Wind Song stood in a grassy field, lit only by the pale silver light of the full moon and extending in every direction as far as his eyes could see. The only sound which pervaded that serene place was the soothing rustle of the grass which swayed gently in a light breeze and brushed lightly against his hooves and fetlocks. The breeze carried with it the ambrosial fragrance of millions of blooming wildflowers, sweet as honey and stronger than anything he had ever imagined possible. Above him, a billion stars winked out at him from the inky canvas of the night sky and almost seemed to be reflected in the ground beneath him. The moon, which hung only a little way above the horizon, shone bright and clear as it crept slowly toward the gray horizon.

Soon, the soothing “swish swish swish” of his slow hoofsteps in the grass joined the sigh of the breeze in the grass in a discordant sort of harmony. The tranquil setting left the pegasus spellbound as he plodded along to a destination he neither knew nor cared about. Wading through that moonlit field in the dead of night with only his thoughts for company was intoxicating. He walked for what must have been hours, simply taking in the beauty of his surroundings and breathing the clean crisp air.

Suddenly, Wind Song pulled up short, becoming instantly alert. He spun on the spot, searching for whatever had disturbed his peaceful amble, but he beheld only the soft grass, lit grey in the moonlight and stretching to the horizon in all directions. He felt his heart rate increase as he scanned the land a second time. Someone was watching him, he knew it. But where were they?

Wind Song stood in place, confused, and lifted one hoof to scratch his head when he felt a sudden sharp pressure around his mind as though a consciousness, not his own, were trying to push its way into his brain. He spun around again, searching everywhere for the invisible force, but the pressure subsided as quickly as it had arrived, and again all was silent. Confused and wary, he made to resume his walk.

“Wind Song!”

The voice had come from nowhere...or everywhere. He couldn’t tell. It was all around him and seemed to come from the sky and earth itself. Suddenly, the mental pressure returned in full force as the voice rang out again, this time stronger.

“Wind Song!”

“Who are you?! What do you want?!” Wind Song shouted into the darkness as he sat down hard, lifting his forehooves to cover his ears and closing his eyes as the pain in his head increased.

The moment his hooves touched his ears, he pulled them away again. They were covered in something wet and sticky. He didn’t want to open his eyes. A thick, warm wind replaced the cool breeze and, even as he held his breath, he could still taste the reeking stench of rotting flesh over the metallic coppery scent of blood in place of the earlier blooming flowers.

As his eyes opened, he beheld a setting quite different from the one he had been in only moments before. Where the moon had been now floated an orb of glowing liquid red, like a giant vermillion eye staring into his very being. His horror only grew as he felt something warm and wet lapping at his legs. What he saw made his heart pound in his chest as he opened his mouth in a soundless scream of terror.

“Wind Song!”

Washing around his legs was a tempestuous sea of thick crimson liquid. Nopony needed to tell him what it was. He was knee-deep in an ocean of blood, and the level was rising. He looked frantically in all directions, seeking something, anything, but all he saw was red, red, red. He heard somepony scream, but whether it was in pain or terror he couldn’t tell.

As he spun back to face the bloody moon, his legs bumped into something solid. Floating on the undulating ruby colored fluid and staring up at him with one milky, unseeing eye, was the body of a small turquoise filly, flank unmarked by the destiny she would never grow to see. He felt the bile rising in his throat as he backed away, trying not to vomit when he backed into yet another body. This time he did not turn. All around him, thousands upon thousands of foals, clearly dead, were bobbing to the surface, blank flanks all.

“Windy! Please wake up!”

He broke into a full on gallop, splashing through the sea of bodies trying with all his will to get somewhere, anywhere. With a sudden splash, he tripped and fell into the tide of crimson, becoming fully submerged, but when he attempted to rise, he found that he couldn’t find which way was up. He desperately spun around looking for the surface, but the blood burned his eyes, ears, nose, throat...he was drowning.

“Wind Song!”

With a jerk he sat and threw up the contents of his stomach across the cool floor of the tunnel, dimly lit by Honeybell’s candle.

