I am so scared. I am so scared. I can barely even think straight, with Willow's shivering body huddled close to mine, and the thought--no, the know--that our mother is in danger. How am I supposed to survive this, let alone keep my sister safe as well? Of course, even though I wanted time to stop it kept going, and so I had to think of something.

We could go back home, and pretend that she'll come back, but this weird feeling in me tells me that that won't fix the problem. Waiting for her to come back doesn't mean she will, right?

We could hide in someone's home, which is a very bad idea, but it still might work... Or we could run. Run very far away, until the city that we're in turns into a big green blur on the horizon. We could forget about our food, our cave, our mom, and just keep running until we can't anymore. Then we could live where we stop. I chew the tip of my hoof, as I leveled my options. Right now, option 3 is sounding pretty good right now. But we'd get caught somehow. The people here aren't blind. They'd see us, and kill us. Kill us. Kill us. What do I do?

"Kanaan?" Willow whispered.

"What?"

"Um, can we go back home?" She shifts her balance from one hoof to the other. I grimace, thinking about how far it is to get back home. "No, I don't think so." I say, shaking my head. I look to the side of the house we're crouched against, hearing hoofsteps approaching. "C'mon!" I shout, throwing her on my back and bolting away from the house.

I'm taking option 3. What other option do we have? I run and I notice that the houses are all arranged in neat little rows like an army. Like the royal guard. My breath hitches, and I just run faster, shrugging my thoughts away. I feel my legs turn me around in the same direction we came from, like they're leading me somewhere. Where they are leading me, I don't care as long as I am safe there. Maybe they're taking me to my mother. I miss her.

My expression dampens when I think of her being in danger. I'm only about 2 years older than my sister, but we are still too young to go out by ourselves. I feel tears threatening to slip down my cheeks when I think about how if I just listened to her-- If I just stayed inside, like everyone was begging me to--we wouldn't be running in Ponyville. I am now running so fast that the houses are blurring to my sides but I don't care. I narrowly avoid the same barrels that we hid behind when we came here, and I feel my legs getting tired. I also can't breathe very well, on account of the fact that I have been running for a while with someone on my back. I can't stop running now, if I did, they'd probably know I was there in the front place, so while I can feel my face turning red or whatever, I don't have time to stop.

I dodge a few rocks and bumps on the road ahead that I didn't notice before, and realise that I see the cave ahead of us. I can feel Willow's confused face and I don't even have to look at her to know that she's doing it. I stagger a bit, before stopping and letting Willow slide off of me, as I slump to the floor in exhaustion. I look at her and she stares back at me worriedly. I look away, dismissing her, and lay there on the ground for a while. My chest is heaving right now, but I know I'll be up again in a few minutes. The only things that aren't weary right now are my wings, but I've never learned to fly with them. I can only do a low flutter, even when I beat them as hard as I can. Sometimes, I jump off of something high up so that I can pretend I know how. I'd rather think about the things I can do than the things I can't, so I don't worry about my wings too much. I crawl a little while longer, until the cave is distinct and right in front of us. Willow runs inside, shivering and teary-eyed.

The cave is only a few feet ahead of us and I realise how cold the inside is compared to everything else. I crawl inside and stop for a second, the chill cooling my body down from all that running. I mean, it's probably been in the shade its whole life. Taking a moment to look at everything, I realise that the cave is huge. Like, it's like the cave back at home, but if it was the size of the hole forest. There are little caved in parts of it that the people in here use for tiny houses. There are a lot of them here. The ponies we saw earlier aren't here anymore, but they're probably sleeping in the shelters they made for themselves. Willow walks next to me, and lays on me. I look up groggily at her face. She has tears streaming down both cheeks, and I hear her stifling sobs, so I pull her down and hold her close to me, letting her sob into my shoulder. I feel my own tears making their way down my face, and we both cry silently for a long time. Eventually, I feel her breathing level out, and I have a hard time keeping my eyes open, so I let them close and feel myself fall asleep.

