Spotty light fell on the two pegasi as they walked underneath the canopy of the forest. Hooves travelled a path well-worn through the passing of years, and the mud from the soaked earth sucked at their hard surfaces with every step. Somewhere in the distance a woodpecker drilled through the softened bark of a fallen tree, and nearby locusts trilled through the humid morning air.

The larger of the two pegasi, a brown-coated stallion, swept his umber eyes back and forth across the road in front of him. The sheer humidity of the midsummer’s morning was already making him sweat, and his vibrant red tail swatted at a fly that had the gall to land on his flank. The sweat made the talons clutching the scroll depicted on his flank shine like they were polished metal.

Behind him, the smaller gray filly huffed and fluttered every few feet to try and keep her hooves out of the worst of the mud. Her mane and tail were stylishly spiked, with the forelock of her blue-gray mane sweeping down over her brow and the crest rising in a series of short spikes over her ears. After jumping over a fallen tree in their path, she huffed again and broke the silence between the two ponies. “Ugh, why can’t we just fly there, Hawk? It’s too muddy and humid on the ground!”

The stallion, Hawk Tail, flicked his ear once and let out a sigh of minor amusement. “I told you, Lanner, we have to make sure that the path to the post office is still clear for wagons to travel along. That storm we had last night likely tore a bunch of trees down, like that one you just hopped over.”

Lanner rolled her eyes and folded her wings next to Hawk Tail. “Couldn’t we have just done that from above? We’d be there by now.”

“You know as well as I do that the canopy’s too thick to fly through, sis,” Hawk shot back. “Besides, it’s too humid out today for flying.”

“Apparently for the geezer,” Lanner muttered.

Hawk chuckled and spread his own wings to bound over a particularly large tree fallen in the path. “Ah, teenagers. I remember when I was sixteen too, Lanner. Before you know it, you’ll be in your twenties, and wondering where all the time went.”

Lanner paused long enough to roll her eyes before following her brother over the tree. “You sound just like dad! Do they suck all the fun out of you when you’re twenty-three or what?”

“No,” Hawk countered, “we just start taking our lives seriously and start working all the time.”

His sister stuck her tongue out at him. “What, you think I’m not as busy as you are? I take care of the birds pretty much all day, thank you very much!”

“Good; maybe you can help calm some of them down when we get there.”

They walked in silence for several minutes after that until the dirt path opened into a wide clearing. In the middle of the tall grass, a large, wooden tower erupted from the ground like an enormous mushroom. There were no stairs, only wide, open balconies underneath a large roof just above the canopy of the surrounding trees. The nervous screeching of raptors filled the air, making ghostly sounds that echoed through the mist-wreathed forest.

“Woah, that must’ve been a killer storm that came through here last night,” Lanner said, her golden eyes tracing over the damaged structure. “Or is the post office normally this bad?”

Hawk Tail shook his head and unfurled his wings. “You heard the storm at the house. I’m surprised we weren’t blown away.” He slowly began to circle the tower as he ascended, the frown on his face growing sharper as he observed the damage. “Dad said it was the worst storm in the past fifty seasons.”

Lanner simply flew straight up and landed on a crooked balcony, her eyes following Hawk Tail as he made his circles. “Definitely sounded like it.” She looked over her shoulder at the raucous screeching of birds from within. “I’m gonna try and calm these little guys down.”

Hawk paused in front of a cloven support beam and sighed. “Yeah, alright. Make sure none are hurt, then clean out their cages and give them some food.”

“Hawk, please, I raised most of these guys when they were little.” Lanner replied, smirking at him from over the balcony’s edge. “I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing.”

“Alright, just be careful. It’s been awhile since they were eating out of your hoof; they’re practically war vets now.”

“Then I’ll try my best to not give them PTSD or something,” his sister retorted. Then, singing some new melody to herself, Lanner disappeared deeper into the building.

While Lanner checked on the raptors, Hawk Tail finished his survey of the post office. The frame had been damaged by the winds, and he’d need to replace some planking to keep it sturdy. One of the balconies was sagging in the corner, and one of the struts that held the roof overhang up was completely broken and would have to be entirely torn out and replaced. That, coupled with the number of trees blocking the road to the post office, meant that he had a long week ahead of him, unless he were to get some help from his friends.

He fluttered his wings three times to land gently on the balcony, only to see Lanner rubbing noses with a falcon. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that doesn’t seem like the proper way to clean a cage,” he teased, walking to Lanner’s side and nudging her in the ribs.