“Damnit!” he spat, heart still pounding and eyes flooded with cold tears as he trembled as though from a fever. He felt a warm fuzzy leg draw around him and heard the consoling voice of Moonlight Whisper. That touch, combined with the musty scent of the moist air was what convinced Wind Song that he was really back. But that dream had seemed so real! He could almost still taste the coppery flavor of blood coating his tongue.

“It’s alright, Windy. It’s okay. You’re here. You’re safe.” she said, the strain evident in her own voice as it echoed off the close walls of the cave.

Wind Song heard a coughing sob from somewhere across the room and, through a film of tears, saw Honeybell and Orange Blossom holding each other in a tight, almost desperate embrace. Between Wind Song and the two earth ponies lay Snow Star and Willow. Their eyes were clenched tight shut as they held each other close.

“What happened?” Wind Song asked Moonlight when he had finally found his voice. “Did you…”

“No” replied Moonlight quickly. “I didn’t see anything, but I felt it. Oh, Celestia and Luna have pity, I felt it, Windy. What is it you saw? You and everypony else looked like you were having terrible nightmares.”

Wind Song simply shut his eyes and shook his head.

“Later.” he said firmly.

Moonlight nodded understandingly, never taking her foreleg from Wind Song’s back. They sat like this for several minutes, not saying a word or making a sound. Wind Song’s breathing and pulse slowed and the tears stopped flowing.

“I’m so sorry.” came Snow Star’s choked voice from where he sat next to Willow. “We’re both so, so sorry.”

The two pegasi and two earth ponies looked up at him.

“What in Equestria do you mean, Snow?” Moonlight asked quizzically.

Snow Star shifted uncomfortably before replying, “We tried to contain it. We did everything we could, but when we dream, it’s near impossible to keep such strong emotions from getting out.”

“You mean you projected your emotions telepathically?” Moonlight asked in amazement.

Wind Song felt his sympathy for his two friends growing as Willow said in a quavering voice, “Yes. We did everything we could to hold it back, but it was like we were locked in the dream and couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Wind Song noticed that her voice was halting, hesitant...embarrassed?

“It wasn’t either of your fault.” he replied reassuringly while at the same time wondering if this would happen every time they tried to sleep at the same time. If that was the case, they had a very long journey ahead of them.

Over the next several minutes, they each recounted what they had seen and felt, though with frequent pauses when their emotions failed them. As it turned out, all five had seen the same thing. Only Moonlight had been spared as she had been awake at the time.

The six friends sat in silence for a while after that, neither speaking nor making a sound. It wasn’t until a few hours later that Wind Song, who had been in a sort of doze, noticed the thin beam of morning light coming through the gap in the wall of stacked rock. Morning had arrived.

Most of the others had fallen back to sleep, including Moonlight, who lay curled up by his side. Honeybell lay on her back against the far wall snoring loudly, one hind leg giving the occasional twitch. Orange Blossom lay facing the wall, idly rolling a small round stone between her forehooves. The unicorns looked exhausted as they each slept in the other’s embrace.

Loath to wake them just yet, Wind Song simply sat and watched Moonlight as she slept. Her side rose and fell gently, the sound of her breathing only just audible. The thick midnight curls of her mane hung haphazardly over one side of her face, obscuring her eyes and part of her nose. Her left wing lay opened, draped over her side and flank like a feathery blanket. Wind Song was enraptured by the sight of her and he couldn’t look away.

“Mornin’ lover boy.” came a soft voice directly in his left ear.

Wind Song, whose nerves were already on edge, let out a shocked yelp as he leapt to his hooves and spun toward the voice, spreading his wings defensively. However, standing before him wasn’t any of the innumerable terrors his spent imagination had been expecting, but Orange Blossom. The small white mare was doubled over in an unchecked fit of laughter, scarcely able to breathe.

At Wind Song’s shout of surprise, everypony had become immediately awake. They all stood, ready for action as Wind Song fumed, his murderous scowl totally lost on the mirthful Orange Blossom.

“What in Tartarus was that about, Windy?” asked Honeybell who seemed to be having trouble fully opening her eyes.

