Silver Flames

Chapter 7

     I couldn't sleep that night. I kept thinking about that strange horse that had healed my arm. Finally around one in the morning I drifted off into a restless sleep. I woke up the next morning to find the sky still dark. The clock on my nightstand said 5:42 am. Knowing I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep even if I tried, I threw on my riding clothes and started walking to the stables in the dark. When I got there I saw all the horses were still asleep except for Oreo. He was looking at me like he'd just seen a ghost. I walked into his stall hoping to comfort him and noticed something odd. For the past few days he'd been standing with more of his weight on his right leg because the left one was injured. Today he stood perfectly balanced as if he wasn't injured at all. "What.." I whispered to myself as I ran a hand down his leg. Suddenly Silverblaze woke up a panicked look in his eyes and reared up yelling "SUNNY!" I ran over to him and managed to calm him down. "What's wrong?" I asked him. "I- I had a dream about my friend Sunny" he stammered sounding embarrassed. The poor horse was shaking as he thought of it. "I'm sure she's alright, it was just a dream" I told him. I looked over at Oreo who was peering his head over the stall door. "Oh yeah something weird happened" I told Silverblaze. I told him the story about the horse who had healed my arm and how Oreo's leg was now suddenly better as well. "Starshine" he said "it had to be Starshine, and all this time I'd thought he was dead" "Wait who is he exactly?" I asked  "Starshine is a powerful horse who was owned by the Soul Rider Lisa. After many disastrous things happened happened I'd heard all of them died. But clearly Starshine didn't, and if he showed himself to you that must be important in some way" Silverblaze explained "he must know something we don't" we sat in silence for a while until Silverblaze said "I guess we can't wait much longer, we have to rebuild the Soul Riders, and find new ones" "Wait you can just find new Soul Riders?" I asked confused. "It's not that simple, you need to find a rider with a strong enough connection to a magic horse, contrary to what people say humans aren't born with this power, they get it from the horse they are with. Another thing is this group will most likely have completely different powers as it depends on what the horse's powers are" he replied. "Wait so how do you know if somebody is a Soul Rider?" I asked. "Well, only they can understand when a magic horse speaks so anyone who understands me is one and it shouldn't be to hard to find out who the horse is after that" I took a moment to think about this. "Hold on..." I said realizing something "if I can talk to you does that make me a Soul Rider?" He was silent for a moment before replying "Yes. It does" I had no idea what to think about this. My mind raced trying to figure this out. What does this mean? I thought to myself. "I wasn't sure how to explain this to you... When I first met you I didn't want anything to do with people, I didn't want to bond with anyone because that would mean dragging them into my ongoing battle with Dark Core, and I didn't want to do that to anyone" he said. "It's alright, you can't help who you are or what your life is like" I reassured the horse. We stood in silence as the sun finally started to rise thinking about everything we'd talked about.