1
Zulu sniffed the air around her. Nothing. What had her mother smelled? She looked around her and saw nothing. Zulu was a gray foal; her coat resembled the color of the sky. In fact, her name meant sky. Her mother’s grandparents had been African and so is her name.
“Mama I don’t smell anything,” she told her mother. Her mother was standing close to her. Guarding her almost; her mother was white as dove and her name was Noona, bird in African.
“Don’t worry baby eventually your nose will be strong enough to pick up on anything,” Noona said nudging her daughter to move forward. “Come on, let’s go. We shouldn’t stay here long.”
Zulu looked up at her mother, her eyes wide and questioning, “Why not mama? What will happen to us if we do stay?” Zulu looked around her, this land was perfect. It was covered in grasses and there was even a lake in the middle. It seemed perfect; what could ever be wrong with this land?
Noona walked on ignoring her daughter’s questions. She flicked her tail trying to get her to hurry up. Noona herself was a Pegasus, and so were the horses that owned this land. And they would only accept other pegasi. That was why Noona was leaving this valley; her daughter was slowly turning into a felin.
Zulu walked behind her mother, no matter how much she loved this valley she would follow her mother relentlessly. They hopped out of the valley and soon reached the nomads lands again. The nomads lands were lands between territories were where horses without homes could live. Zulu and Noona had spent their entire time on Sonofar in these lands. They hadn’t yet been accepted into a stallion’s territory. To Zulu it seemed that they may never find anyone who would accept them both.
2
The next day Zulu awoke to see her mother curled up beside her. Dew covered them both. Zulu stood up and shook herself. She felt the chill of the morning instantly and she wanted to crawl back up with her mother. Zulu looked up at the sky and the early morning sunrise greeted her.
The first rays of sun were just now appearing above the rolling horizon and Zulu hoped the sun would soon be up to warm her skin and soul. But for now she would have to entertain herself till her mother was up and active.
She ran along the outer banks of the nomads lands and sniffed at the spring flowers. Buttercups and dandelions littered the grassy plain, around them dragonflies and bees hovered in the early morning air. She tried to bite at one or two of them when she heard a call sound from the hill next to her.
She ran to check and see what her mother wanted. “What mama?” She asked and curled her lips around her teeth as soon as she was done talking, feeling the fangs that were starting to replace her straight-rowed horse teeth.
Noona flicked her tail in invitation to follow her. It would be another day of walking and trying to find a stallion that would accept them both. Noona wouldn’t leave her daughter with a separate herd like most mothers had. No, no matter what happened they had to be in a herd together.
Today they would visit a lake that Noona had heard was the clearest in the world. “Today Zulu,” she began to tell her daughter of the place they were hoping to travel to. “Today we are going to a lake that had the clearest water in the whole wide world. Today we’re going to join the silver stallion’s herd and we’re going to live happily ever after. That’s what we’re going to do today.
Zulu jumped up like a deer, bucking her back legs as she did. Her mother’s stories always ended with them living happily ever after, but in real life they ended with them sleeping in the nomads lands, but they always seemed to spark an interest in Zulu, an interest that maybe, just maybe they might really live happily ever after someday. “Just like the horses in the Old Tales, Mama?” She said running to walk beside her mother.
“Yes, buttercups, just like in the Old Tales,” she said and sent a silent prayer to StarHerd that they really would live happily ever after.
3
They walked all day and reached the lake by late afternoon. The sun was just starting to sink under the horizon and Noona’s hopes of joining a herd today went with it.
“She’ll eat the whole herd if she gets the chance!” The silver stallion said.
“Look at her,” Noons said and swished her tail towards her daughter. “She’s a foal. Just like your own children. She’s harmless,” Noona said calmly.
“Yes but she won’t always be so small. She’ll grow into a predator and predators have killed our kind before,” said the stallion, remembering how his own brother had been dragged away by a wolf when he was a foal.
“No, she’s not like that. My daughter would never kill her own kin,” she said staring the stallion, Darkpelt, in the eye. He was a hippocampus and ruled the harshly, but no matter what living with him promised they needed a home.
“No, I cannot put my herd in danger no matter what,” he said and shook his head, his mind was made up and no argument she made would change that.
Noona cursed him and spat on the ground below his feet. She turned and stalked off, sadness showing on her face. “Come on buttercups. We’ve got to go.”
While her mother was talking to the stallion Zulu was jumping and bucking around with the other foals. None of them seemed to care that her mouth had fangs and her coat was striped like tiger.
She ran forward and chased a spotted foal around small field of grass. Laughing she turned around the foal chased her. Then Zulu saw her mother coming nearer to her, sadness unmistakable. Zulu stopped in her tracks, the spotted foal coming very close to knocking her over.
Noona flicked her tail and Zulu looked back at the other foal sadness was in both of their eyes. “Bye Leafmane,” she said fell in step behind her mother. Her head was held low and she felt like a boulder had just hit her.
Noona walked on and finally they both disappeared on the horizon. She stopped at a patch of blue stem and lay down. They would rest here tonight.
“Mama, can you sing that song again?” Zulu asked and lay down beside her mother.
A knot formed in Noona throat and it was many moments before she could answer her daughter without bursting into tears. “Yes, buttercups, I’ll sing for you.”
And with that she began:
“Just like a star across my sky,
Just like an angel off the page,
You have appeared to my life,
Feel like I'll never be the same,
Just like a song in my heart,
Just like oil on my hands,
Oh... I do love you,
You've got this look I can't describe,
You make me feel like I'm alive,
When everything else is a fade,
Without a doubt you're on my side,
Heaven has been away too long,
Can't find the words to write this song,
Oh.,..
Your love,
I have come to understand,
The way it is,
It's not a secret anymore,
'cause we've been through that before,
From tonight I know that you're the only one,
I've been confused and in the dark,
Now I understand,
Just like a star across my sky,
Just like an angel off the page,
You have appeared to my life,
Feel like I'll never be the same,
Just like a song in my heart,
Just like oil on my hands”
When she was finished Zulu was snoring lightly. Noona looked down at her daughter. She was an angel, most of the time. Then Noona laid her head across her daughter’s body and slept.
(SONG IS "LIKE A STAR" BY CORRINE BAILEY RAY, NOT ME. TEXT COPYRIGHT TO ME. USE WITHOUT MY WRITTEN PERMISSION AND FACE THE WRATH OF THE U.S. LEGAL SYSTEM.)