“Nothing a little clobbering won’t fix.” replied Wind Song sourly, still glaring at Orange Blossom.

After everypony had settled down and Orange Blossom gained some meager semblance of composure, the little group began to take stock of their supplies. Fairweather had done an admirable job preparing their packs. Each had a canteen of water, five or six oat cakes, flint, a tinderbox, several beeswax candles, and a length of rope. There were also other things like a tin of salt, several bandages, a short knife, and a small roll of parchment with quill and ink.

As Wind Song was rummaging through his pack, he noticed a little pouch concealed behind a seam inside one of the saddlebags which contained a corked vial of blue liquid that Wind Song couldn’t identify. Near the base of the vial, marked in gold ink, were the words, “H.P. 422 - Canterlot G.P.M.”.

Wind Song was eying the vial, wondering what it could possibly be when Willow let out a gasp of surprise.

“Sweet Celestia!” she exclaimed, holding up a glass vial just like WInd Song’s and showing interest in something for the first time since the previous afternoon.

“What is it?” Wind Song asked.

Willow, who was looking closely at the potion held carefully in both hooves, replied, “Healing Potion number four twenty two. One of Twilight’s creations.”

At this, Moonlight’s looked up from her pack, wide-eyed.

“It’s really expensive.” Willow continued. “The flower it’s derived from, the magenta bloom, is endangered and only grows along coastal cliffs that are almost impossible to access. I can’t imagine how Fairweather managed to get six vials of it.

“Wait.” Honeybell said from where she sat holding her water canteen. “What you mean by ‘healing potion’? You mean like, if my leg got chopped off or somethin’ I could just throw a few drops of that stuff on it and, poof...all better?”

Snow Star, who was looking curiously at Willow’s vial, replied, “No. It’s not quite like that. It can’t grow back missing flesh or bone, but it does have the ability to heal what’s already there.

Willow cut in, “Assuming you’re not already dead, of course.”

“Exactly” Snow Star continued. “If you get stabbed, cut, bruised, or break a bone, this will heal it.”

“It works exactly like H.P. four nineteen, except that four twenty two not only heals the wound, but it also restores some or all lost blood using the water and minerals in your body.” Moonlight said excitedly as all present stared at her in surprise. She looked at her friends with a shy smile before concluding demurely, “Twilight Sparkle’s Dissertations on Transmutation, Volume Seven.”

Several more minutes passed before all six ponies had eaten a dry oat cake or two, repacked their supplies in the saddlebags, and stood staring at the wall of loose stones piled between them and the meadow beyond. Only a few yards lay between them and one of Equestria’s most treacherous landscapes, and they were about to cross it. Each of the six ponies hesitated, none moving until Honeybell finally let out a long sigh and stepped forward, beckoning to Orange Blossom who joined her.

Honeybell selected a loose medium sized stone about the size of a grapefruit from the base of the pile and gave it to Orange Blossom. Honeybell turned and poised herself as though to buck the entire wall.

“What exactly do you plan on…” Wind Song asked as Orange Blossom tossed the little stone between Honeybell and the wall. Quick as lighting, one of Honeybell’s hind legs shot out and, with unerring accuracy, struck the stone in mid-air with her hoof and sent it flying into a large boulder at the base of the mound of stones.

With a loud “CRACK”, the boulder fractured. Jagged black lines spidered out from where the smaller stone had struck it. The boulder crumbled, and with it, several of the stones stacked above it, creating an opening about two yards wide. The early-morning sunlight poured into the cave along with a cool breeze laden with the scents of dew and grass.

Honeybell and Orange Blossom were through the gap and into the open field beyond before anypony could say so much as a word. Their joyous shouts and peals of laughter resounded throughout the tunnel as Wind Song stepped forward through the opening. He was instantly blinded by the brilliance of the morning sun as it reflected off the tiny droplets of mist which still hung in the air.

