Yet, no thoughts registered in his mind other than his own. Steel gaze took in every detail of the clearing he had chosen to bed down in the night before. Logic encroached upon his natural instinct to flee perceived danger. This was his forest, his mountain range. He had ruled here for hundreds of years! There was nothing and no one that would dare threaten the forest god. Even if there was, he would sense them from a mile away. No one could surprise a telepath.
Breathing calmed, heartbeat slowed to a reasonable pace. The pain, if anything, grew worse. Now that he was fully awake, understanding dawned. A steady ache had grown just beneath his withers for the last several days, just as it did every six months--a cycle tied to the fabric of the cosmos. The solstice, his biannual reminder of everything he had left behind the day he stepped through the Rift. The wholeness of his own kind, the companionship of another Quirlicorn. It had been so long...so very, very long.
Suddenly, the pain spiked. Arthonen gritted his teeth, unwilling or unable--it was unclear which--to release the scream building in his chest. Neck arched, legs braced, the only piece of the stallion moving was his tail writhing in agony, hair whipping back forth in chaos. The skin on his sides suddenly bulged, muscles crawling beneath. A loud pop, the whoosh of a sudden strong draft of air, and it was over as quickly as it had begun.
Pain already fading, the stallion worked out his now cramped muscles. Every year this happened. As if it wasn't enough to remind him the one time, it came twice! Once in the midst of summer and once in the darkest of winter. As he would say, apparently going 3 months without sunlight, in the freezing cold, with no company, and constantly worrying if he was going to find something to eat the following day wasn't bad enough, the Creator had given this curse in disguise!
Thoroughly annoyed with whatever evil mastermind decided this was a good idea, Arth turned to flexing his new wings. They would be gone in a day or two, but as long as they existed, he might as well use them. That would, unfortunately, require a bit of doing. Flight was difficult in the best of times with plenty of regular practice. When said practice only came an absolute maximum of four days per year, it might be a bit of an overstatement to say he was particularly good at it.
Muscle and sinew pulled and stretched that had not pulled nor stretched in 6 lunar cycles. It was both a grating discomfort and a wonderful release. As near as the stag could tell, his wings lay dormant within him for most of the year. In time, he knew, that they would remain with him permanently, but he hadn't a clue exactly how that was achieved. Perhaps he had to appease some unknown deity, though he would never even admit to pondering such a ludicrous idea.
The other gift--if the wings could be considered a boon--however, he had been looking forward to. Once each wing was well stretched and rested comfortably against his barrel, the blue and white stallion turned his attention back to the clearing's floor. A beautiful patch of violet flowers grew just under the eaves of the surrounding trees. Experience had taught him never to touch the petals of a Kybloom plant, for they caused a horrible skin irritation and a migraine that could last for days. In extreme heat, they had a tendency to set fire to whatever was near. When frozen, they exploaded. All in all, a plant to avoid if it could be helped. The leaves beneath, conversely, were the sweetest of all the vegetation in the range.
At first, nothing happened as he concentrated on the floral cluster. Irritation mounting, Arthonen shook his head and tried again, his mind straining toward the clump of offending herbs. Abruptly, the flower heads shot off their stalks and flew a dozen feet into the air. The ghost of a smile touched the stag's eyes. Who, praytell, other than a god, could move an entity with naught but intense cerebration?
Who but a god could be so mighty, so grandiose, so magnificent even in a world of magic?
Arthonen squared his shoulders, jutting his chest further forward and arching his neck a little more than was necessary. Wings rustled for a moment before settling. He was quite proud of himself. Telekensis was no simple feat.
But...as with every year, there was no one to share this accomplishment with.
The great king of the forest was...
Alone.
Sure, there were the other inhabitants of the forest to gain some semblance of politics from, but there was not a single equine in the entirety of his mountains. He had spent a century searching for someone, anyone. Some had come and gone from time to time, for the Rift between realms was always open, but none had stayed for more than a simple conversation.
With an exhale, the stag deflated, his good mood purged by the crushing despair of loneliness. A last glance at the recently exposed stalks glistening in the morning sun, and he turned away. Suddenly they just weren't as desirable.
For several long moments, he aimlessly wandered through the trees he knew by heart. The forest was always the same, everlasting in its idle nature. He needed something new, change, dynamic. Maybe that's why it had been ordained that he, like all quirlicorns, unlocked his full magus potential on this day each passing of the extreme seasons. It was more than simply a reminder, it was a promise.
With one last look at the freshly exposed stalks, he turned away, headed toward the far end of the clearing. Great steel and white wings stretched to their full reach, nearly brushing the trees on either side. Takeoff was going to be interesting with such a narrow runway.
Takeoff was going to be interesting regardless.
