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Night blossomed with cricket song and wind swaying young branches to a rustling chorus. A cool breeze caught Njeri’s mane, tossing pink curls across their face. Their siblings slept curled around them, nestled under the protective limbs of a berry bush, plump with ripe fruit. Njeri stretched their neck and wrapped their lips around a berry, plucking it mouse-quiet from the stem. Flavors burst across their tongue in a canvas of sweet and sour. No one stirred.

Good. Everyone was properly tuckered out from the day’s work, so extricating themself should be a matter of…

There. Njeri rose in fractal inches, holding their breath until they towered over their siblings. Iselexon’s quiet snoring and Jeltsje’s sleep murmurs continued unperturbed. Njeri let out a breath and tiptoed past them, thanking the ancestors for abnormally long legs.

The ground muffled their steps, moist with evening dew, and this deep into spring there was hardly a dry leaf left to crunch. Njeri picked their way free of the nest and ambled out from the bushes.

Silence reigned behind them.

Njeri took off down the path, hooves clambering, heart beating like wild bird wings. Tomorrow, Njeri’s year mates would gather at the edge of the barrens to begin their long trek to Grandfather Tree. Njeri was meant to be one of their number. But they didn’t want to wait. They wanted to be first.

They let out a hollering cry of triumph as they burst through the bushes lining the edge of Homewood and desert sand greeted their hooves.

The hardest part was over.

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Njeri’s pace slogged. Even with evening chill fighting off heatsroke, fatigue had overtaken them. Njeri was long-limbed, for sure, their strides eating up the ground in smooth waves, but Njeri was also large for a noulicorn. Might have been gangly if it weren’t for the rich life of a council member's foal.

“I’ve gotten out of shape,” Njeri puffed to themself, head hanging low.

“You were never in shape to begin with,” a sharp voice barked behind them.

Njeri knew that voice better than they knew their own. They didn’t slow their pace - it was already a snail’s trod - or bother to glance over their shoulder. In short time, Iselexon, gleaming black in the moonlight, made his way to Njeri with a stormy expression darkening his face.
“Hello, brother,” Njeri greeted, brightly as they could when worn to the bone.

“What were you thinking coming out here on your own?”

Njeri met his gaze, expression open. Iselexon snorted and looked away. He knew exactly how much Njeri cared about being first for things. The first to discover a new plant, the first to find a good glade in Homewood, the first to…

The first to do everything, that’s what Njeri wanted. And, especially, the first to find a new Homewood, if such a thing existed.

“You could’ve gotten lost.”

“Don’t be silly.” Njeri glanced upward. “The stars always set the right course.”

“You and stars,” Iselexon grumped. He didn’t ask Njeri to turn around and head home, he matched their pace and ground his teeth until Njeri was certain they’d be shorn to the gum.

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Dawn glinted rosy gold when Njeri and Iselexon pulled themselves up the last step to Grandfather Tree’s plateau. The tree was wreathed in sunrise, dressed in ethereal flame, shining bright against the bleak barren background.

“Magnificent,” Njeri whispered, awed.

Iselexon followed silently behind them, until their shoulders pressed together. Njeri always felt imposing next to their brother. Iselexon was tiny where Njeri was long and round, but this tree dwarfed them both.

Njeri shut their eyes and waited.

The sunset bleached away to murky black, leaving dingy dredges of smog to grasp at Njeri’s face. They shook their head, snorting wildly to force the bog stink from their nostrils, and stumbled backward. Their hooves splashed in something sodden and mud sucked at their feet, dragging them down. Njeri leapt forward, shaking the muck off their leg. The splendor of grandfather tree was gone, replaced by blackbriar bog’s dismal putrescence. 

“Lovely.” Njeri sniffed. Nothing for it though, Grandfather Tree saw fit to send them here. No point in fussing. 

Njeri didn’t enjoy the stink anymore than any other noulicorn, but the swamp held multitudes of hidden treasures. With Iselexon griping at their back, they’d waded the bog as deep as half a day’s travel took them, masks of spider silk over their faces to rough out the poison. They’d coughed black bile for weeks afterward. Iselexon begged Njeri not to go back, so Njeri got better at sneaking off. 

It was earlier in the day. The sun cast ghostly pale fingers through the cloud of smog, blocked by grey cover that made it painless to stare. The weak light illuminated black corpses of trees, growing - or dying - in a thick labyrinth around Njeri. They’d been brought here for a reason, and they wouldn’t find it dallying about on a peat mound. Njeri slipped into the water. 

Most of the bog was only deep enough to reach Njeri’s stifle, a benefit of having long legs, but here Njeri’s hooves barely touched the bottom. They’d be taking a very long bath once this was over. 

Njeri waded through the trees, uncertain where they were meant to go, only that going had to be the correct course of action. The trees drew shadowy fingers over the water, making monsters of the mire. Gas bubbles popped putrid perfume, making Njeri’s skin twitch at every noise. 

The water was blackened mud sludge, barely water at all, with slimy plants that curled around Njeri’s legs as they pushed through. The ground dipped and forced Njeri to swim, but still they kept on. Trees grew sparse and the few peat mounds Njeri clambered up collapsed under their weight, diffusing in swirls of black mud. Njeri’s muscles ached from strain, their eyes watered. Film covered their mouth and nose, wretchedly stinking and forcing them to wheeze for air. 

“This one can’t go on much longer,” Njeri gasped, directing their eyes upward as if the tree might appear, a watchful guardian. 

A large mound appeared in the distance at Njeri’s left, sporting a pair of twisted trees that grew together in a v, wizened fruit hanging from their dead branches. Njeri squeezed their eyes shut in silent relief and turned toward them. 

Something glittered in the dark. 

Njerri whipped their gaze to it. 

Under the water, something glowed bright enough to slice through the silt. It was some lengths off and Njeri’s muscles screamed exhaustion. They needed a break, but if Njeri swam further away, would they spot this bright thing again? They couldn’t be certain. It would be so easy to get turned around out here, so easy for the blackness to swallow up whatever was trying to peer out. Njeri cast a tired look at the v-shaped trees and turned toward the anomaly. 

Their swim was slow and plodding, legs screaming for Njeri to stop, to rest, but they pushed onward, biting back the ache. Every inch forward felt like a mile, and still Njeri got no closer to the mysterious glow. 

Iselexon would be spitting mad. The image made Njeri laugh, weak and swallowed up by the swamp, but a laugh nonetheless. 

The glow shivered beneath them. They’d made it! 

Njeri stared, trying to sieve through the black for some hint at what the object was. What shone like that under the water? How large was it? How deep did the bog go? Njeri had no idea, no way to measure, and no one to watch their back if things got awry. 

But they had to try. They’d come this far. 

Njeri gulped a lung of air and dove under the grimy surface. The water stung their eyes, a hundred biting cuts of dirt and poison, but Njeri couldn’t shut them or they might lose sight of their treasure. Deeper, and deeper, and deeper until blackness closed in on him like walls. The glow pulsed and Njeri could see it. 

A fish! 5 feet long at least and brilliant, luminescent white, sitting at the bottom of the bog. How did it survive? Gills cut across its bright body in slashes of vibrant red. Its fins coiled around it like ghosts, swaying in the pitiful tide. It looked up at Njeri with black eyes, mouth agape, and with a massive kick of its tail and shot forward into the dark. 

Beautiful. 

Njeri’s lungs burned. They shut their eyes, rightened themself, and began the slow ascent to oxygen.