“C’mon, Hawk, the poor little guys are scared,” Lanner replied, using her nose to ruffle the raptor’s neck feathers. The bird playfully bit at her muzzle, and she giggled and set it on her shoulder. “They need a little love and stuff after everything they went through last night.”

“If you say so.” Leisurely walking his way across the office, he approached a small wooden desk covered in water from last night’s storm. He used the tips of his feathers to brush as much of the water off of the sealed wood as he could, giving himself a small dry space to work with. Ducking under the desk, he pulled out a heavy burlap messenger bag and dumped the contents onto the table. Letters of all shapes and sizes addressed to myriad different towns and cities spilled across the space he’d just cleared moments ago. Reading each name and address carefully, he sorted them to different corners of his workspace with a practiced speed and precision.

“Is that all you do all day?”

Hearing Lanner’s voice in his ear made the stallion jump, and he glared at his sister. The blue-gray filly was struggling not to laugh. “No, I also make sure that the birds are healthy and fed after their long flights.” He looked at the raptors on Lanner’s back, noting that their numbers had swelled to four. “So are you actually cleaning their cages or are you just taking them out for piggyback rides?”

“I’m getting to it!” Lanner exclaimed, turning back towards the open cages and sliding out the waste trays at the bottoms of each. One of the falcons jumped off of her shoulder to perch on a cage at eye level and inquisitively turn its head sideways at her. Lanner set a tray down and mirrored the motion, clucking her tongue against the roof of her mouth all the while, ‘talking’ to the bird.

Hawk turned back to sorting the mail with a smile on his face. “You remind me of mom,” he absentmindedly said over his shoulder.

Lanner’s ears perked at the comment, and she looked at Hawk out of the corner of her eye. “Really?”

“Yeah. She talked to the birds all the time. Especially when she was carrying you.”

Lanner blushed and flattened her ears against her head. Flashing the falcon one last smile, she went and finished cleaning out the cages, but much quieter now. Hawk watched her for a minute, a sad smile on his lips, before he went back to work, undeterred. It was an old wound that had healed with time, anyway.

With the mail finally sorted, Hawk Tail began bundling packets of letters up with twine and sliding them into leather pouches. Holding a few in his teeth, he trotted towards the nearest bank of cages, read the nametags above each, and pulled out a few hawks and falcons. He whistled sharply to each bird in the line, and they lowered their heads and spread their wings out one at a time. With careful hooves he draped the small pouches across the raptors’ shoulders and under a wing before nudging them off with a hoof. Instinctively, each bird dove off the railing and screeched before circling to a higher altitude and flying off to their trained destinations.

As the last of the birds took off towards their destinations, Lanner joined her older brother at the railing, resting her chin in her hooves as she watched them go. “Stay safe, little guys,” she murmured, her golden eyes following the raptors until they had disappeared beyond the canopy of the trees.

Hawk Tail draped a wing over his sister’s shoulders and pulled her close. “They’ll be fine, Lan,” he assured her. “They’ve made their trips a hundred times since they left the rookery. It’s second nature to them now.”

“I still worry about them,” Lanner mumbled, looking at the raptors that were remaining. “You told me sometimes they don’t come back.”

“Things happen,” Hawk replied. “Life goes on.” Changing the topic, he pointed towards some of the larger cages with a wing. “You see the peregrines? We’ve got a few from the capital for the time being.”

Lanner’s eyes immediately lit up. “From Mymis?” she asked, immediately scampering over to the cages. Several large peregrine falcons greeted her with sharp eyes and a few screeches. “I hardly ever get to see peregrines! Dad never brings any back to raise.”

“That’s because peregrines are expensive.” Trotting to his sister’s side, Hawk Tail joined her in peering into the cages. “Not a finer messenger in all of Nymera. The nobles and royalty like to use them because they’re fast.”

“I would’ve thought they’d like bigger raptors so they can carry more.” Moving from bird to bird, the blue-gray filly paused in front of a familiar falcon in a familiar cage. “Ricky’s still here! It’s been forever since I’ve seen you, you little featherhead!”

Hawk quickly grabbed Lanner’s shoulder before she could reach the latch on the cage. “Lanner, you know how he gets after storms. Just let him be.”

Lanner eyed the pacing and squawking bird in the cage before her. “Aww, but Hawk, he just needs a little love. I bet I could calm him right down!”

Her brother shook his head. “Just let him have some time to himself. Trust me, Lan; it’s been a few years since you last took care of him. He’s a messenger now, not the little bird that liked to pull your feathers out when you weren’t looking.”

The blue-gray filly made a pouty face but set her hoof back down anyway. “Fine. I guess I’ll just try to make him feel better from the outside.” Clearing the floorboards with her tail, she sat down and began to make clucking noises to the falcon like before.

