Owner: Merlin's Heir
Equid Name: Shadow of Time (Lost for short)
Equid Age: 1
Gender: Female
Mother: Tyme
Father: Ringo-da-Mingo
Short story about her and her sister: "Come on, Dark!" Lost whinnied gently to her dark bay sister. Their bright white pinto markings stood out in the darkness. "Just one look! Please?" Lost gave her older sister her darling little "puppy dog eyes" and her Dark couldn't help but give in.
"Oh, alright," she finally assented. "But just a few minutes. If we're not back before they wake up, you know they'll have all the equids in the world looking for us."
"Okay," Lost agreed quietly. "It's not far and it's easy to get there." Lost had been trying to get her sister to see her little "special place" for a long time, and now, with a perfectly full moon, she'd decided she couldn't miss this chance for Dark to see it.
At a swift canter, Lost lead Dark across the flat, open land before them.
"I don't see anything out here," Dark neighed to Lost a few minutes later. "Please don't tell me you've gotten lost again?" Lost suddenly swerved to the left and Dark, surprised, did her best to follow. Lost wove nimbly through a thin canyon while Dark struggled to stay at a fast speed in this unknown place. She lost sight of Lost, but when she got to the end, Lost was waiting for her.
"Sorry I didn't slow down," Lost apologized. "I'm just so used to coming here alone."
"It's alright," Dark panted, "but can we stop for a moment so I can catch my breath, please?" Lost agreed and they stood there for a moment, surrounded in silence that was only disturbed by Dark's breathing. Soon she had caught her breath and Lost lead Dark into a rocky tunnel in the side of the canyon.
"How on earth can you find your way through this thing?" Dark inquired after she bumped into the wall yet again. "I can't see a thing!"
"It's not usually this dark," Lost told her, stopping in confusion. She squeaked in surprise when Dark bumped into her.
"Sorry, I didn't know you'd stopped," Dark apologized. "Why have you stopped?"
"It's usually much lighter than this," Lost explained, "and I'm trying to figure out how it got so dark." The ground shook and the equids looked at each other - as best as they could in the dark, that is.
"Avalanche!" they screamed in unison, running back to the entrance. They wound their way around bends and curves, running for their lives. Lost suddenly halted.
"Dark, stop!" she called to her fleeing sister. Dark stopped and neighed back, asking why she should stop.
"There's an avalanche, Lost!" she cried. "We've got to get out of here!"
"Dark, listen," Lost instructed her patiently. Without the pounding of hooves on rock, Dark could now hear rocks falling in the cave. Rocks... falling... The sound was coming from the direction of the entrance. The two stood there silently until the sound ceased.
"We're trapped!" Dark exclaimed in terror.
"Judging by the how many rocks fell, I'd have to agree that we can't get out that way," Lost agreed calmly. "But-"
"We'll die in here!" Dark wailed, her scared voice echoing off the cold walls.
"JBL's Dark Brass!" Lost shouted, using her sister's full name. "Please, calm down! I know another way out!"
"You do?" Dark asked, her tone steadier. "Where? What if there was an avalanche that way, too? That would explain the darkness."
"Yeah, but there have been avalanches in here all the time," Lost explained. "The farther in they are, the easier they are to take down - at least in this tunnel. That's why there are so many rocks on the ground."
"Really?" Dark inquired, her words laced with hope.
"Absolutely," Lost assured her. "Now come on. We'll go slowly in case there are any other obstacles we should avoid." So, slowly, with Lost leading the way, they trekked through the tunnel. They tripped over boulders that weren't there before and knocked their heads on ceilings that hadn't been this low before, but eventually they found the cause of the darkness that Lost had been wondering about before.
"Okay, we found it," Dark sighed. "Now what do we do?"
"Pull the rocks down," Lost instructed. "Carefully and slowly, starting from the top, so that we don't create a mini-avalanche and injure ourselves." Following Lost's instructions, they took down the barrier. It took a while, and there were a few mini-mini-avalanches of small rocks tumbling down and whacking their hooves, but nothing serious. After a good amount of hard work, they had finally brought it down and there was a little bit of blue-ish light coming from ahead.
"See, I told you it would be easy," Lost grinned. Dark raised her eyebrows as if to say, 'You call that easy?' Lost tossed her head and lead Dark through the rest of the tunnel, guided by the dim light. Soon Dark recognized that strange, faint sound as a waterfall. Not a big one, but still a waterfall. It grew louder and louder as they got closer to the end of the tunnel.
Finally they emerged from the tunnel on to a wet stone path that lead down to a mossy little circle of ground, fed by the moonlit pool of water that the waterfall poured into. The little place was surrounded by very high, natural stone walls that seemed to touch the sky at the top. Dark looked down at the reflection of the full moon in the water. It seemed to light up the whole place. Lost gave her a moment to take in all the beauty.
"Ready to go, now?" she asked after a moment.
"It's beautiful, Lost," Dark smiled. "I can see why you come here a lot. But I suppose we should probably get going before everyone gets too worried."
"This way, then," Lost lead her up the stone pathway and suddenly disappeared behind the waterfall. Dark followed, getting drenched by the waterfall as she did so, into another tunnel behind it. As she followed Lost out, she glanced behind her at the waterfall that shielded Lost's special place from view like a curtain.
(Edit: I had to edit to finish the story because my computer was being weird and I'd rather edit my post than lose it.
Edit II: Is this too long? I must have missed the thing about how short it had to be... If it's too long I'll change it.)
