Jade felt his legs aching, not to stop but to go faster. The little grey Pegasus with green mane and wings wasn’t use to going this slow, he was usually a bundle of energy, even as an infant he learned to run before he could walk. He so badly wanted to run now.
But the chirpy-babbeh on his back made that impossible.
He looked back as he felt her shift, a tiny ‘peep’ drifted out of her mouth, Jade recognised the telltale sign of hunger in the dull red unicorn.
“Am sowwy Wadish, nu find nummies yet.”
Radish let out another ‘peep’, seemingly recognising what Jade was saying though likely not understanding him completely.
The two of them were all that was left of their herd, their Smarty Friend had rationed the food well over the cold-times, with such an excess he decreed that the herd could afford more babbehs without risking a loss of resources. Jade was born from that first round of litters just over two months ago, Radish came in the latest batch, a mere three days ago.
Their mistake was their complacency, more babbehs meant more noise, more noise meant more distractions, more distractions meant the herd was caught off-guard when the pack of barkie-munstahs attacked them.
It was beyond a massacre, Fluffies of all shapes and sizes were shredded, devoured, some rip to pieces then discarded as playthings. Jade could still taste the blood in the air from watching his father being torn in half by two monsters fighting over who got to eat him.
It was only by chance that Jade came across Radish, his speed and energy kept him out of harm’s way but it was pure luck that he found Radish’s mother, begging him to save her children while her guts leaked out of her obliterated bottom half, too weak and too frightened to realise they were all red stains on the dirt now.
Except for one, nestled among the twigs and leaves, likely pushed away in the frenzy, was Radish; cold, terrified and alone. Jade knew taking her would be a mistake, that he would put both himself and her into more danger by taking a chirpy with him. But seeing the destruction around him, Jade couldn’t very well leave her alone.
And so here they were, two days later, alone and hungry. Jade could hang on through small patches of grass and leaves but Radish needed milk and fast. She wasn’t his sister, she wasn’t his kin, but she was his responsibility.
Pushing his way through a clearing in the trees, Jade found himself facing acres upon acres of open fields, the scale of it all scared him a little bit, suddenly the open world felt much, MUCH bigger than Jade was realising.
In the distance he could see a lone tree, not as tall as the ones he’d surrounded himself with for all his life but wider, it’s large body curving upwards towards an umbrella of leaves offering shade and protection. And at the bottom of the tree, Jade could make out the small blotches of moving colour, there were Fluffies at the tree, lots of them.
Jade looked back at Radish, watching her tiny hooves raise weakly as she searched for a non-existant teat. He knew there was risk at approaching a strange herd, but he was out of options.
“Ok Wadish, wet’s gu see Fwuffies, maybe dey be nyu fwiends.”
Radish’s ‘peep’ sounded happier than usual, a part of her recognising the joy of new friends. Taking that as confirmation, Jade trotted on across the fields and towards the herd.
He felt a surge of hope build in his chest, after all, what’s the worst that could happen?
@Gal-with-pastels has gifted me Jade and Radish to bring into the BFM-Verse, I figured both would fit in best to Before The Storm but since my plans won’t have them brought in for a little while yet I whipped up this quick little intro to officially introduce them into the series.
I hope so too…