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We swirled our way across the night sky to catch up with Pterano, finding him in minutes. He woke as we rematerialized in front of him. "Oh! You found me! How... wonderful, yes, wonderful."

Nightmare Moon waited a moment. "Where is the stone?"

"Heh! Well, it's night, and I just flew all day. Can't it wait?" After one look from Nightmare Moon, he continued, "Of course not. Of course not. So, in the morning, I'd go from the sun until I met the river, then turn left..."

The instructions went along until Nightmare Moon grew impatient. "Guide us now." And the three of us turned to mist together and went. We reformed on top of a different mountain crest.

"Where from here?"

"Oh. Oh my. Th- th-at way." He buried his face in his wing as we were swirled off again.

After a few minutes, Pterano gestured to a collapsed lump of a mountain and said, "There it is. Buried in there. I don't know where."

Nightmare Moon ignored him, leaving me the opportunity to say, "We thank you very much for your great assistance."

She glared at me, but then she looked up and the rage amplified, even as less of it escaped. "Cold Fire. That is what I imagined myself, there on the moon. Cold fire that burns away all the injustice. This is my stone. I can feel it pulling me. From here, I go alone."

She misted up and swirled off.

It was about midnight, and we were on a mountain top. I pulled my windbreaker on, and looked around. There was not much to see.

After a minute, Pterano said, "I should be going. I really shouldn't be here."

"Why not?"

"I... I was exiled from here. It's a good place. But if I leave without warning them... what will happen to the great valley?"

"With Nightmare Moon around tearing up mountains?"

"Yes. ... Why do you follow her?"

I hesitated to open up to him, but eventually my delay got to be telling in itself. "She's the only way I can get home, to the future. Before that, I promised I'd stand for a cause she believes in strongly. And if I stopped, I don't know what she'd do."

After a minute, Pterano said, "Go down to the Great Valley. Warn them. I'll be just outside, if any doubt you."

I thought it over. Nightmare Moon would surely know where I was, if she could track him. On the other hand, she could be away for days, so she could hardly expect me to stay on this barren pinnacle. "If she's not back by dawn, I'll go."

As it turned out, she wasn't. From time to time, I heard rumbles and vague echoes - probably her excavations. When it was light enough to move, I went down. It was fairly difficult, so I only made it to a smooth place around noon. Pterano met me there and led me to a large crack in the rock - a very narrow pass. "You go in. I... may not."

I was most of the way through, already able to see that it was opening up, when a triceratops hurried into the passage and blocked my way. "Hold it right there! Who are you? What are you?"

I tried to remain calm. "I am Omar, a human. I wanted to tell you about something happening near here that might be dangerous."

The Triceratops grunted. "If it's outside the valley, it'll have to come through me."

"Have you heard the crashing sounds all night?" Come to think of it, I hadn't heard that since the very beginning of the descent. The sound wasn't making it down into the valley well.

So, it wasn't surprising when he said "No."

"Did you notice the moon, night before last?"

"No."

"What about a large object in the sky, over that way?"

"No. And that's all in the sky, and we're down here."

"Well, someone who altered the moon is investigating the stone of cold fire."

"Phaw. What garbage."

Fortunately, that was when Nightmare Moon began blasting audibly - there was a small earthquake. The triceratops backed out of the passage and looked to the side, then back to me. "Hmm. Come in."

In a few minutes, a call had been sent out for everyone to gather together and hear the news and see the strange creature (me). And I feasted my eyes on brachiosaurs, (para)saurolophi, stegosaurs, and more. Mainly a circle of suspicious triceratops, with a brachiosaur. Something about me didn't strike them as vegetarian. I returned their scowls with smiles, and took a lot of pictures.

I saw children rush forward and be gathered by their parents.

A brachiosaur leaned down and admonished one, "Now, Littlefoot. You aren't going to go running outside again, are you?"

Littlefoot looked aside and reluctantly answered, "No."

A little pterosaur shouted out, "Mama said Pterano just outside valley! You see him?" I nodded.

A small (para?)saurolophus said, "I do not want to meet him. No, no, definitely not."

The pterosaur replied, "He save your life too, Ducky."

"He is not as bad as the others, but I do not want to meet him again."

I said, "You won't need to. He's honoring his exile."

Finally, the largest triceratops stepped forward. "Give us your warning." His tone was gruff, and if I hadn't been playing stool pigeon to Nightmare Moon lately I probably would have been offended.

