Air Horse: Darkening Skies

Little Wishes

Copper couldn't believe her eyes. "Two moon-horses?!"

The second moon-horse had come out of nowhere moments before. Even with its appearance, though, it was still incredibly dark. Skip couldn't see a thing, and even Toby had to admit he was having a hard time seeing.

The herd was in a panic. Horses were shouting and running, often crashing into structure's or each other. King Icarus kept yelling that everyone needed to calm down, but no one was listening. Rising above all that was the howling of the whuffs.

Suddenly there was a bright flash like lightening that illuminated all of Rocky Cliffs, temporarily blinding everyone. When Copper could see again, there was only one moon-horse and its light was back to normal. The whuffs fell silent.

"Uh, what just happened?"

"Wish I- aaah!" Skip flinched.

"What happened?"

Skip squeezed his eyes shut and didn't answer. Toby began twitching and craned his neck to scratch at his back. Other horses were acting similarly. It took only a moment for Copper to realize that it was just the land horses that were affected.

Copper circled her friends nervously. "What's wrong? Talk to me!"

"My back," Skip said, "It feels really weird!"

Copper opened her mouth, but before she could say a word, Skip and Toby jerked. Something popped out of their backs, making Copper stumble backward and shut her eyes.

"Woah!" Copper heard Skip say.

"Copper, open your eyes!" Toby said.

Copper peeked out of one eye, then both eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.

Where there had once been bare back on Skip was a pair of wings. Real wings that slowly opened and closed, and had colors that swirled in sync with Skip's markings. Toby now had a second real wing that was rotating with his original wing.

All around, horses were exclaiming and examining wings that had sprouted out of their backs as well. There wasn't a bare back in sight.

"Aeolus!"

Still in shock, Copper turned to Kalo and Aeolus. Aeolus' new red-and-blue wings were flexing in agitation and his head kept jerking in silent coughs. He pawed the ground, then opened his mouth.

"Wings," Aeolus rasped.

"Yes, everyone has them now," Kalo said.

Aeolus let out an audible cough and finally became still. His mouth opened, then said in a hoarse, somewhat high, voice, "Cloudy did this. She gave the land horses their wings."

"Uhhh," was all Kalo could get out.

"Aeolus, how are you talking?" Copper asked.

"Huh? I'm not..." Aeolus blinked. "Wait, you can hear me?"

"Uh, yeah."

Cody whuffed a couple times to Aeolus.

"She did what?!" Aeolus exclaimed.

Skip came to Copper's side. "Who did what?"

Aeolus spoke quietly to Cody before saying, "Sorry, but Cloudy doesn't want me to say anything."

By now, some of the herd noticed that Aeolus was talking. Sky and Torrent walked up as Aeolus was speaking.

"You've spoken with Cloudy? Where is she?" Torrent asked. "And... how are you able to talk?"