Satisfied, Hawk turned to finish sorting the mail that he’d received before the storm hit. Before they went home, he’d have Lanner fly around River’s Reach and put the letters in ponies’ mailboxes. Just as he was getting into his routine, however, a short squeak interrupted him. He turned to see Lanner trying to protect her face from Ricky’s sharp talons with her forelegs and shepherd the bird back towards its cage with her wings. Unfortunately the falcon only struggled harder, and before Hawk Tail could react, it bolted through the open walls of the tower and soared off above the tree tops.

Lanner groaned and sat up from where she was sprawled on the floor. Her forelegs were covered bloody scratches, but none were too deep or serious. Sucking the blood from a forelimb, her golden eyes met Hawk’s angry umber ones, and her ears flattened against her head. “Uhh... sorry?”

Hawk let out an exasperated sigh and lightly smacked Lanner’s head with his wingtip. “What did I tell you?”

“To be fair, you never said not to open the cage,” Lanner answered with an awkward smile across her muzzle. When Hawk’s face remained unchanged, she held up her hooves in a pleading manner. “Look, he’s a very convincing bird! Very charismatic!”

Hawk shook his head and galloped towards the balcony. “We have to get him back. He’s probably running his route to Mymis right now, and we can’t afford to lose him.”

“What about the other peregrines from Mymis?” Lanner asked, cocking her head to the side. “Can’t we just use them?”

Spreading his wings, Hawk took off and began searching the horizon for any sign of the fleeing bird. “No, those peregrines are all personal. They don’t run to Mymis’ post office. They’ll just go back to their owners.” He cast an angry glare over his shoulder. “Well? You let him out; help me look for him!”

Lanner scrambled to her hooves and dove out the window, hovering alongside her brother. Hawk Tail let his frantic searching relax a little; his sister’s eyes were much sharper than his, and within seconds she squawked, “Found him!” and flew due north—the opposite direction of Mymis.

Hawk Tail immediately pumped his wings and took off after Lanner, following in his sister’s wake as her feathers sliced the air above the forest. Within seconds, the post office was a fading brown rectangle in the sea of green behind them, and the distant mountains to the north slowly grew larger and larger.

“Where’s he going?!” Lanner shouted into the wind. Her voice sounded distorted and garbled through the wind whipping in Hawk’s ears, and the stallion flapped harder to close the distance so she could hear his reply.

“Where do you mean, ‘where’s he going’?” Hawk Tail asked, squinting into the whipping air. “You’re supposed to be tracking him!”

“No! I mean, yeah! I mean... where’s he flying to, stupid?!”

Hawk Tail shrugged in flight, but realized that Lanner couldn’t see the motion; her eyes were locked on the fleeing falcon that they were slowly closing in on. “I don’t know! He’ll be flying clear past the Run pretty soon!”

“Great!” Lanner sarcastically shouted back. “Maybe we can swim back to town and wash off the sweat when we catch him!”

Hawk briefly entertained shooting back some remark about how they were chasing Ricky because of her, but decided to shake his head and fall back slightly instead. There was no use trying to keep up with Lanner; she was simply the smaller, lighter, and faster of the two pegasi, and she’d reach the falcon in no time. Instead he let up a little, letting Lanner pursue the falcon at top speed, while he himself remained close enough to offer support once they finally caught the bird.

Catching his breath, the brown pegasus let his eyes wander over the twists and turns of the Glittering Run, where the small river had cut deep trenches through the hills and woods that filled the land for miles in any direction. They were currently flying over a smallish lake, more of a pond really, that had formed between two crescent-shaped hills many eons ago. It was a favorite hangout of Hawk Tail’s, far away from River’s Reach and anypony that wanted to bother him. He was almost about to leave it behind and try to catch a glimpse of Ricky again when he noticed something peculiar.

It was a smear of color; or rather, every color. Halfway between the water and the grassy shoreline lay what looked like a shard of the sky itself splattered against the ground. After another second of scrutiny, however, Hawk’s heart nearly jumped into his throat; it was a mare.

“Lanner!” he shouted, and without checking to see if his sister had heard him, he spiraled down towards the surface. His heart pounding, he began to take in the mare’s situation as he descended. She was lying on her side partway in the water, her lower half submerged in the gently lapping waters of the pond and her muzzle resting in an inch of water and mud. Her sky blue coat was drenched and matted, and the rainbow strands of her mane were splayed in every which way and caked with mud. A tricolor lightning bolt striking downwards from a puffy white cloud adorned her visible flank.

