wasn’t sure of much, but he knew that he was in the presence of three women of power, and one did not disrespect such. So, on trembling legs, he walked up to Luna, Norris, and Chiara. “Please, I didn’t mean to hide. Don’t hurt me.”
“Child, my filly and I did not save your life only to take it now,” Luna said, beginning to draw back her power. “You heard me Name myself?” Alonso could only nod.
“I am going to be returning to my home now. Your gift has made it possible, and so I give you a gift in return,” Luna said, plucking out a three foot long primary feather with a wince before passing it to the boy. “I name thee, ‘Herald of Luna’. Go and tell the others what you have seen. Tell them that they have my thanks for their kind words and care these past months, and that I will be taking my filly and her dam with me. Take this feather as a sign that you speak with my voice. Go now.”
Alonso did the only thing he could do. Clutching the large feather to himself and holding it like a banner, he ran down the road as fast as his small legs could carry him. He had a job to do, and he wouldn’t stop until it was done.
“You’re taking us with you?” Norris asked, as the exhilaration she had been feeling begin to fade away. “What if we don’t want to go to the Lands of Faerie?”
“For the last time, I am not of the Fae, Edith Norris,” Luna said, rolling her eyes even as she gauged the amount of power she had now. “But I do apologize if I’m being presumptuous. I can see the changes my power is having and will continue to have on you. I thought you would prefer to come with me while they run their course.”
“So, you can’t undo this?” Chiara asked, from the other side. “I mean, I like being marked by your power, my Goddess, but…”
“I’m sorry, but as much as I might wish to I cannot undo the effects the blending has had on us,” Luna said. “In fact, now that I am restored they will only accelerate. You have already gained your mark.”
“Mark?” Norris asked, feeling a sudden pressure on the base of her spine. Without having to look, she knew she had just gotten the beginnings of her own tail.
“Yes, the indicator of your pony talent,” Luna said, pointing to Chiara’s hip, where the image of a crescent moon inside of a five pointed star had appeared. “Please, come home with me. There you will able to come to understand your new forms in peace, and you shall be my friends and companions for as long as you live.”
“I’ll go,” Chiara said, smiling. “If I’m going to be a horse, where better than at your side.”
“I’ll go too,” Norris said, and the other two looked at her a bit in surprise. “Don’t look like that. I’m going the same way as Chiara, just slower. And, to be honest, I’ve just been marking time since my Jon died. Chiara gave purpose to my life again and I’d like to see things through with her. Besides, my lawyer has paperwork in case I just up and leave, so everyone and everything here will be okay.”
“Very well,” Luna said, nuzzling both of her friends in turn. “Climb onto my back and I will fly us to where the portal brought me to this world. It is the quickest way, and we have little time before the farm workers come here anyway.”
Thirty minutes later, the three were standing in front of the rock face that Luna had come out of all that time ago. As she began to open the portal back to Equestria, Luna heard Norris whisper into her ear, “By the way, I had the vet check you out a couple of weeks ago. There’s something you should know.”
“No need, Edith,” Luna said, just as quietly, while she watched Chiara trace the glowing lines of magic that were appearing on the rock. “I know I am with foal. Motherhood will be a new journey for me, even as this one draws to a close.”
“Are we ready to go?” Chiara asked as the lines met and the entire side of the cliff began to glow.
“Let me do one thing first,” Luna said, sending a message into the void ahead of them.
Tia! and a mind in a distant corner of the universe exalted in sudden, ecstatic joy. I am coming home, and I’m bringing friends with me.
“There,” Luna said, smiling. “Grab hold of my mane, and let’s go home.” The three walked forward and a moment later, all was quiet and dark again on the mountainside. A journey complete, many more just beginning.
Author's Note
As the song says, "It's been a long road, getting from there to here." I started this story nearly two years ago, shortly after "The Bridle Path" brought me some minor attention here on Fimfic. Journey is a story I wanted to tell, of an Equestrian on Earth, and not just any Equestrian, but Princess Luna.
I find Luna to be one of the more relatable characters in MLP. She's had loves and losses, been at the peak of power and cast down into darkness. She knows the temptations of her dark side, and fights them as hard as she can. She doesn't always succeed, but she keeps on trying.
As for the story.
I decided in the beginning to end it here, leaving Chiara and Edith's final transformations up the imagination of the reader, as well as what Luna's foal will be like. I think I also left enough clues scattered around for sleuthing readers to figure out what happened to Luna after her apparent death in the penultimate chapter.
I have no plans for a sequel, but "Never say Never." As the Guardian of Forever said, "Many journeys are possible" and wherever life's journey takes you, may you find a warmth hearth, good food, and welcoming friends.
All the best,
