[SRP] Mountain Paths (Flannghaile + Una)

[elfstar89]

Una blinked her red eyes open, trying to orient herself. She'd been walking alongside a trail with Flannghaile, her friend, checking to make sure the winter weather hadn't materially damaged it too much to be unsafe when....

The goat squeezed her eyes shut. There were some things that did not bear thinking about. Like the drop that probably existed beneath her cloven hooves. But why hadn't she....

Oh. That made sense, she realized as she shifted her weight slightly to be less in pain, and immediately regretted it. The woody shrub of a conifer shook as she shifted, and Una could feel that it was not a happy little tree, having caught a falling goat.

Then she heard a voice above.

"Una! Are ye wi' me, lassie? I need ye tae hold still. I'm a-comin' for ye!"

Una risked a look upward. The red Usdia mare was looking over the cliff edge, worried, but clearly determined to try to fix things. The nanny bleated unhappily, not wanting her friend to risk herself. The cliff face wasn't climbable, and the last thing Una wanted was for both of them to go over the cliff edge to their deaths in the creek below. Maybe if a vine or a rope or cloth had been available, something could have been done, but the goat had a terrible feeling that there wasn't anything that could be done, unless they could get additional help, and there probably wasn't enough time for that.

Una sighed internally. She'd miss getting to see Flann's foals growing up and starting families of their own. And she'd really been looking forward to that.


Flannghaile's heart had almost stopped when her friend had suddenly disappeared sideways off the trail. Looking over the edge, trying to be careful with her weight, she was relieved to see that Una had wound up draped over a small, scrubby conifer tree. It looked like it would hold for a bit, but however long it would hold...it probably wasn't long enough.

"Una! Una, can ye hear me, lassie?" she called. Una didn't look up, and, for a sickening moment, the Usdia mare feared that the fall had knocked the goat unconscious, leaving her at greater risk of falling if anything went even the slightest bit wrong.

Then the nanny was blinking her eyes open before squeezing them shut again. She tried to shift her weight, stopped, clearly realizing that this was a bad move.

Flann called out again. "Una! Are ye wi' me, lassie? I need ye tae hold still. I'm a-comin' for ye!"

How, exactly, the Usdia mare was going to rescue her goat was another question entirely. No vines, no rope, no large bits of cloth to throw to Una so she could drag Una back up. So that was out. No one else around that she could probably get to in time who might be able to figure out a way to pull Una back up.

Flann's dark eyes scanned the cliff face beneath her solid hooves. It couldn't be climbed safely without being a two-legger...but that didn't make it a sheer vertical drop: the was a little deer path that switch-backed to the bottom, almost too steep and narrow for her to use safely. And there were little ledges along the little switchback. If she was any judge of the spurious little trail, maybe she could skid down on her haunches, snag Una on the way, using little shrubs to make the hairpin turns, and if she missed one of the lower turns...well, the other cliff face across from them had a cascade that dropped into a deeper pool at the bottom of the cleft. Hopefully, by the time falling became a very real concern, there wouldn't be much distance left to fall.

It was a gamble. Probably a stupid gamble. But if Flann could pull it off...if the cascade had dampened the little switchback to be slippery enough to not hurt too much...it'd be worth it. Probably.

"Hold still and hae faith, Una!" Flann called, making her way to the top of the switchback, taking a deep breath and plunking her haunches down onto the gravel.

No matter what came next, this was going to hurt.  

[elfstar89]

Una eyed Flann warily. What was the Usdia even....

Oh. Oh, that was stupid. Harebrained, crazy, foolish, foolhardy, dumb, unwise, madcap, and ought not to be attempted under any circumstances....

And yet, deep down inside, the nanny was grateful for the courage and will needed to make the attempt. It was the reason Una had latched on to the Usdia mare in the first place, and had been delighted at the growth of their friendship. Flann was normally a level-headed individual, but that didn't mean she didn't care; she did care, a whole awful lot, and hated leaving others in danger.

Which made Una even more angry at Flann for trying something that, if it didn't kill her, might break some bones, and Una had no idea when a unicorn would next traipse through their pass.

Una bleated angrily, swearing as all the stereotypes suggested goats always did, and Una endeavored never to do, bleating that Flann was a monumental, foolhardy idiot, that this was an incredibly stupid thing to do, and if they survived, Una was going to kick Flann's rump very hard for being so potentially fatally stupid.

Which of course Flann wouldn't understand, and normally, the nanny wouldn't fault the Usdia for not comprehending her bleats, but, for once, Una wished that Flann understood the angry bleats of a nanny goat in a very dangerous situation.

