Their new shelter is big enough for all of them, even with the new addition of Hornet. He's the shy, yellow stallion and the sire of Morning's first foal. Thistle hasn't talked to him much. He was bad enough when she was visiting daily with aloe for his back, but now he can barely get two words past his lips whenever she's around.

He'll get used to it or find some other mare to bunk with. Morning and Mountain are happy and that's what matters. This is easier than building a whole new shelter for him to live in by himself.

"Sun n' Moon, don't dis beat all?" Enduring chuckled as she settled into a bed of straw. It doubles as food they won't have to ask Shiny Rock for, if things get hard this winter. For now, it serves to cushion old joints and provide some insulation from the cold ground. The wall is lined with straw, providing beds for all of them.

"No, Camellia, we don't eat the beds yet." Mountain scolded her filly. "That's for later on. I'll let you know when it's okay to eat it."

"But I don't want any more stallion's beard!" Camellia whined, glaring harshly at the white roots Thistle had presented for dinner. "It tastes bad!"

"Well, that's what's for dinner, young filly." Mountain huffed. "You should count yourself lucky to have so much to eat during winter. Morning and I used to take turns eating last winter. We ate snow to stop the grumbling in our bellies!"

"If you eat all your stallion's beard you can have three pieces of dried pear." Morning bargained.

Thistle bit her lip to keep from blurting out that every pony was getting dried pear after stallion's beard. It wouldn't work as a bargain if Camellia thought she'd get some anyway. Luckily the six year old didn't require anymore coaxing.

"Anyding new today, Burr?" Enduring snickered as the youngest member of the family fell upon her dinner with determination.

"Blackberry and Blueberry are nearing the end of their pregnancies." Thistle reported. She was glad Morning and Mountain were staggering their pregnancies. Thistle wasn't looking forward to visiting the twin sisters' shelter in the middle of the night, especially with the recent snowfall.

"Are ponies getting hungry yet?" Light asked, swallowing the last of her portion. "I don't think anypony else is willing to range as far as us to find winter food."

"No, I dropped off a basket's worth at the Food Stores before I came home." Thistle sighed. "The Leads were there, talking to Shiny Rock. They might have to set up guards to keep ponies from taking more than their share."

"Phooey!" Enduring spat. "Winter makes dieves of us all. How can dey be sure da guard won't sneak a lil' somdin' home?"

"And who are they gonna get who has nothing better to do than sit by a door holding a spear?" Mountain scoffed. "Talk about boring, and this is coming from a mare who spent two months unable to walk."

"How much longer do I gotta wear my spins?" Camellia tugged on Morning's mane.

"Three more weeks, Camellia. And it's Spuh-Lin-Tss." Morning corrected her. Camellia moaned and forced down another mouthful of stallion's beard.

"Maybe the Lead Stallion will do it?" Thistle considered, bringing them back to the original topic. "And maybe Oak Leaf."

"Yer sire? Stoic sort, not much of'a talker as eh recall." Enduring coughed into her hoof for a moment. "But decent stallion, took down dat snake widout flinchin', even when it bit him."

"S-S-Snake?" Hornet shuddered.

"Copperhead, lousy varmint." Enduring wrinkled her nose in distaste. "He came out fine as anyding. Stuck around da group til his swellin' went down."

Thistle hadn't talked to him, not really. She'd talked about the treatment she was giving him, she'd asked about her heritage, but largely any conversation they had was hopelessly one-sided. She wasn't sure he even liked her.

"Mountain, I gotta question!" Camellia turned to her gray dam. "How come sires don't play with their fillies?"

"Because they're fillies?" Mountain rolled her eyes. "That's just the way things are. Stallions teach their colts, dams teach their fillies."

"But don't we know the same stuff?" Camellia wanted to know. Before Mountain could answer the filly had already stood and walked over to Hornet. His eyes were as big around as baskets when she stopped in front of him.

"Do you know stuff only colts know? How come only colts can know it?" She sat down and patiently waited to be answered.

"U-Uh, w-well," His eyes darted around the room. Looking at his expression alone might cause a pony to think he was cornered by a wolf, rather than a foal. He re-focused on the filly and straightened himself, not looking anyone else in the eye as he answered. "Y-Yes, I know things only colts are t-taught."

"Like what?" Camellia pressed. Hornet's ears folded back. Thistle thought he was going to ask one of them for help but his shoulders suddenly stiffened as he opened his mouth.

