when the angels break their wings they crash and stumble
just like we struggle

“That’s it. I’m going to find her.”

“Where?! How?!” Stressed Hickere, pushing momentum to her limbs to dart about Dickere’s purposeful march and cutting her stride off. Dickere pulled her ears back and nipped out at Hickere’s coat but did not bite her sister before changing her course and purposefully moving around the living roadblock. Hickere had a point that Dickere didn’t know the first place to start looking for Dock, but Dock had been missing for a day now and it wasn’t like her at all. “Dickere.” Hickere hissed, turning her body around and trotting up to her again. “Dickere, listen to me.” Her voice was stressed. Nothing in Hickere showed the carefree and giggly attitude she often hand. “You don’t know where Dock went, neither of us do. Yes, she could be hurt and yes I am scared for her. But you running off by yourself isn’t going to solve matters. What if you wind up hurt? What if you wind up missing?” Before Dickere could interject or cut her off, Hickere pled with her. “Please just tell Lyden that Dock is missing.” Dickere had been refusing to do so in fear that Lyden would grow cross. They didn’t know him too terribly well, after all. What if he kicked Dock from the herd?

Dickere took a sharp breath, refusing to turn her gaze onto Hickere’s face. Instead she watched the world around her and kept moving forward, her skin twitching with agitation and worry berating her mind. At last, in the silence that followed where her sister did not remove her gaze, Dickere sighed and shook her head. “Hickere,” she pleaded in a small, sad voice, eyes glossing over with tears, “Hickere, I can’t. He’ll be so angry.”

Hickere snorted in protest and threw her head, pawing at the ground and snapping her tail angrily at her hindquarters. “And he won’t be if you sneak away? He won’t be if you wind up hurt? Dickere, it isn’t safe. I love Dock – I do – she’s our sister but Dickere, this is her own fault. She ran away, she - ”

“HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?!” Dickere shouted, stopping just at the line of trees where it broke away into a windswept coastline. Tears made a sticky, glistening trail down her cheeks as she turned and looked with a hurt expression in her gaze. “Hickere, she’s our sister. She could be hurt. We knew she wasn’t happy here, we knew she’d been acting even worse than normal but we ignored it. This is our fault. If,” her voice broke and she drew in a breath, “if something happened to her…” Her voice trailed off, failed, too afraid to give voice to such horrors.

“Dickere,” her sister said with a soft, sad voice, stepping forward and pulling her neck over the other, pulling it in for a tight embrace against her chest. The guilt was there with Hickere just the same as it was with Dickere, but in Hickere it turned to anger. She was angry at Dock for going to such an extreme, for running away when it was always supposed to be the three of them together. Angry for making them feel guilty and fearful. They had found a good life here in this forest with Lyden and Braylen. They had a new family to get to know and thus far everyone had seemed wonderful.

The sound of voices drifting from far away finally caught up with them and Hickere pulled cautiously from her sister, turning to look at where the noises were coming from. She saw other horses, three in fact, moving from the shoreline. Hickere bumped her sister softly on the shoulder. “Hey,” she said softly, “dry those tears. Let’s talk about Dock later, okay? If you don’t want to tell Lyden maybe we’ll talk to Braylen. But… We’ll figure something out together. C’mon.” Though Dickere looked longingly for a moment at the ocean and her heart ached for wherever Dock was she ultimately had to agree that Hickere was right. She gave a small, sad nod and drew a breath to turn with Hickere. “You know what’d be great right now? A distraction!” Hickere’s grin stretched wide and happy. “Let’s go meet these horses. I think that one is Lyden’s lead mare so you should really get to know here y’know.”

As Hickere picked up her head and started to them, Dickere frowned. “I don’t know, Hickere, they seem pretty preoccupi-” but before she could finish her statement Hickere was already giving a rumbling nicker from her lips and Dickere had no choice but to follow.

“Hey there!” She said with a brilliant smile as she drew near. “I’m Hickere, this is my sister, Dickere.”

Because Hickere was oblivious to the entire idea of intruding on private time, Dickere was the one that spoke up with her ever-soft voice. “I hope we’re not interrupting anything…”