"I'm leaving to go get some food for you two, don't move a muscle, okay?" The mother of both Kanaan and Willow warned, standing in front of both of them. "You could get hurt. I do not want to see any of you out of the cave before I'm home." She bat her eye towards a spaced-out Kanaan. "Kanaan?" Kanaan jolted out of her daze and nodded, sheepishly grinning.
"Yes, mom!" She chirped. Their mother walked closer to the filly, swiftly moving a tuft of her cerise hair over her left eye. This one had a line straight through the middle like a predator of some kind, while the other, uncovered one, was a normal one, like her mother and sister. The rest of her hair was kept in a very long ponytail that was tied up at the very bottom of her hair.
"Please make sure to keep your eye hidden, darling. It makes you a target for the hunters." Kanaan looked down, tired of how much this was repeated. "Ponies don't take kindly to kirins or changelings."
"I know, momma..." Their mother nodded, before walking up to the timid and shivering WIllow.
"Do not go outside, Willow. Please," Her mother lifted her hoof up to Willow's cheek.
"You kn-know I wouldn't go ou-out there..." Willow shut her eyes at the prospect of going out there--a fragile filly walking out into the changeling (and potentially kirin) murdering world. She would be seen as a threat to be exterminated, and that's not even mentioning the horns protruding out each side of her head. She would be dead meat... Just the thought of it brought tears to her eyes. She thought about it a lot.
"Please, don't cry..." her mother pleaded, the filly moving forward and hugging the older hybrid tightly. "I'll be back before you even know I'm gone."
"I don- I don't want you to-to leave...!" She burrowed her muzzle into her mother's chest.
"Please." The mother begged. Willow hesitantly loosened her grip, still teary eyed and sniffling. She choked back a sob before slinking back against the stone wall behind her. She burrowed her head into her hooves and turned away from them all. Kanaan hopped off of the stone that she was on and gave her mother a quick hug before hopping back onto the stone that her sister was on.
"See you later, momma!" She said, waving. Her mother smiled softly and nodded.
"I'll see you two later. Goodbye," She said finally, swiftly turning to the forest and gracefully walking out of sight, almost gliding. Kanaan looked at her sister, who was sniffling next to her, and carefully tiptoed away from her. she made it to the grassy ground and slowly walked to the edge of the damp cave they were in until she couldn't see her mother anymore.
"C'mon, Willow..." Kanaan whispered, tapping the hunk of stone that Willow was resting on.
"Are you crazy?!" Willow whispered back, through tears, "Momma told us no-not to leave..." Kanaan shot her a pleading look before manually going up to her and pulling on her. "I don't wanna go..." She groaned, holding back a sob.
"Please!" Willow looked at her begging sister and sighed before nodding.
"Okay..." Willow slowly crawled off of the rock she was on and staggered a few inches forward next to Kanaan. "I don't wan-want to go too f-far..." She told Kanaan.
Kanaan ran out of the cave while Willow shuffled nervously behind her. Willow felt herself staring at the cave that they lived in growing smaller--No, farther away as they walked. She never really came with Kanaan to see these kinds of things. She usually stayed in the house until their mother came back with goods from the Ponyville market. She didn't even think she'd ever gone more than a few feet away from the cave, but to use the bathroom. She finally saw the cave leave her sight, and gulped to steady herself. She felt tears bunch up in her eyes and she tried her hardest to get them to go away, for she'd seen more than she ever had in the cave.
What looked like unending forests of large, lush, almost neon trees covered with leaves that have dew beading on them. She couldn't help but let her mouth fall open as awe consumed her.
"This- You've been seeing this eve-eve-every time you come outside?" Willow gasped incredulously to Kanaan. Kanaan just looked at her funny.
"Uh. Yeah?" Then Willow did something-- Something she'd never seen Willow do. First, the corners of Willow's mouth perked up, her eyes still wide. Then, a large, beaming smile almost as bright as the forest around them came out, as her eyes were filled with all the wonders of everything she never knew she needed.
