These were not the same ponies Vanessa had seen before. They were petite and gentle in appearance, with long flowing manes and graceful tapered legs. The powerful black and white stallion she had ridden was nowhere to be seen.
The ponies stirred, kicking up sand at the edge of the water and tossing their heads. They looked off toward the east where the sky was beginning to lighten. The night began to recede around them. The yellow, red and orange moons dropped to the horizon and buried themselves behind the mountains, and the hundred billion stars faded before the coming dawn of the blood-red sun.
And the ponies began to change.
At first Vanessa could hardly tell what was happening. The ponies rose up on their hind legs as their bodies contracted, growing smaller and less angular. Their long, noble faces shrank to delicate human form, and their manes were replaced by softly flowing hair. Pale blue tunics floated out of nowhere to cover them, and they stepped forward on small bare feet - six slim and graceful girls, Emma and Christina and all the rest.
Vanessa gazed at them in amazement, then heard a soft whinny behind her. She turned to look where Alexander and the boys had been standing just a few minutes before - to where seven painted ponies now hung their heads in terrible, lonely sadness.