As his eyes adjusted, he beheld a landscape disturbingly similar to that of his dream from the previous night. A chill crept over him that had nothing to do with the cool breeze blowing down from the north and he froze in place as the three remaining ponies filed out of the tunnel and stood on either side of him, their eyes going wide as they saw the hazy meadow. Behind him, Wind Song saw the dark entrance to the tunnel opened into the rocky side of a low hill. The opening was largely concealed by long grass and a few vines which hung over the edge above it, making it nearly impossible to see from above.

Still overcome with trepidation, Wind Song remained stock still, not wanting to leave the safety of the tunnel behind him. Honeybell and Orange Blossom were having no such inhibitions, however. The two earth ponies jumped and frolicked about, laughing and calling out in happy voices. One moment they would be rushing about, the next they would drop down and roll about in the grass, legs kicking wildly about in the air.

Five minutes had passed before they rose from the ground, breathing hard and covered in grass and bits of earth. They trotted over to the others, smiling broadly.

“Now, that’s a whole lot better if ya ask me!” Honeybell said cheerily. “That underground nonsense wasn’t as bad as I expected, but the surface is where I belong, and nowhere else. Ain’t that right sis?”

Orange Blossom, who had become distracted by a little purple flower at her hooves, looked up at Honeybell and nodded vigorously. “You said it, sis! I think I might actually enjoy this part of the trip!”

After the two earth ponies got their breath back, the little group pointed their noses northward. The jagged outline of Canterlot, with its towers and terraces and the palace at the top, was just barely visible in the distance. The tunnel, it seemed, had let them out roughly a third of the way across the meadow, thus avoiding major obstacles like Saddle Lake and the cliffs on its northern edge. As hesitant as he had been, Wind Song couldn’t deny that their journey was off to a favorable start.

The six ponies spoke not a word as they ambled their way along the grassy slopes of Bell Meadow. It wasn’t the sort of place that encouraged that sort of thing. The normal hustle and bustle of Ponyville had been left far behind them, giving way to a tranquil silence broken only by the sound of the breeze and soft swishing of the grass around their hooves.

The soft purples, oranges, and pinks of early morning gave way to lighter shades as the sun crept slowly into the summer sky. All around them, flowers opened, erupting into oceans of color that had until this point been hidden from them. The blooming of the flowers was accompanied by a myriad of sweet and savory fragrances unlike anything Wind Song had ever smelled before.

“Maybe this won’t be too bad after all.” thought Wind Song as he led the little party northward toward Canterlot. It was difficult, nay, impossible, to believe that bad things could happen in a place such as this. Black Rose, Twilight’s capture, Equestria’s fate...even his nightmare from the night before seemed to matter little in comparison with the peace and beauty he and his friends were experiencing.

The very breeze seemed to be singing a sweet, soft lullaby as they ambled along, lulling him into a dreamy daze. Wind Song could almost hear the words of the lullaby as it drifted by on the breeze, but they were always just out of hearing. The pegasus focussed harder, trying to understand what the winds were singing, but the harder he tried, the farther out of reach they seemed. He stopped walking to listen and felt himself drawn toward the ground as the song progressed. If only he sat still for a few moments, he would be able to hear it.

WHAP! Wind Song snapped awake. He had been sitting, just ready to lie down when Moonlight’s wing had hit him. While individual pegasus feathers were light as air, a wing full of them accompanied by the bone and muscle which held it all together wasn’t exactly weightless. It hadn’t been a cruel smack, but it had been sharp enough to snap him back to his senses and leave a cluster of flickering stars dancing before his eyes.

“Windy, I’m sorry!” came the muffled voice of Moonlight.

As Wind Song’s blurred vision cleared, he saw Moonlight beside him, one wing held over her face in shame, her eyes peeking reluctantly between a gap in two of the larger flight feathers.

“I’m so sorry!” she said as Wind Song stared at her, dumbfounded. “I had no choice. Whatever that song was, it was trying to get all of us to fall asleep. Only Celestia knows what would have happened then.”

A chuckle from behind him made Wind Song whirl around. Honeybell and Orange Blossom stood there, grinning at him good-naturedly.

“Don’t worry, Windy. She did us first.” Orange Blossom said.