"It's...So..." She couldn't contain her excitement as she bounced up and down, galloping to every plant and bug and creature she saw in front of her. She gleefully ran ahead of her sister, laughing, a wonderful, lilted sound. Kanaan was stunned for a second, before smiling; Willow's finally loosened up! She chuckled and blindly followed Willow, grinning.
"I ne-never no-noticed how pretty it was out here." Willow sighed happily, Kanaan finally keeping up with her.
"I guess I never realised how pretty it is. I always come out here. Hey, look--" Kanaan pointed over with a hoof to their right, and Willow saw a beautiful river with flowers littering the outside. "That river's got the weirdest water I've ever seen! If you go over there and peer into the water, you'll see another pony staring right back at you." Kanaan claimed. They both trotted over there, and Willow did indeed see another pony staring back at her. The pony that looked at her had a white coat, with a green and yellowy man. She also had a pair of some red horns on each side of her head. Willow, still looking at the water, lightly put a hoof on her horns, feeling them.
"That's-That's no-not me, is it?" She looked back at Kanaan, who now had a funny look on her face.
"That's weird. The pony looks just like you!" Kanaan slowly walked to the rive, right next to Willow, peering into the water along with her.
"See? That's her," She said, pointing a hoof smugly at the water underneath them. It was a filly with a charcoal like pinkish coat, that turned to a lighter variant on her muzzle, tail, and limbs. Willow snickered and then bursted out into laughter. Kanaan looked incredulously at the laughing filly, who was now rolling on the ground, pointing at her.
"What?" She asked. "What's so funny?"
"Th-That's you!" WIllow laughed, her sister looking as confused as could be. Kanaan was so confused, she just laughed right along, and the peaceful, quiet forest was filled with the sound of two giggling fillies for a minute.
"Ahh..." Kanaan finished, wiping a tear from her eye. "Let's go check something else out, eh?" Willow nodded, but felt her legs buckle under her.
"Aughh..." She muttered, falling to the floor. "I'm-I'm sorry, I nev-never left th-the cave f-for this long..." Kanaan put her head on Willow's underbelly for just a second before Willow felt herself go up in the air and land squarely on Kanaan's back.
"C'mon, You can't think I'll just leave you to go back to the cave, do you? Let's go!"
"Wuh-woah!" Willow blurted out, startled from the sudden bumping up and down she was feeling. She settled down, feeling the wind blow through her short hair. She smiled softly, just like their mother, and laid down and enjoyed the ride. Slowly, the world around her seemed to fade into a breezy, calm blur of green and brown and blue and she felt herself drift into a peaceful sleep.
After who knows how long, she felt herself being jolted awake and getting bucked off.
"Aaaugh!" Willow yelped, landing harshly on the grassy ground. She shook the dirt and loose grass of of her and looked at Kanaan. "What was th-that for?!"
"Sorry, Willow, but look!" Kanaan pointed to a bunch of traintracks that seemed to lead on forever. "I want to follow it."
"What is that?" Willow asked. Kanaan shrugged.
"I dunno, but it's gotta be something. Maybe it'll lead us to Ponyville!" Kanaan exclaimed, now running to the tracks and following it blindly. Willow looked behind them, seeing the path that eventually lead back to their humble home. But she looked forward to the traintracks that lead to... Adventure. She looked back again. The familiar. She looked forward.
"Let's go." Destiny.
They set off, going to their right, and just seeing the forest for a while. Just endless trees at their sides. Willow looked at Kanaan a few times during the "hike" impatiently, but Kanaan didn't look back. Her sister seemed to be determined. Determined for what, though, she didn't know.
"Why the weird look, WIll?" Willow looked embarrassedly--she hadn't realised she was staring.
"Sorry. Why do you want to go-to go down th-this place so badly?" Kanaan just lookede at her and went back to staring blankly ahead of her. "Kanaan? Why do you want to go down thi-this place so-"
Kanaan suddenly stopped running, leaving WIllow still scampering ahead of her. Eventually Willow stopped and she looked back at her sister and Kanaan had this dark and stormy look about her.
"Kan-Kanaan-?"
