“Flight? Are you out here?” Cotton Fluff called out. As she trotted between the trees, she was trying to make not too much noise—she didn’t want to alert their presence to the Bureau guards around the entrance to the CDK, of course—but it was getting difficult when the filly was nowhere to be seen or heard. “Please, Flight... I don’t want to be out here as much as you don’t, but we need to just... talk about stuff.”

Once she stepped over another felled trunk, the brown-coated mare sighed and paused for a moment, leaning against the tree to gather her bearings. It had only been a few minutes since Flight had run off, sure, but the filly could really be anywhere; there was a whole forest around them, and one mare couldn’t comb the whole thing. Furthermore, Cotton wasn’t quite sure why the others had sent her off to go find the filly, but they had insisted. She sighed once more, closing her eyes.

“C-Cotton?” she heard a voice stammer not a moment later. Opening her eyes, Cotton could see the small yellow form of Flight, perched beneath another felled log. The filly stepped forward, gazing at Cotton the whole way, and the mare could see her eyelids were red and swollen. “Did they send you to get me?” Flight asked, her voice quivering as she spoke.

Cotton nodded, biting her lip. “Something like that. You can’t just run off like that, Flight...”

The filly nodded. “I know. I just... I just didn’t know what else to do.”

Cotton sighed, and patted the ground next to her. Flight looked confused for a moment before she stepped forward through the dirt and sat down next to the mare, leaning against the trunk.

“What’s eating you?” Cotton asked. “Why did you run away?”

Flight bit her lip. “I just... I don’t understand. What did Kevin mean by what he said?” She paused. “He’s always been a colt—I’ve known him since we were really young, and he’s always been a colt.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I don’t understand why he would say that... if it’s not true,” Flight finished, looking down. “And everybody was acting like they knew what he meant, and... I don’t know. Everything feels wrong.”

Cotton nodded. “Heh, I get what you mean there. But there’s a little filly back there who’s been having everything feel wrong for a lot longer than you have.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Flight asked, looking up at Cotton. There was genuine confusion in her eyes.

Cotton frowned. “Kid, we’ve got a lot to discuss.”