“We’re almost there, I can smell it!” Her voice was cheerful and high, but Hickere’s voice was always cheerful and high, as well as bossy. Dock turned her blue eyes to Dickere, but Dickere only offered a small grin. A sigh came heavily from Dock’s mouth as she twitched her little tail at her rump and picked up her pace in the sand, bringing up the rear of their trio as she often was. Hickere always led, Dickere sometimes argued but mostly agreed that Hickere knew what she was doing, and Dock never spoke or even tried to lead. Dock just followed.
The three had known one another since they were newborns and even in birth they’d come in the order they trotted now. Hickere was born first, Dickere born second, and Dock born third. They weren’t full-blooded sisters, but they were half, and Hickere said that made them just as much sisters as anything could.
Dock couldn’t remember why Hickere had decided the oak grove wasn’t good enough for the three of them. Dock had always liked the oak grove. But when they were old enough Hickere had told both Dock and Dickere that they had to leave the herd as that was nature’s way. There were a few herds throughout the grove they could live with (Dock had caught a red stallion giving her an appreciative eye from time to time and Dickere had seen it too. Hickere just laughed when Dickere brought it up. Dock was too pale, her blue eyes were too weird, and she was just too quiet for any stallion to want in his herd). Yet Hickere had informed them the oak grove wasn’t good, they needed to go somewhere else, somewhere far away.
So now they were here. Hickere pulled up a quick stop and gasped before squealing so sharply that Dock turned her ears back and gave a grumpy gaze toward her leading companion. “LOOK! LOOK! Do you see it?! I TOLD YOU!” Dock snapped her tail and turned her face forward, looking across the salty ocean water where, to her astonishment, the shape of an island seemed to loom in waiting. “Hah! You guys didn’t believe me. I told you! There’s more islands and there’s other horses there too! My mom told me so!” She charged into the spray of cold water, “come on!”
Dickere looked at Dock and suddenly, Dock could not be angry at Hickere anymore. She nodded, dropped her eyes away from the distant shadowy shape of an island, and trotted into the water behind Dickere. Hickere’s mother had died just a few months ago and Hickere had been…weird about it. Dock had thought it was weird at least that Hickere didn’t cry and instead assured everyone that it was the way of life and went on as if nothing drastic had changed. Then, suddenly, Hickere was hatching this plan for the three of them to go to some islands where she swore there were herds. When Dickere had asked how she knew this, Hickere had been vague.
Dock stopped thinking about Hickere and her mother, as well as the little knot forming in her stomach that this was all a big mistake and Hickere wasn’t as okay as she’d pretended to be...
Dickere shook off her coat as she stepped onto the beach, Hickere already trotting ahead of her, tossing her head and whickering in excitement. She smiled, shaking excess saltwater from her coat, and turned to watch as Dock came up from the surf with heavy, ungraceful steps. Dickere loved Hickere, but she loved Dock too, for all her grumpy silence. It was no secret however, that Hickere and Dock weren’t the closest of sorts. Dickere waited until Dock was on the beach and bumped her muzzle affectionately against her wither before walking up to find Hickere. “What now?” She asked curiously.
“Now?” Said Hickere, still reeling from the excitement that this was all real. “Oh! Yes!” Hickere was the leader. She liked being the leader. She always had the answers for where the three of them should go. “Now we go find a stallion, and he takes us to his island! My mom told me about them... ” and from that point on through the terrain and away from the shoreline, Dickere and Dock heard all about the islands and how different they were and how she didn’t have a preference where she lived but she’d like to live where her mother had lived.
By the time they stopped, Dock was ready to put her ears back again. She was trying to give Dickere the look that would inform Dickere to somehow get Hickere to shut-up when suddenly, Hickere stopped. “PERFECT!”
Dock squinted and looked at the open, grazed down clearing they were standing in. It smelled overwhelmingly of horses (which made her somewhat nervous) and didn’t look like any sort of paradise or anything like that. A skeptical gaze was given to Hickere.
“This is where we’ll meet a stallion.” Hickere reassured them, nodding firmly and prancing forward, bugling out a loud whinny that made Dock turn her ears back and shoot a look at Dickere. Really?
hickere, dickere, and dock
pirate's three half-arabian sisters