The gravel beneath her flanks ground into her flesh as Flann skidded down the glorified deer path. As she passed a woody little shrub, she snatched at it with her strong teeth, forcing her body to turn with the path, instead of skidding off to faceplant with a boulder.

Unfortunately, she missed, but barely managed to get her heels back under her and skidding to a halt a mere inch from the boulder ahead of her. Breathing hard, Flann looked ahead.

Oookaaayyy. There were still a few switchbacks to go, and the ones heading this way terminated in more cliff faces she'd have to try to stop from whacking into. The ones going the other way, however...terminated in open space. The ledges were longer, so there was a slightly improved chance she could skid to a halt if need be, but after the first of those, she'd need to get Una to deliberately try to fall off the little conifer. Which would make it harder for Flann to keep from faceplanting into the stone.

Flann took a deep breath. She could do this. Probably. Going slow and cautious on the next leg would probably be smart; the next time she missed the ledge going the way she was about to go...well, hopefully she could aim for the pool at the base of the cascade.

She winced. It was probably time to get Una to either try to break the conifer, or tell her to be ready to slide off.

"Una, lassie, I'm goin' tae need ye tae let go o' the conifer in a wee bit. Can ye do tha'?"  

[elfstar89]

Una stared at her friend. Courageous, kind, and, at this moment, foolhardy in the extreme. The nanny resumed her infuriated bleating, until she saw Flann resume her downhill skid.

She paused. It was probably time to start thinking of getting off the conifer. It looked like Flann, for all the foolishness of this plan, had actually stopped to consider how to attempt this safely.

Una wiggled the conifer experimentally. The tough little tree appeared to have worked hard on its root system, and didn't seem inclined to budge. Rats. Something drastic would need to occur.

As Flann skidded to a halt on the next ledge, Una began to aggressively rock back and forth and side to side. Sure, this was unkind to the little conifer, but the nanny needed to get off her surprisingly secure little perch before Flann passed her by.

Suddenly, she felt her weight begin to shift backward. Una stared ahead as the world shifted before her red eyes. Flann shouted something, and then...then, she was falling....

Only to impact with something solid, soft, and moving at speed. Una risked a glance around as she tightened her legs around the soft thing she'd landed on. Only to see a cliff face rapidly approaching...and then a skid...and then....

Flann's side and Una's flanks impacted hard enough to bruise with the canyon wall. Una bleated in pain, and Flann grunted in shared pain. After a moment, the downward journey continued, more cautiously than she'd feared, and it wasn't long before they were skidding down the last incline to the little pool at the bottom.

Flann skidded down the next switchback, managing to come to a halt with perhaps a half a foot to spare. Turning around to prepare for the next stretch, her eyes caught on Una. Who was still on the scrubby little conifer, and clearly attempting to dismount. Then, suddenly, the little goat started to slide off, heels first, and Flann slammed her flanks back into the gravel trail.

"Hang on Una, I've got ye!" she called, skidding downward along a mercifully less steep section. As the Usdia passed under the conifer, she felt something solid and squirmy impact with her back, and wrap its hooved legs securely around her middle.

Unfortunately, the end of the switchback was approaching all too rapidly, and Flann only had enough time to manage to rotate so that her shoulder and Una's flanks impacted with the stone. Pain and shock reverberated through her stocky frame, eliciting a grunt of pain through clenched teeth, but at least they had stopped moving. Better still, she observed, as she glanced down, they seemed to be more than halfway down. And the odds were good that the creek was still ice cold, so it might ease the bruising she could start to feel in her shoulder.

Flann took a deep breath, completed the turn, and began the rest of the slide down into the little creek, which was indeed icy cold. As they reached the bottom, Flann turned over her shoulder to Una.

"I think we can safely say tha' tha' trail's nae sae safe along the edges, but if ye hug the cliff, ye should be fine," she said conversationally to Una.

Across her shoulders, Una bleated irritably, but, after a moment, slid off and into the water, enjoying the numbing cold of the water against everything that hurt. All in all, the trail was probably safe enough, and Flann had succeeded in retrieving Una, but this was not an experience the nanny fancied her friend going through again for any reason.

A nuzzle along her spine caused her to look up into Flann's deep charcoal eyes.

"I'm sorry, and I swear, I'll try tae be safer, no?"

Una sighed, and then started splashing her hooves, trying to soak the Usdia's bruised shoulder. After a moment, the two broke into laughter of their own, and it was time to begin the long hike home along the creek bed.