A few experimental flaps and he figured that was nothing else for it. Powerful hindquarters launched him into a blinding gallop, hurtling toward the trees across the meadow at breakneck speed. Wings pulled up and pushed down with all his might. Hard wood loomed directly ahead. Once, again, thrice... Tree trunks came closer still. Arthonen began to wonder if it would have been more intelligent to find a bigger patch of open ground. The fourth downstroke finally lifted his regal bulk into the air. It was just as well, for he still grazed the canopy with his chest and forlegs as he soared up above the treetops. Well, at least he was in a younger portion of the forest. He would have been eating twigs if the trees were any taller, and bark did not quite make the list of his prefered foods.
For a breath, he seemed to wobble in the air. "Bah! Wings..." the word dripped with annoyance. There would come a day where flight would be as commonplace as breathing, but it was not this day. No, this day they had a mind of their own. The wobbling turned to a full spiral and Arthonen fought to right himself, twisting his tail balance and as a rudder at the same time.
And that is how the great forest king found himself hanging upside down in midair, wings flapping frantically, with a mouthful of tail hair.
Sputtering, and losing altitude far too quickly, Arthonen wrenched his back attempting to get his legs between his body and the trees crashing up to meet his impending demise. Finally, an updraft caught beneath his wing feathers, granting the stability he needed to fully remember how his flight muscles worked.
It was not his most graceful moment. No one had witnessed the malfunction, though, surely. The stallion's long tail flicked a few times, straightening itself out as if simply addressing the tangled locks were his intention all along.
He searched the minds of everyone within range...just in case.
The first thing the stallion noticed after setting his sight upon the Sacred Tree was the complete lack of change. It was still just as magnificent, just as awe inspiring as it had been centuries before when he had been but a rambunctious colt, content to simply pester his dam and wonder at the world around them. The air sang with the magic emanating from whatever Creator resided beneath its bark. The second thing he noticed was how much had changed. The Tree was larger, more imposing. Hundreds of years of hooves had passed beneath its eaves, wearing down tracks he recognized and creating new paths for the next generation. It was a life raft for the drowning horse.
Especially with all the dots of bright color. From a distance, it was almost as if the Tree had gained a sort of emmenence, specks of vividness bouncing through, between, and around its branches. Upon closer inspection, however, he noted that they were not simply in the tree, but on the trunk and even littering the ground. It registered that these miniature rainbow mimics were not of the Tree itself, but singular entities in their own right.
Immediately, Arthonen opened his mind. The dots were moving in all different directions--it was not a stretch to assume they were living entities. A seeming collective conscious weighed just on the edge of his range. There was a tangled web of thought that would take years to decypher even with his extensive experience. Less interested in the Tree itself, the solstice, or even the other quirlicorns gathered about in celebration of the longest day of the year, the stag propelled himself forward with hard backstrokes. There was a curiosity near the Tree he needed to sort out.
Unfortunately, he miscalculated his ability.
As great wings pushed him ever closer to the Tree, far too much of his attention was allocated to the small creatures infesting its immediate vicinity. They were...frogs? What sort of frog showed the color of a rainbow? His forest had frogs aplenty in the warmer months, but they stayed near the wetlands in the depths of valleys. These creatures.... He didn't have the words.
The smaller the distance became, the more he could make out individuals in the mass of tiny bodies. They had a certain intelligence he was surprised to find in any creature that was not, at the very least, covered in fur. Further examination revealed why they seemed to all be of one mind at a distance: the amphibians had a talent for language. Perhaps not the ability to speak it, but certainly the ability to comprehend it.
Arthonen discovered his error as soon as his front hoof hit the ground. Too much speed compounded the problem of not nearly enough practice. Hoof bounced, wings clipped earth, knee came flying up directly into his nose, eyes rolled in pain, tail twisted attempting to compensate, balance skewed far too farward, and the stallion eventually rolled to a stop in a heap of fur, tail, and feathers.
There was a soft plop and a quiet rrrrbt! just in front of his muzzle. The stag opened his eyes, blinked rapidly several times to clear the dust, and looked down his nose and the tiny creature. It was a vivid green with even brighter red and orange stripes. The coloring screamed danger to any predator, but he wasn't going to eat it--a stud was not afraid of a prism. Nares quivered, drinking in the new scent. Once he was sufficiently convinced it was, in fact, a frog, the stallion untangled himself. Having a long prehensile tail was rather nifty at times. At others, it made life downright impossible.
The small creature made another sound. As he had suspected, it only had the vocals for the language it was born with, unlike certain species of birds. Arthonen focused his thoughts. "Greetings, diminuitive one," he broadcasted from his mind. "Are you capable of understanding mind-speech?"
There was naught but a blank stare in response. The stallion was sorely disappointed. Before he could turn away, he noticed the mass of color descending upon him. Soon the one frog was joined by a dozen more. Each was completely different than the next, yet he could no more tell them apart than he could name blades of grass. The largest frog hopped forward, a sort of imperialness about her that made the stallion look twice.
