I brought coffee

[Crimson Flower]

Crimson cantered towards the base of the mountain. It was here that she paused and turned back to see if the filly was still following her. She briefly turned her head up towards the peak, trying to spot the brown and white form of Sunstone. Her ears flicked back so she could look for the stallion and listen for Latte at the same time.

She took a step forward and snorted impatiently. She turned around, looking for Latte and then turned back, looking up the mountain. She must've looked silly spinning in circles like that, but she didn't particularly care. She exhaled loudly and decided to watch for Latte first.

[Sunstone]

Sunstone had been napping, a restful new habit of his, when he heard the sound of a horse. Was Crimson back? he wondered. He quickly shook the sleepiness from him, for he did not like to be caught off guard. He walked onto a small cliff, overlooking the entire mountain. If he strained his eyes, yes, there she was, at the base. It would take her awhile to reach him, but she knew the way. Sunstone snorted and waited.

[Crimson Flower]

Her head turned again for she thought she heard something moving around near the top. It was a faint sound because of the distance, but she figured it would hurt to look. She gave a loud neigh in greeting when she spotted the bi-colored form of Sunstone as he peered over the ledge. Okay, she knew he was still there, now all that was left was to make sure Latte had been able to keep up with her.

[Quality Latte]

Latte looked around and realized that Crimson was up ahead a little ways, with a neigh she took the last few loping strides and stood beside the roan. She looked up and saw a bi-coloured horse looking over the top of the mountain. Is that him? Latte asked softly to the older mare.

[Crimson Flower]

Crimson looked back at Latte. "Yeah," she said and looked back up the mountain. "That's Sunstone, he's the lead stallion of this little herd," she explained and took a step forward. "Now then, come this way." With that, she loped forward and then slowed down, waiting for Latte but also being careful about were she stepped. Some of the ground was loose gravel and if she stepped wrong, she might find herself sliding back down to her starting point. She hoped that the filly figured out that she should watch her step as well.

[Quality Latte]

Latte and seen stones on mountains where she came from, and she knew, she had to be careful. Only bad things had come from that mountain, and she knew he same could happen here. She really didn't want to venture up the mountain but knew that Crimson was waiting for her. So slowly ever so slowly she started to pick her way up the hill the whole time the movie of what had happened about three months back playing in her mind.

[Crimson Flower]

Crimson nickered encouragement to Latte before turning and continuing up the mountain. She started sliding once, but regained her balance and was able to continue. After a while of carefully making her way up the mountain, she reached the cliff where Sunstone had been looking down at them from. She turned back to see Latte's progress and then looked back to see if Sunstone was still there.

[Quality Latte]

Latte watched as the huge form of the older mare slid towards her and flinched, it was like the nightmares she had almost nightly, but Crimson regained herself and started back up the mountain so Latte followed quickly doing her best to keep up. The cliff at the top of the mountain loomed just above her and with the last of her energy pushed herself to step up on top of the ledge and looked around until she spotted Crimson and the looming figure of the Stallion she guessed was her new "daddy" Sunstone.

[Sunstone]

Sunstone narrowed his eyes. What was this? A…youngling? Oh no…she wasn’t serious? He stamped his foot many times and neighed out to Crimson. Why was she bringing others to his territory? He sighed. He’d have to control that temper of his if he was going to have even one horse up here, but still, part of him was steaming. He was about ready to bring down the mountain.

[Crimson Flower]

Crimson could sense Sunstone's agitation, but she didn't say anything about it. She ignored it and went about introducing Latte. "Sunstone," she began with a slight dip of her muzzle. "This is Latte. She just found her way to the island and she can't find her way back to her mother," she said looking back at Latte. "And, as you should know, I couldn't just leave her alone," she said pointedly, looking back to the stallion as she did so. That was her way of explaining her actions and she dearly hoped that he wouldn't turn the filly away.

[Sunstone]

“Or could you?” Sunstone seethed. My territory, my home, I choose who stays here… Why did horses have to make life so difficult for him. Now he remembered why he had always chosen to live alone.

Sunstone snorted and wheeled on his hind legs to the other direction, eyes peering at the sky. He wished it was nighttime, when the stars came out. The stars always helped him. Always. They always had.