“And us.” Willow said from the rear of the line.

“The breeze blew me n’ O.B. out like candles. Those wings are heavy, ain’t they?” Honeybell said, chuckling again.

“What exactly was that, Moonlight?” Wind Song asked, ignoring Honeybell.

“I’m not actually sure.” she replied. “There are a lot of things about Bell Meadow that haven’t been studied because of how dangerous it is. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was one of the reasons ponies sometimes come in here but never come out again.”

Wind Song nodded understandingly as he stood. “It was strange. The harder I tried to hear what the wind was saying the more I got drawn into it.”

“It was definitely a weird experience.” Snow Star said from next to Willow. “I’d suggest we stay alert and keep an eye on each other from here forward. We don’t want to be another statistic like the ones Fairweather was talking about.”

And so, off they went again. Wind Song and Moonlight led the way, providing a direction for the little group. The two unicorns came next, followed by Honeybell and Orange Blossom in the rear.

“Is anypony else hungry?” Wind Song vaguely heard Orange Blossom ask from the back of the column.

“We’ll stop for a break in a little bit, O.B. What matters right now is that we get across this meadow before it gets dark.” came Willow’s reply.

Now that she mentioned it, Wind Song noted that it was well past noon and the sun had already begun its downward journey back toward the western horizon. While Canterlot was definitely closer, it was still a good way off. He set a faster pace and the others followed suit without complaint. In this way they trudged along, step after weary step.

There were several attempts at conversation, but they all died out as quickly as they had begun. It wasn’t until a startled, “Orange Blossom! No!” and a loud “MMMM! MmmmMMM!!” came from a little way behind the group that Wind Song paid real attention.

He spun on the spot and could already see Honeybell and the two unicorns rushing back to Orange Blossom whose nose and mouth had been wrapped in something long, black, and wriggling like a great obsidian snake. On the long black vine, just above Orange Blossom’s nose, sat a bright yellow and pink flower which Wind Song hadn’t remembered seeing anywhere else on their journey. In fact, he didn’t think he’d ever seen one before in his life.

“Oh my!” Moonlight called out, immediately dropping her saddle bags and beginning to rummage through them.

“Help!” called Honeybell desperately as Orange Blossom fought against the strange vine, which seemed to be trying to drag her forward.

Wind Song rushed to help Honeybell and the unicorns. As Wind Song arrived, two more vines shot up out of the ground and coiled themselves around Orange Blossom’s front legs. Honeybell had grabbed hold of Orange Blossom’s middle and was attempting to pull her backward and out of the grasp of the writhing tentacles. Willow and Snow Star were trying desperately to conjure some sort of spell.

Having no idea what to do, Wind Song dashed to where the three vines came out of the earth four or five yards from their captive. He gave the ground there three hard stomps before the dirt began to froth and boil like water. Terrified, he backed away as a hole a yard wide opened in the earth, revealing row upon row of sharp angled teeth.

“Moonlight! Help!” the bewildered Wind Song shouted to Moonlight, who still seemed to be searching frantically for something in her pack.

Wind Song dashed back to where Orange Blossom strained and pulled against the vines. Tears streamed down the filly’s cheeks as she jerked back and forth, trying to break the grip of the creature, but to no avail. She seemed hopelessly entangled in the things.

Then, without thinking, Wind Song bent forward and bit down hard on the vine holding Orange Blossom’s right foreleg. It felt tough and rubbery in his mouth, with thousands of tiny prickly hairs sticking out at all over it. In spite of its solidity, however, the vine released its hold on Orange Blossom’s leg, recoiling like a snapped bowstring as the creature it belonged to let out a loud whining grunt.

Wind Song dodged just in time as the vine came shooting toward him, narrowly missing his own forelegs as he leapt backward. This wasn’t working. He had to come up with something else. The loosed vine snaked back over to join the other three as Orange Blossom skidded forward a full yard, dragging Honeybell with her.

“MmmmM!! MMMM!” Orange Blossom yelled unintelligibly.