"My sire t-taught me how to know wh-when a p-predator was nearby, and how to-to fight it with my bare hooves. Wolves, b-bears, mountain lions, p-p-panthers, cougars, boars, crocodiles, snakes, he taught me about every predator he knew of." His stutter lessened as he got into the groove. "And how to kill them."

"T-Then, he taught me h-how to fight ponies." He shifted uneasily. "F-For challenges, or d-during territory d-disputes. A-And, u-uh-uhm," Thistle saw his eyes dart towards Morning before a flush crawled across his face.

"H-How t-to c-care f-for mares?" His tone was more questioning than sure, and he shrunk in on himself, wincing in preparation for a blow that wasn't coming. When he seemed to realize no one had lifted a hoof towards him he relaxed.

"Mares take care of themselves." Camellia's voice brokered no argument, spoken with the calm certainty only the young could muster.

Thistle nearly choked on her stallion's beard. Light was giggling into her hoof and Enduring was waggling her brows at all of them. That old nag had some impressive control over her eyebrows.

"That's stallion stuff, Camellia." Mountain reached forward and nipped the filly by the crest, pulling her away from blushing stallion. "Most of it is just making sure their mares don't fall behind and get lost or something. That's not going to be much of an issue here in True Valley."

"True Valley?" Thistle's ears pricked forward.

"I heard some ponies calling it that." Mountain shrugged. "We're the True Herd so long as True Blue leads, and this is our valley now so I guess it's the True Valley."

"Phooey," Enduring cleared her throat. "Next yew'll be tellin' me we're naming our favorite trees or some such nonsense."

"I kind of like it." Light smiled. "It shows how special this valley is as our new home."

"Well, I'll give ye dat much, dis place is pretty special." Enduring ruffled her mane. "Mother Earth knows I seen some beautiful places in my day, but dis valley's got somedin' no oder place has ever had."

"What?" Thistle's eyes widened.

"Got my whole family, don't it? All happy, healthy, an' growin'." Enduring laughed. "We keep goin' at dis rate we ain't all gonna fit next year."

Thistle sighed in contentment. True, this little shelter of theirs would be more than a bit cramped before winter was through, but it was home. Their family was the biggest in the herd.

Tomorrow's troubles would wait for tomorrow. For now, she began passing out dried fruit.

__________________________________________________________________________________

All the shelters looked odd with the dusting of snow over them. No more than a couple inches, but enough to make the whole world seem fresh and new. Thistle watched her breath turn to mist before her eyes. She wondered why breath did that when it got cold out. Someday she hoped to find out the answer.

She trotted through the collection of shelters. Some ponies had taken to staying inside for as long as possible, trying to keep warm. Others took winter food gathering seriously and were already scratching through the snow for edibles.

Thistle nodded politely to Bird Song, who was walking with her oldest filly towards the western woods. Bird Song and her filly nodded back and continued their discussion about edible bark.

True Blue's shelter was close to Thistle's, but today she'd asked the sap-brown filly to meet her at the Food Storage shelter. It wasn't much higher than the regular ones, but it was many times bigger. The whole herd could fit inside with room to spare. Well, they could before they filled it with so much grass and dried fruit.

Bright Finish was standing by the door, spear in hoof.

"Hello, Bright Finish." She greeted him.

"Healer Burr, here for the meeting?" He stepped aside to let her through. "How's things with your group going?"

"Morning Dew is with foal now. Hornet's settling in I think, though he's very shy." She smiled. She was kind of interested in that colt-talk from last night. Most of what he'd said was stuff Enduring had taught her. She hadn't realized there was so much overlap.

"I'm glad he's got a couple of mares now." Bright patted his spear. "It'll be good for him."

It was hard to remember that this stallion had been the Lead Stallion of his herd. He was certainly large enough, but he didn't act anything like Rock Slide did. He was chatty and cheerful and downright doting on the orphan foals. She'd seen him playing with colts and fillies alike.

She wondered if he was just that strong or if all the other stallions in his old herd had just liked him too much to challenge him.

She was still thinking about it as she stepped inside, allowing Finish to close the door behind her. The large shelter was mostly open, but large rocks had been arrayed in lines to mark areas for food to be placed. Those areas had been lined by straw first, to keep dirt off the majority of the food. Apples in one area, pears in another, grass here, berries there, bark here and roots there. It was a neat little stockpile.

True Blue, her filly, and Shiny Rock were already present and waiting for her.

"Lead Mare, Shiny Rock, sorry to keep you waiting." She stepped forward.

