It was a hot day, as many days were -- at least here in the Red Mountains. The sun shone hard against red rock, red sand, and red horsehide. Red-River-Running trotted lightly along a narrow trail, paying no heed to the jaw-dropping drop beneath his hooves. He was used to the mountain and it’s treacherous paths. He had been here all his life -- ever since he was a foal, at least. He wasn’t sure how he had gotten here, because he couldn’t remember his parents. Maybe he had no parents. Maybe he was just… made here, like the rocks and the sand, all of them made out of the same dark red clay-stuff that gave them their common colour.
As unlikely as it seemed, it wasn’t too hard to believe. Red blended perfectly into the mountainside, and moved over the rough terrain with remarkable ease.
Then again… the colour of your hide wasn’t the only thing that made you a desert-dweller. There were others who lived here -- not many, but some. And one of them he could see now, a pale spotted back standing on the edge of the steep cliff and looking downward at something. At what? That he could not see now, not from his position. He sniffed at the wind and trotted towards her, detecting something unusual. A predator? But no, if she had seen a mountain lion or something of the sort, why would she just stand there?
He made it to Darling’s side and stood by without any greeting (they didn’t have anyone to teach them manners, living out in the middle of nowhere with neither parents nor a herd). He looked down in the direction she was staring at, and saw…
“Ponies?” Several of them, strange ones, following a golden-skinned leader with a high head and yellow mane. “Where did they come from?”
lux_rayne13