The two unicorns had only succeeded in making a few sparks as Orange Blossom slid forward a whole yard. Abandoning their attempts to use magic, they leapt forward and, just like Honeybell, grabbed hold of Orange Blossom’s midriff and pulled with all their strength.

“MOONLIGHT!” Wind Song bellowed again at the midnight blue pegasus, who was still searching frantically through her pack.

All other options exhausted, Wind Song did the only other thing he could think of. Jumping forward, he joined Honeybell and the two unicorns, but having no room to hold on to her, reluctantly bit down on her tail and tugged. Orange Blossom slid forward another few feet, her rear hooves digging into the soft earth and etching deep furrows in the grassy turf.

Without warning, the sharp “CRACK” of breaking bone split the air as Orange Blossom’s front leg snapped just below the knee. She screamed and whimpered in pain, though her anguish was muffled by the vine around her mouth shut. Again, the whole group slid forward another full yard as Orange Blossom’s body went completely limp in a dead faint.

Just then, Moonlight leapt through the air, her water canteen held firmly in her teeth, glided for a few moments, and landed less than a foot from the maw of the strange creature. Quickly unstopping the cork on the canteen, she dumped the contents down into the creature’s mouth then, for good measure, dropped the whole canteen down into the hole.

A bellow that shook the ground came from the thing along with another one of its strange piercing grunts as Moonlight leapt backward away from the mouth. Immediately, the vines began to unravel from Orange Blossom. The two earth ponies, two unicorns, and Wind Song all fell backwards in a sweaty pile as the vines retreated into the ground. As they vanished, the mouth closed, the grass forming around it and leaving no indication that anything had ever been there aside from a small yellow and pink flower which poked out just above the surface.

It took a full twenty minutes to bring Orange Blossom around, during which Moonlight and Willow worked to clean the wound around Orange Blossom’s broken leg. The whole time, the others praised Moonlight’s quick thinking.

“What was it you used to get rid of it?” Willow asked Moonlight.

Moonlight replied, “Salt and water. We were just super lucky we had salt handy.”

“That we are.” Honeybell said admiringly as she held her sister.

Orange Blossom’s bone, which had pierced the skin when it broke, stood out bizarrely white against the bloody sinew and muscle surrounding it. Orange Blossom groaned in pain as the bone was set and Snow Star dripped several drops of the precious healing potion onto the wound. Wind Song watched in fascination as the skin drew together over the wound, knitting itself together and leaving no sign that it had ever been broken.

“Now, although the skin healed pretty much instantly, the bone will still take a few hours to mend, so you definitely want to keep weight off of it until then.” Willow said dispassionately as she positioned an improvised splint around Orange Blossom’s leg.

Orange Blossom nodded feebly, letting out a yelp as Willow drew the cords tight around the splint.

“How much farther do you think we have to go, Windy?” Snow Star asked Wind Song.

Wind Song made a few quick mental calculations before he replied, “Well, I’ve only ever flown across Bell Meadow so it’s hard to tell for sure, but I’d say another four or five hours hard going.”

This merited a collective groan of frustration from the others.

“We only have another, what...two and a half hours before the sun sets?” Honeybell said, holding one foreleg up between her face and the sun. “How in Equestria do you reckon we’re going to get there in time? I dunno about y’all, but I don’t wanna be stuck out here after dark.”

Wind Song bristled. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. The longer we sit here talking, the longer it’s going to take us to get there. I only hope we didn’t wake anything up with all of that commotion back there. Willow, is Orange Blossom ready?”

“Yes.” Willow replied simply.

“Wake anything up?” Snow Star asked, looking at Wind Song.

“Now just hold on to me sis. Yep, just like that.” Honeybell said to Orange Blossom as the younger sister draped her injured leg over Honeybell’s back.

Just then, something occurred to Wind Song. “Hey, O.B., what exactly did you do to piss off that plant thing?”

Orange Blossom looked away, her cheeks turning a bright shade of pink.

“You tried to eat the flower, didn’t you.” Moonlight asked.

Orange Blossom nodded.