[Crimson Flower]

Crimson gave a small but exasperated sigh and turned around. She nudged Latte's shoulder slightly and whispered, "Don't worry about it," before trotting off to maybe try and find a place to graze for a short while. She paused at a place and lowered her head to rip up small chunks of the grass that she found growing between the pebbles and raised her head, looking around calmly.

However, her calmness soon left her as she found herself slowly sliding down the mountain. Normally, she could've regained her balance and stopped the sliding, but because she'd thought that the ground beneath her was firmly in place, she wasn't expecting to start moving downhill. By the time she actually started trying to work her way back up, the pebbles and small stones beneath her were moving pretty fast. She gave a startled whinny as she continued trying to fight gravity. As the rocks began moving even faster, she lost her footing and fell to her side and she began noticing that bigger rocks were starting to roll with the smaller ones. She gave another alarmed neigh as she spied one medium sized boulder coming at her. It 'jumped' into the air because of some bump in the ground and landed and rolled over her shoulder, cutting it open. She had many other scratches, mostly along the side that was currently scraping against the ground. She was still moving pretty fast, carried by the rocks and pebbles and she winced as another boulder rolled into her rump, giving her a couple new cuts across her back and sending her skidding away. Luckily, she skidded onto a small grassy overhang on the mountain and stopped. There was a lot of pain in her shoulders and so she didn't try to stand just yet and her eyes were closed as if she was trying to pretend that she didn't just get caught in a small landslide that took her about half the way down the mountain. She winced when she did try to stand and decided to wait another moment to see if the pain would subside. Even though she was pretty sure that no one was around to hear her, she let out a pitiful and pained little noise and exhaled loudly.

[Quality Latte]

Latte turned to follow Crimson to find some grass but soon also found herself unable to stand up properly due to the landslide. She stumbeled and slid to her side violently and cut her front leg open dangerously. Latte winnied in pain but suddenly saw the large boulder coming down the side of the cliff. She watched as it glanced off of Crimsons shoulder and re-routed its path straight towards her. it fell ontop of Latte's back half pinning her to the ground. Latte thought of her mother, and sister but then glanced forwards, she saw the even larger boulder rolling towards her new 'mommy' and hit her rump. Suddenly she new this was going to be game over for her. she watched as the larger boulder rolled and slammed into her stomach, now the only thing that was able to move was her neck, but she new she would be dead soon. She heard Crimson's pittiful winny and then dropped her head defeatedly to the ground.

[Sunstone]

“For the love of…” Sunstone started to mutter as he turned around at the big noise. Then his eyes widened, or more, doubled in size. A landslide? He jumped to the edge of the cliff, and indeed dust was rising. A million fears erupted in Sunstone’s heart. Where was Crimson? And even that blasted filly? Frantically he gazed around, but his fears had come true. When the dust started to settle, he could see the dim outline of a faintly red horse. It was her.

Without thinking once, he jumped down, hooves hitting the sand most harshly. Why hadn’t he warned them? He himself was quite use to the weekly tremmers of earth. But there was no going back into the past, there was only room to regret as clouds of dust rose and swirled around his hooves.

The landslide had carried them far, and he knew the fastest way to get down was the slide in the tumble’s path, but then he too would be injured, and would therefore be no help. He had to settle for jumping great leaps, instead of lying down and letting the still loose pebbles take him, creating a mini landslide of his own.

However, Sunstone was skilled when it came to mountain footing. He was like a mountain goat, jumping elegantly from sloped ground to sloped ground. Within minutes, he was upon the mare and filly.

“Are you…are you alright?” he scarcely had enough courage to ask. Was he too late?

[Crimson Flower]

Crimson had been laying still until she heard another horse coming down the mountain. She raised her head as far as she could without causing to much pain in her shoulder. She let out a little nicker to greet Sunstone and then winced slightly before laying her head down again. "I'm fine," she breathed. Her main concern right now was Latte, not herself. "Check on Latte first. Please?" she asked, looking up at him again.

She'd seen the filly get caught in the same landslide, but she hadn't seen what happened to her. She hadn't heard any noise from Latte and her heart was racing from pain and worry and she had to know the other female's condition before she would accept any help. She raised her head again and looked around, ignoring the pain in her shoulder as she did so.