"No apologies necessary, Thistle Burr." True reassured her. "We are still waiting on one more pony."

Was Rock Slide joining them today? She wondered what was going on important enough to involve him. It was strange enough that True had wanted to hold the meeting here with Shiny Rock.

A fresh burst of cold air announced the arrival of the final guest. Thistle looked over her shoulder and blinked in surprise to see Pucker come in. At first she thought he might be here to bring food back to his group, but she was quickly proven wrong.

"Pucker Thorn, thank you for joining us today." True greeted him.

"Lead Mare, Shiny Rock, Thistle, thank you for inviting me." His teeth chattered lightly. Thistle noticed a light sheen of sweat on his coat and wondered if he'd run here. How much warning had he gotten about this meeting?

"Now that we've all gathered here, we can begin." True sat down, encouraging the rest of them to do so. Bluebell took this as an invitation to crawl over and around them, using them as personal mountains to conquer. Thistle did her best to ignore the tiny blue hoof leaving bruises on her neck.

"Pucker Thorn, tell Thistle Burr and Shiny Rock what you told me." She ordered.

"Yes, Lead Mare." Pucker pulled his spear around, laying it in front of them. For the first time Thistle noticed that rather than being sharpened at one end Pucker had instead tied a sharp rock to it.

"I was north of the orchard, near the twin mountains, when I began noticing odd pawprints." He explained. He dragged the tip of his spear through the dirt to sketch the shape. It wasn't wolf or bear. She'd never seen real lion prints but Enduring had sketched one for her and this wasn't anything like that.

This print was more angular. Sharp. The claw marks extended far beyond the toes. If Pucker's sketch was at all accurate this creature had claws as long as her leg!

And the size of this thing! Without seeing the depth of the real prints she had no idea how to gauge the weight, but the print Pucker drew was large enough to stomp him flat into the ground. If this beast had the weight to match it would be a frightening monster indeed.

In fact, that's probably what it was. A monster. A beast of magic that preyed on ponies.

"I thought about going to Bright Finish or Hope Springs to see if they recognized it, but I figured talking to the Lead Mare first was better." He scuffed his hoof self-consciously.

"This was real close to the mountains, like I said." He continued. "It sort of looked like it had been digging. I found tons of rocks pulled out and tossed all over the place. Weird, glittery rocks of all sorts of colors were mixed in with the normal ones."

"Glittery rocks?" Shiny Rock hummed in interest. Pucker nodded and reached into his baskets. He set four bright, glittery rocks on the ground. One was deep green, one was blood red, and two more were a late evening blue.

"Gems." True Blue sighed in recognition.

"I've never heard of rocks like these." Thistle poked one of the blue ones.

"The blue ones are called sapphires. The green ones are emeralds. The red ones are rubies." True Blue explained. "Your mentor may have heard of them. They're not all that rare, but they don't have any uses I know of so nopony cared to carry them."

"If they have no use why was that creature digging for them?" She wondered aloud. The larger sapphire had jagged edges that reminded her of something. She picked it up and held it closer, frowning at it.

"We will need to bring Hope Springs and Bright Finish here. They might have encountered a creature like this." True commented. "I may make an announcement to declare the area near the mountains as forbidden."

"You can take them to Elder Enduring if you want, Thistle." Puck offered. "But can I come? We never get to play together anymore."

"Sure!" Thistle beamed, putting the mystery of the edges away for now. "I bet Light will be happy to see you too."

"Let us first summon Hope Springs and Bright Finish here, you two." True Blue reminded them.

"Bright Finish should be outside now, he's supposed to guard the door until noon today." Shiny Rock clicked her tongue as she thought. "Hope Springs is likely within her shelter. She does not venture out often."

"I could get her and ask Bright Finish to come inside." Thistle offered.

"Do so, and return with haste, Thistle Burr." True nodded her permission. For now Thistle left the jagged sapphire with the others. She passed Bluebell over to Pucker unthinkingly, and so missed his bamboozled expression as the filly blew a snot bubble in his face.

"Bright Finish? The Lead Mare would like to see you inside." Thistle told him. "I'll be back once I collect Hope Springs."

"Hope?" Bright paled slightly. "A-Alright, if the Lead says so."

Why were those two so set on avoiding each other? Weren't they following each other in their old herd?

Thistle shook her head and took off at a quick trot. It was too cold to be lingering lost in thought.

Above her the clouds gathered and slowly began to release the next snowfall.

Author's Note

Another chapter done! See you all again next week!