I wake up, and my body feels numb, but I feel hungry. I open my eyes, my vision bleary. Even without my vision, I can tell Willow isn't awake yet. I slightly shrug her off, and she whimpers, but I manage to slip from under her without waking her up. I'm still kind of asleep, but I stand up on my creaky legs, and drag myself to one of the holes in the wall.

"Hello?" I call, hearing stirring inside the cave. So I walk a little closer, seeing someone that's taller than me stand up and walk to the entrance. He's got a blue-ish body and white hair. I say, "Do you know where food is?" and he nods, using his horn to lift some from his home to the ground in front of me. "Thanks," I say, and he says no problem in a deep voice.

The food he gives me are berries of all shapes and sizes. I recognise one that was large, and from what I can remember, sour. It is a raspberry. I smile, giddy and slightly tired, using my horn to bring the food to where Willow and I slept earlier. I realised now, that we were literally sleeping in the middle of the floor. I don't care though; I am too hungry to. I carried them all the way to Willow and shook her a little to wake her up.

Willow blinked her eyes open slowly, before she got up. I could tell that her body was creaky, too. She eyes the food that I brought and whispers something I can't hear very well. I nod anyways and she picks some berries up and shovels them into her mouth like she'd never eaten before. I do the same thing. As I said, I am too hungry to care right now. As I'm eating, I start thinking again on how to get us out of here safely.

As much as I hate it, I might have to leave my mother. She might come back, and if she doesn't, we won't have anywhere else to go. And we can't survive in this cave forever. Swallowing the last berry, I look to where Willow is, and she looks conked out. Like, totally dead asleep. I'm suddenly aware of a familiar burning in my throat, and I realise that I'm extremely thirsty, so I get up slowly and leave Willow to sleep in the cave.

I start walking, and I see her move slightly, but not enough to wake up. So I quickly get out of there and start looking for a river somewhere. But everywhere I look, there's only more and more bushes. And the road thingy seems even longer than before. I keep walking and walking, hoping to find some water. If I find some, I'll carry it back. I can't stop, no matter how long it takes. Everyone needs me.

I've found myself back to the forest where we actually live, and I have the best idea! I start galloping to the river immediately, excited to see that pony in the reflection! Maybe I'll even see my mother there!

While I'm finally here, I still am short on breath, so I wait for a few minutes to catch my breath. I hear some leaves rustle in the distance, but I'm sure it's just a bunny or a parasprite or something. I walk a bit closer to the river, and the water looks so good, I can't help but shove my whole head in there. The cool water feels really good on my face, because it's so dang warm out. I want to put my whole body in the water, but I decide against it, and lift some up into the air with my horn, when suddenly-

"Please, sir! I don't want any trouble!" I hear running from my left, traveling to my right, and something in me feels bad. I drop the water I was holding. It's my mother's voice. But it's already pretty late--it's dusk--so what took her so long? I walk up a bit closer, my hooves splashing in the water I had.

"Sir, please!" She shrieks again. I can see her and then another speedy figure running towards her. It stops for a moment, and I can't see for a second, when she stumbles and trips over a rock and my blood runs cold as I realise that it's the glint of a royal guard's armour that's blocking my vision. I blink back black spots and run as fast as I can to get to my mom. "Mama!" I shriek, but I don't think they can hear me.

The guard towers over her, before I can hear some sort of charging up sound. It's coming from the guards horn, which is now swirling with some uncontrolled shocking thing. Her eyes widen as she sees it, and she gasps out, "No-no, no-" before the pony stomps on her stomach to stop her from talking. "Please, sir, please!" she begs. I can feel my vision start to warble with tears as I get closer to them both. "No," I say under my breath. I can't do this. He's about to kill my mom.

My mother pulls her legs back and kicks swiftly, and lands her hooves on the guard's armoured stomach, but he barely moves, and the sound of his horn is still getting llouder. I start running towards them, and I hear my mom shout, "No!" And a zapping noise.

My mom convulsed in front of the Canterlot guard. He stepped over her and started walking away. I couldn't see anything, because the only thing I could see were my tears. And then the ground, that was very, very wet.

Author's Note

One more chapter to go!