“That creature is one of only a few specimens native to Bell Meadow that have actually been documented. It’s called a ground lamprey, but it’s actually related to the giant tatzlwurm. You’re lucky it was only a small one.”

“That was a small one?” Snow Star asked incredulously.

“Very small.” Moonlight replied. “They can grow up to twenty times that size. Full adult tatzlwurms are known to eat entire villages and since the ground lamprey is related to them, although the magic of the meadow has twisted them into something strange, it’s believed that they can become just as large.”

After repacking the items which Moonlight had strewn all around her saddlebags, the little company headed on their way, again marching northward at an accelerated pace with Honeybell and Orange Blossom walking between the pegasi and the unicorns. In spite of the complications with Orange Blossom’s leg, they made reasonable progress, though not without the occasional stumble as the situation warranted.

“Hey, Windy?” Snow Star said a short while later.

“Hmm?” Wind Song replied, looking up at his friend who had caught up with him. Snow Star looked a bit disconcerted. That was odd.

“What was that you said earlier about waking something up?” Snow Star asked, looking nervously to the west.

“What do you mean?” Wind Song asked as he turned to look in the same direction as Snow Star.

In the distance, between the six ponies and the horizon, a rack of dark clouds was building itself up so quickly that even as Wind Song watched, it was growing larger and larger. His blood froze as a flash of red lightning arced across the sky between two of the clouds. Several seconds later, instead of the deep roll of thunder, came the distant tolling of a gigantic bell.

“RUN!” Wind Song shouted at the top of his lungs as the roiling swath of black clouds continued to build and billow, driving on directly toward the little company of ponies. He didn’t have a clue where they were supposed to go, but they were being hunted, and they had to run until they dropped.

The sanguine disc of the evening sun appeared between the clouds and the horizon, scattering its vermillion rays across the disastrous landscape as the storm advanced. The biting wind coming out of the west, which had begun as a light breeze, now tore across the meadow without mercy as the rain began to fall, pelting the six friends like tiny stones.

The long, drawn out tone of a vast bell rang out again, this time even closer. The sound caused a primal sense of dread in Wind Song who felt a sudden overwhelming fatigue accompanied by a feeling of despair unlike anything he had ever experienced. He stumbled and almost fell over from the brute force of the onslaught, all thoughts of escape now turning to hopelessness as he looked back at his friends. If he had thought his heart couldn’t sink lower, he was wrong.

Honeybell and Orange Blossom, who had fallen far behind when the group had tried to make their escape, were trying to catch up. Snow Star and Willow, on the other hoof, had fallen to the ground, heads laid upon the grass, though whether they were dead or merely unconscious, Wind Song could not tell.

Summoning all of his strength, Wind Song forced his eyes fully open and began to drag one hoof in front of the other, desperately trying to get to his friends. He had to do this. He had to help. The frigid rain was pouring from the sky in sheets that blinded him and stung like stinging insects where the drops hit him.

Just then, he was startled by a blinding flash of red just overhead. A moment later, the peal of the bell erupted from the sky above. Wind Song felt himself slump to the ground. He didn’t have the energy to stand, to hold his head up, to breath. As his sight faded, another flash of lightning lit the sky, illuminating the shape of a hooded figure which stood at the crest of the hill directly in front of him. The figure drew something out from beneath its cloak and held it aloft toward the storm as though in defiance. The “something”, whatever it was, began to glow. First like a candle, then like a bonfire, then like the sun. Then, his vision flickered and went black, and he knew no more.

Author's Note

A NOTE OF APOLOGY:
As with all worthwhile pursuits in life, mistakes are often the best teacher. Writing a story is no exception. My only regret is that my mistake fell to my readers.
As such, I'd like to apologize for subjecting you to the first rendition of Chapter 7 which was, without a doubt, horrendous. I know your time is valuable and my excitement to continue on telling this story ironically led to a disappointing four-thousand word waste of your time. I hope this most recent rendition of Chapter 7 makes up for that!

May the wind always rise under your wings.

The Thorn of Equestria - Chapter 7

The Thorn of Equestria

Chapter 7

By Wind Song

REVISED 30NOV20