Marie felt herself growing increasingly smug as the seconds passed. She had known—and maybe David had too, it was hard not to give him credit—that they would see nothing to suggest that their vision had been tampered with, or that they’d been drugged, or hypnotized, or any of Helen’s other silly ideas.

They watched the whole conversation once through, starting from the moment they’d found the unicorn hiding in the cave and she’d emerged to speak with them. Never once had there been any sign of a visual effect—no hidden space age hologram projectors, nothing. It was all real.

Helen insisted they come back to the video after they snuck into the barn and got together the food they would bring, and so they watched it a second time, with heavy bags sitting beside them and the night sky outside getting increasingly dark.

“We… we should get moving,” Marie said, after the conversation had played all the way through. “It’s real, Helen. They’re real.”

“I… I guess they are,” she said, sitting back in her fancy leather chair, pushing it and letting her spin. “Blimey, that’s mental. Real unicorn, real dragon. Right here in Brighton.”

“Where else would they be?” David asked. “We’ve got myths going back… since the middle ages, maybe earlier. Maybe those old monks were onto something.”

“Forget the monks!” Marie rose from her stool, hefting the duffel over her shoulder. It made dry crunching sounds as it shifted, filled as it was with the blend of wheat, barley, and oats that Helen’s horses ate. “We’ve got a real unicorn and real dragon here. They’re hungry.”

“I know.” Helen had a fancy insulated bag, the sort rich holidaymakers brought to the beach to keep their lemonade cool on a hot summer day. It held food stolen from her own fridge—which the three of them would eat too, when they got there. “We can go, alright? I was wrong. Sorry.”

“They said they had friends. I’m wondering just how much else might be there. And there’s no reason we have to just assume everything that we don’t understand might be real, Marie. We can ask them. Hopefully they can prove some of it, like Ocellus did with her levitation.”

David’s bag of food was the largest, and it also contained a leather-bound illustrated atlas from Helen’s father’s library, easily as heavy as all the grain inside. But if it was hard for him to carry, he made an admirable showing of strength. “If people see us wandering around after dark… they’re gonna be asking questions.”

Thunder rumbled from outside, water smacking up against the glass of Helen’s window. There was another storm tonight. I hope I can even get home after we make this delivery. But what was Marie supposed to do, let her friends go to see the dragon while she went home?

Her pocket vibrated almost at that moment. As they headed downstairs, Marie pulled it out, and knew what message she’d see there. It was her mum, demanding where she’d gotten to. “Storm is too bad,” she said. “Staying at Helen’s.” There were rare times when having so little money could work to her advantage—her mum didn’t have a car, so wouldn’t be able to make the trip over to pick her up.

“She can’t give you a ride home?”

“No.”

“We’re having words about this when you get home, young lady. I better not hear you missed school tomorrow.”

“Your mum?” Helen asked, watching Marie hesitate just inside the doorway.

“I’m staying the night,” she announced, slipping the phone as deep into her borrowed jacket-pocket as she could. Hopefully it could stay dry there. “Storm trapped me here, and your housekeeper didn’t want to drive me home.”

“Sure,” Helen said. “Fine. Let’s go. I’m still afraid we’re gonna get to this place and find nobody there.”

The sky roared overhead, and water poured down around them. Marie even took the time to zip up the jacket and do all the buttons, just to be safe. Water smacked up against her, and it only got much worse once she got onto the bike and started pedaling. Her back wheel basically sprayed her with water constantly, but that was lost in the storm itself.

Her legs were the first to get soaking wet, then start going numb. But she kept pedaling anyway. This was an opportunity that only came once, she was sure about that. It was like all the stories—helping a creature in need would be what convinced it to help her in return, or maybe to take her away to somewhere better. If she failed it tonight… she’d never see them again.

“Keep going!” she urged, as the sky flashed white with lightning. Somewhere far away, she could almost see an answering flash—somewhere far out at sea. How bright would it have to be to see it this far inland?

But there was no time for questions like that. It was all she could do to keep going.

They made it to the forest, somehow. It wouldn’t be hard to hide their bikes tonight, when leaves were flying off the trees and mud coated all three of them a centimeter deep.

“Almost… there…” David shouted, as the wind picked up around them. Marie could feel herself lifting, but the weight of her satchel helped hold her down. She wouldn’t be floating away yet.

“Can you still get us there?” Helen asked, wrapping one of her arms around David’s and holding on tight. Marie did the same to Helen, and felt a little better about blowing away in the wind. “It’s so… different at night…”

“Yeah,” he said. “The cave is halfway up that hill!” He pointed, and they started dragging themselves towards it. Marie could feel her whole body shivering—though the longer she walked, the less that was happening.

She slipped in a wide patch of mud as they started climbing the hill, and went down with a thick squelching sound, ripping free of Helen’s grip.

“Marie!” her friend screamed, reaching for her, but the wind was suddenly too strong. She curled up instinctively as she started to roll, bouncing and smacking up against rocks and branches as she went.

“He-help,” she squeaked, but her voice was lost in gale. Could she even see her friends anymore?

She felt herself bounced up into the air, then a sharp smack, then…

Black.