Hawk’s hooves squashed into the soggy, muddy ground, and the earth sucked at each worried step he took towards the mare. “Miss?” he asked, his eyes looking for any signs of life. “Hey! Can you hear me? Are you alright?”

Reaching the pegasus’ side, for her windshorn wings revealed as much, Hawk caught a glimpse of her chest faintly rising and falling. She was breathing, but weakly. Acting more off of instinct than anything, he wrapped his forelegs around the mare’s torso and dragged her a safe distance from the water’s edge. When she was lying fully on the grasses, he rolled her onto her back, careful not to pin her mangled wings underneath her.

Fluttering at his side alerted him to Lanner’s presence. “Holy moley,” she whispered, golden eyes wide. “Who’s she?”

Hawk frowned and wracked his brains to see if he remembered this mare. She had a lovely coat, and she looked like she was around Hawk Tail’s age, but he couldn’t remember anypony that looked like her. He knew he would’ve remembered somepony with a mane and tail like hers, but all he drew were blanks. He shrugged and took a step back. “I don’t know, Lan,” he admitted. “Never seen her before.”

Lanner frowned. “Huh.” She looked around, but all that could be seen for miles were trees, trees, and more trees. “Maybe she’s from one of the nearby towns?”

“That’d be what I’d guess.” He quickly glanced around the area, looking for a campsite or any sort of indication as to who this pegasus was or what she was doing out here in the first place. All he could see was a trail of torn-up earth stretching off to the north, broken every so often by skid marks and the flattened grass of hard tumbles. “Although there aren’t any towns farther north than River’s Reach...”

His sister turned her eyes to the north and the mounds of stone rising above the horizon, biting into it like teeth. “You think she’s from beyond the mountains?”

Hawk shook his head. “No way. The mountains are tough to fly over, even for skilled fliers. And all that’s on the other side is desert, anyway.”

“Eh, you’re probably right,” Lanner said. “There’s just like, yetis and stuff up there.”

“There’s no yetis out there,” Hawk retorted. “It’s all badlands as far as the eye can see.”

“What about desert yetis?”

“Lanner...”

“Yeti nomads!”

“Lanner!”

“Fine! Sorry!” Lanner shouted. “But seriously, if it’s just desert and badlands up there, where could she have come from? I mean, badlands don’t exactly sound like a great place for a pony to live.”

Between them, the mare groaned, interrupting their argument. Leaning over, Hawk Tail pressed his ear against her chest.

“She might have a cracked rib or two from that fall,” he said. “It sounds like she punctured a lung.” Sliding a wing underneath the mare, he hoisted her up with powerful muscles and adjusted her body so that she laid across his back. “We should get her back home, now.”

Lanner looked towards the sky, worried. “What about Ricky?”

“We’ll have to go to Mymis and get him back, I suppose.”

“But he was flying away from Mymis!”

Hawk Tail shrugged, careful not to unsettle the unconscious mare across his back. “He’ll either come back or fly there sooner or later. If not, we’ll just have to go searching for him.”

“So you’re just gonna let him fly off?”

“It’s not my fault,” Hawk Tail said, glancing coyly back over his shoulder at his sister. “You were the one who let him out, so you’re the one Dad’ll give extra chores to.”

Lanner stomped a hoof against the ground. “Hey! I didn’t think he was gonna just fly off like that! I thought I could get him to calm down with a little cuddling!”

“Well, now you know,” Hawk said, a teasing smile on his face. “How’s about you go on ahead and tell Dad that we’re coming. Get the spare bedroom ready for her, too.”

“Fine,” Lanner said as she took wing. “And I’ll be the first to tell him that this was your fault.”

“See if he believes you,” Hawk Tail countered as he lumbered over a fallen tree. “Especially after the whole ‘Boogie Mare’ incident.”

“I thought I told you never to say anything about that ever!”

Hawk Tail chuckled, but cut himself off when he felt the mare on his back shift slightly and moan. “Just get going, sis. The sooner we get her to a bed, the better.”

With one last roll of her eyes and a nod, Lanner darted upwards and sprinted towards the south, punching through several clouds on the way.

Hawk Tail glanced back over his shoulder at the colorful mare. He still couldn’t believe anypony could be that vibrant.

“Don’t worry, Miss. I’ll take care of you.” Looking out ahead of him, he found the small trail of flattened grass that led to town and began to walk slow enough to avoid disturbing the mare on his back. “Whatever it takes, I’ll get you back up and flying again.”

And as they left the lake behind, a small piece of exposed gold in the mud glinted in the sunlight, forgotten.