"Our mom...She's in trouble," Kanaan said, barely whispering. Willow turned to stone for a moment before choking out:
"Ma-maybe sh-she- Maybe sh-she isn't! How would y-you kn-know th-that? Don't jo-joke ar-around like th-that!" Kanaan laughed bitterly, her face still shadowy. She started running again, more dutifully this time. Willow crumpled in treepidation as a million thoughts ripped through her mind like a stampede. "Why did Kanaan say our mom was in trouble? Where is our mom? Are we even in Ponyville? Are we lost? I don't think I can see the path we were on when we left! Will we ever find our way back home? We're going to die, aren't we?"
Kanaan and Willow kept walking on the traintracks until it led to a cave's tunnel, with a bustling city on the other side. They were at Ponyville. Willow's worried expression lessened, but she still looked nervously.
"Kanaan, are we here?" Kanaan looked ahead, still cautiously. Willow'd never seen her sister this cautious, and she would have liked to say that she liked her change of personality, but to be honest, it freaked her out and made her worry even more. But all that time in the forest must have taught her a thing about safety, right? Maybe it was okay. Maybe they were going to be okay.
Kanaan carefully stepped through the cave, seeing cold and shivering ponies that seemed to be just skin and bones on them. "Did these ponies not have homes or something?" WIllow wondered, "Why don't they go in their homes?" The ponies were huddled together in the dark of the cave and just stared at Kanaan and Willow as they walked through. They looked to be slightly disturbed; it seemed they didn't get visitors very often. Willow looked back at one of the ponies, a middle aged looking colt with a khaki coloured coat, and a short dark grey mane with a single grey stripe through it. She opened her mouth to say something, but was bumped by Kanaan, her sister making a motion with her head that meant, "Keep moving." She trotted along and the pony looked back finally, his eyes looking sad and empty. She swallowed down her concerns and kept looking ahead.
They were back on a road of traintracks, with the city they needed to be in a distance away. Again, they walked a long distance, but they were getting closer because they saw little houses and cottages dotting their peripheral vision. Finally, after about 15 more minutes of walking, they got to the heart of the city. They had to duck behind a few barrels that were lying around as to not get noticed and maybe even killed by castle guards that were patrolling around.
Kanaan gulped at the sight of them; tall, muscular stallions that looked like they were just waiting for some poor changeling or kirin or hybrid filly to stumble upon them, looking for directions back to their home... A poor filly with cerise hair, or greenish yellowish hair asking how to get to their mother... A filly that would be exterminated immediately as ordered by The Third Princess, Cadence.
Kanaan grimaced as she thought of the evil princess, who had ordered for all changelings to be hunted and killed to ensure safety for Equestria. She thought about marching over to... To wherever that namby-pamby princess lived, and—and giving her a piece of her mind! "Who cares about your little Equestria!" She'd yell. But she couldn't. It would put everyone she knew in danger. Her entire family. Maybe not her father, who ran away from them. Her mother tells them that he's most likely in the "Everfree Forest", and that he'll probably come back to them eventually to be their father, but Kanaan doubted that the Everfree Forest even existed. She couldn't imagine someone else besides her mother being her parent at all.
"Kanaan? Can we go n-now?" Willow whispered, forcing Kanaan back into reality.
"C'mon," Kanaan said, sneaking past some more tables filled with food. There were food carts everywhere with lines of ponies at them, buying and bartering. Thankfully, they were too busy with that to notice the two fillies sneaking right past them. They tiptoed past the others until they found themselves behind a random house. They sat down to talk (or whisper).
"What do we do n-now?" Willow asked. Kanaan sighed.
"I don't know... I know mama is near us. She's here somewhere. I can feel it." Her ears twitched and flipped every whcih way as if she was trying to detect her. Willow sighed and buried her head in her hooves.
"What if we don't find her?" Willow asked, mostly to herself. Her heart panged with the fear of being murdered by one of those heartless castle guards.
"We will," Kanaan assured her, though she still had a hint of unsureness in her voice, "...We've gotta."
Survive, Because What Else Can You Do?
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! 