Lakefrost was rooted to the ground in terror, squinting up at the Sun. A minute or so later, the Sun was totally blocked and she could see a round black disk with wispy flames of silver shooting out of it.

“It’s Nightwing’s eye!” she neighed in fright. Riverlight’s stories had never said anything about this. Her words caused a fresh stampede. Terrified pegasi were running every which way in utter chaos. The confusion reigned for a little while until they heard the trumpeting of an over-stallion.

“Stop!” came the call from the council’s outcrop. “Be still!” Thunderblaze and Lakefrost looked over to the rock and saw Smokesky and Star raising their wings. “Riverlight has spoken! This will end soon! It is not supernatural!”

Their words calmed the pegasi down, for the most part. They started to return to grazing, but a cry from in the herd stopped them.

“Then can you explain that?” Redstorm asked. He pointed with his wing to a spot in the darkened sky. As the Sun had been obscured, the sky darkened, making several stars visible. The one that Redstorm now pointed to was brilliant gold, just above a tall pine tree. Until now, it had been invisible during the day because of the Sun and it wasn’t close to the foals’ birthdays yet.

Voices rose from the herd.

“It’s the Hundred Year Star!”

“It’s the end of us!”

“Nightwing will be back!”

Brackentail stepped onto the outcrop and raised his wings to calm the outbursts. “The eclipse will end! I can’t say the same for the Hundred Year Star, though. I say that the council needs to meet for this.”

The pegasi agreed, so the council assembled and the herd went back to grazing. The herd got back to their grazing spots and, just as Brackentail had said, the eclipse ended. The Sun and Moon slid back apart, and the pegasi calmed down.