The cave’s large first chamber was a little crowded with all her friends and all their gear, but Ocellus didn’t mind. Smolder’s foresight meant they had a nice fire going now, bright enough that it resisted the occasional gust of wind that blew past them into the cave. But there wasn’t much—she knew that probably meant this was the only entrance. There was no cross breeze. More warmth for them.

“They should be here by now,” Gallus said. His voice was halfway between concern and suspicion. “Maybe we should start making trail food again.”

“We’ve only got one meal left,” Ocellus said. “If they don’t come, we should probably skip tonight anyway. Save our last meal to get a good breakfast in the morning.”

“Yona is not excited to miss dinner,” said the yak.

“Uh… guys?” Silverstream pointed out the cave entrance. “There’s light out there. You think it might be them?”

It was light, all right, light and distant voices.

“Could be more black and yellows looking for us,” Smolder said.

Ocellus rose from near the fire, making her way to the exit and straining her senses. Her ears weren’t half as good as Silverstream or Gallus’s, but she had a sense they lacked. She tasted for emotions.

The black and yellows would be dangerous, they’d be trained and maybe even used to fighting if they could hurt a dragon. She would feel resolve from them, maybe anger, or maybe nothing.

Instead, she felt pain, terror, desperation. Listen to that wind, Ocellus. It’s a nightmare out there, and the humans are half your size.

“I know why they’re late,” Ocellus said suddenly, turning back around to her friends with sudden urgency. “They were only colts and fillies to begin with—you remember how small they were. I think the weather is too much for them.”

“Why would they make weather that was too much?” Sandbar asked.

“They probably don’t,” Gallus supplied, rising to his claws. “That’s mostly an Equestrian thing, remember? The rest of us just have to deal with what comes.”

And what was coming outside was a storm of nightmares. A storm Ocellus had seen once before, on what should’ve been a perfectly smooth and routine voyage up Equestria’s eastern coast.

A scream cut through the night, a scream so high-pitched and terrified that all in the cave heard it instantly. These were no selfish dragons down in the badlands—Ocellus and her friends were soon-to-be graduates of Twilight’s friendship school. They had to help.

And so they ran. Out the open cave door and into the storm. Ocellus was battered by rain and wind, felt her wings lifted and bits of twig and leaves slam into her. But she ignored all that, pointing into the darkness at the few spots of light. They were the humans’ glowing horns, or… whatever those things were. The lights on their heads.

All three of them were at the base of the hill, carrying large bags. They did bring our food. Ocellus’s heart sank with guilt that she’d ever doubted them. Here they’d been wondering if they were about to get attacked, and their new friends were struggling to do what they’d promised. She was a bad friend.

Two of the humans—it was hard to figure out which was which with so much mud and water everywhere—were gathered around a third, which had fallen onto the ground at the base of a tree. Ocellus wouldn’t be the first one to reach them, not with an earth pony like Sandbar in their group. He was almost there, and one of the humans turned to meet his eyes. The male, David, pointing and waving frantically at their injured friend. She wasn’t moving.

Ocellus reached out for her emotions, and felt only two sets. If there was life there at all, it was faint. Oh no.

She slid down to the bottom of the hill, close enough to hear the human shouting. “She hit her head! Looks like there’s blood… what do we do? God… that wasn’t supposed to happen…” Their friend’s injury had completely supplanted any of their previous shock and amazement at seeing other creatures. They’d never seen a griffon or yak or anything else and still neither of them ran.

Ocellus changed into a unicorn again as she got close, though this time it wasn’t to hide. She had a feeling she would need to do some levitation soon.

“We might be able to help,” Smolder said, glancing back towards Ocellus. “Did you ever learn any healing magic?”

Ocellus felt a chill in her chest completely unconnected from the cold. She didn’t know any healing magic. “Yes,” she lied. “Everyone else, help the other two! I’ll…” She bent down, staring at the human. It was Marie, the first and bravest of the human fillies. She was bleeding all right, enough that the mud around her head had turned red. She didn’t have much time.

The storm seemed to fight to keep them out of the cave. Somewhere close by, a tree ripped right out of the ground, crashing down over the trail and blocking it with branches as thick as they were. Ocellus kept a tight grip on the little human, and fought her way back to the cave. She could see her friends helping the other two, and she didn’t stop to look. Her heart pounded in her chest as she sensed for life, keeping the filly’s neck and back from moving.

It was still there, though for how much longer that might be, she couldn’t say. Unless you do something. Something you shouldn’t. If this was Equestria, a skilled unicorn like Twilight Sparkle might be able to heal an injury like this. But their rescue hadn’t come, and waiting would be too long for this child.

“You don’t understand!” the male shouted from behind her, and somehow he was standing on his own. Despite his small size he fought against the wind, walking with a distinctive lean. “We need to get her to a hospital, not the damn cave! I already tried calling—my phone fucking shorted. Helen’s too…” Ocellus could feel his despair now, as black as any she’d sensed from a pony.

All her fear that this wouldn’t work faded from her mind. As strange as these creatures looked, there was enough magic for this.

But will the human even want to live afterwards?