"Yes," she squeaked, the sound from her throat turned into words only by the gist of her tone and thought. "Will learn. Take time."
The stud found himself rather taken by this extremely simple approach to conversation. It was almost endearing how it attempted to convey the most information with the least number of words. Such a philosophy would eliminate the horrors of small talk. "Allow me to help." Without waiting for a reply, he opened his mind slightly, implanting as much as possible into their small minds.
"Words good. We thank you," the yellow female mentally intoned.
"You are welcome. What are you?"
The group of tiny amphibians began to speak to each other, using a great many physical symbols to convey their point. Arthonen understood none of it. Finally, the female re-emerged. "Poison."
Perhaps he had misheard. "You are poison?" the stallion asked.
"We are frog," she said patiently.
"Yet you called yourself poison." If anything, his tone had more patience than hers.
"We are poison. We are also frog. Poison Frog. You are horse."
In a stroke of anger, he lifted the miniscule animal into the air. "I am a Quirlicorn!" Though it was blasted into her mind, he realized he'd spoken aloud as well.
Seemingly unimpressed by his sudden display of power and temper, she said, "You are Quirlicorn. You are horse. Quirlicorn Horse."
Perhaps he had overreacted. She was, in all technicality, correct. It simply wounded his pride slightly to be compared to such a beast of burden. Very well, he gently plopped her back into the grass. It was then that he realized many of her friends were yelling at him. Very little of it was particularly nice.
"Alright. What is a poison frog?" he asked over the yelling.
"Me!" answered a frog he couldn't see.
"Me, too!"
"And me."
"Yes, we all are. We are all poison frog."
Arthonen could feel a headache building just behind his eyes. "Let us simply assume that you are all a poison frog. What, praytell, is a poison frog? I assume that you are poisonous?"
"Yes," came the collective reply.
Clearly, this was going to take a while. The stag settled himself back down onto the soft grass. If the simplicity of their side of this conversation was going to prove so difficult, he may as well get comfortable. "What sort of poison?"
Hours passed without even the slightest notice. Frogs came and went, adding to the conversation or not, as dictated by each personality. He learned that there were several different types of this frog, and that all had a different color. He learned that some could interbreed and that some could not. He learned that the golden female he had first spoken to was the most toxic of all the poison types. Yet never did he learn what it was that made these animals poisonous, nor did he learn just what the poison would do. The most answer he could pull from the group was, "You die."
They taught him much, but he felt the only knowledge gained was that there was more to learn. However, the sun was fading, and the lack of warmth could not be missed. A glance to the purpling horizon, and Arthonen jumped to his hooves for the second time in a single day. When the sun set, he was sure to lose his wings. Unless he planned on remaining here, in the world of his ancestors, the blue and white stag needed to take off immediately.
"Where go, Horned One?" the little yellow female asked.
"Back to my mountains."
"Why not stay?"
He wasn't sure which frog asked, but it was just as well. He hadn't a clue how to answer. As the years had passed, he had forgotten just how much love was seated in his heart for this land. Without a ready response, his gaze swept the landscape. Many of the other quirlicorns had already left, though it did not sadden the stud. To his chagrin, he had enjoyed his long afternoon conversing with a lesser species.
An emotion he didn't quite recognize prickled behind Arthonen's eyes. It came as a surprise for the stallion. There was a familiarity here, a love for this place that could not be denied or forgotten, but it was not home. Home was the sound the wind made as it tore through his snowcapped peaks. It was the scent of the rain in the spring showers. It was the taste of fresh Kybloom stalks and the picture of a mountain sunset. This was a wonderful place with phenomenal memories, but it was not home.
He had his answer. "Because I want to go home to my trees and my lakes and my rivers and my peaks."
The golden female disappeared into a writhing mass of amphibious bodies for several long moments. Though they had gained a familiarity with his language, apparently there were still things they did not wish him to hear. Suddenly, the group of color dispersed, many of the frogs traveling back toward the tree, with about a dozen--many from the original group--hopping forward toward Arthonen's front hooves. He quickly took a step back.
"We go home, too," the female said. The swarm of frogs jumped onto his body. It was a very strange sensation. "We hold. You fly. We go home, now."
He didn't have time to argue. Hoping she was right and they were capable of such a feat, the stallion's hindquarters launched him into a dead sprint. Take-off was far easier the second time around--maybe because he'd had all day to get used to the new apendages...or perhaps it was just born from a rather terrifying need to return before his wings suddenly disappeared and he dropped out of the sky!
It was only as he flew through the Rift and found himself safely back within his own realm that he remembered he could have just magicked the little riders off his back. He couldn't honestly say he was sorry to have forgotten.
Perhaps...it was possible...the solstices weren't a day of curses afterall.