"There is a strange creature - not too big by your standards, but extremely powerful with magic. She is looking for the stone of cold fire. In this search, she may tear up the mountain it's in. This could spread a lot of dust through your valley, and perhaps shower it with rocks. Basically, be prepared for it to explode."

One of the parasaurolophus ladies asked, "What are you? I've never seen something so strange."

"I'm a human. And I've never seen anything so wonderfully strange and unexpected as all of you. I certainly never imagined that you'd be living in multi-species coherent communities."

There was another blast, and this time we could see a gut of ejecta, not merely a smoke plume. The dinosaurs squirmed.

The lead triceratops said, "Stay calm. If this is someone looking for something, they'll want to survive the search."

This was a good point I hadn't considered.

A large blast shook the ground hard enough to send me to my knees. Many of the dinosaurs shifted in unease.

The chief looked at the mountain, which was now spewing smoke. "But maybe they won't. Perhaps we should move for a time. Which way will you be going?"

"Er. Well, why?"

"So we can go the other way."

"Ah. Well, then pick whichever direction is best for you. We're not going that way."

The chief stared.

A brachiosaur suggested, "Perhaps he meant they'd avoid us as a courtesy?"

The chief held his ground. "That's not what he said. Which way are you going? Are you going to claim the great valley yourselves?"

"No! We'll go back home, where there are others like us. It isn't any normal direction from here. Just pick the safest place and we won't pass near you."

"Ridiculous. But... you are very strange. We need to talk this over." He turned his back on me, and the adults joined him in a new circle with me on the outside.

I backed off. Some children approached, as one adult triceratops looked on.

"Not a normal direction? Is this beyond the Mysterious Beyond?" Littlefoot had stepped forward, sounding considerably more incisive than the plodding chief.

"Well, how far does the Mysterious Beyond go? Sounds like it's just, 'everywhere else', but... is that really what you meant?"

"Uh... I'm not sure. Just, I heard about a place like that from some rainbow faces, once."

Rainbow Faces. Pinkie Pie's message was, simply, 'Rainbow Faces'. What about them?

"Rainbow Faces? What are they?"

"Umm... folks, I guess? A bit strange? Why?"

I shrugged. "Anyway, I guess you could say we're from way beyond the mysterious beyond."

A triceratops-girl snorted. "Nonsense. There's nothing beyond the mysterious beyond!"

"Yes, yet if you travel outward, no matter how far, you won't get to where we came from, nor where we're going. So if that's what you call the mysterious beyond, that's not where we're from."

Ducky said, "Then you're travelling inward?"

The triceratops rolled her eyes. "That doesn't make any sense. What are you going to do? Travel around in circles?"

"Kind of. Actually, that could be how we end up getting home."

"But you won't get anywhere that way."

Petri suggested, "You get to tomorrow. Are you from the future?"

The triceratops said, "Don't be silly, Petri. No one can come from the future." But she saw my surprised look. "You can't be serious. You're from the future?"

"Yes. I'm from a long time from now, when animals have grown and changed all around."

"Are there flyers?" Petri asked.

"Yes, there are flyers."

"Longnecks?", Littlefoot asked.

"There are creatures with long necks."

Before he could quite parse that, the triceratops asked, "And I suppose there are three-horns? Sounds like not too many changes at all."

I paused. My pause became suspiciously long.

She grew indignant. "What? The flyers live, and the longnecks live, but the threehorns don't?" Gesturing to a nearby juvenile stegosaurus, she added, "Does Spike get grandkids and I don't?"

To Littlefoot, I said, "Well, actually, the creatures with long necks aren't really related to you. I'm sorry for being misleading. I didn't plan on telling you."

Petri asked hopefully, "And the flyers?"

"You guys are doing fine. Lots of different kinds, all over the place. Or... wait, pterosaurs aren't proto-avians, are you? So yes, there are flyers. No, not your kind. But... you all have plenty of time. More lifetimes than you can count."

"Cera..." Littlefoot approached the triceratops.

She flared up. "Sad? I'll show you sad! One day, you'll all be dead too!" She ran off. Littlefoot looked to me and ran after her.

Spike looked up hopefully.

"Sorry, buddy. You too."

He went back to eating.

Ducky stayed. "No one lives forever. We knew that." Her resignation was heartbreaking. I felt terrible, though not as terrible as they felt.

I was rescued from angry parents by the sudden landing of the stone of cold fire in the middle of the valley, lowered by Nightmare Moon.