you got easy eyes to hunt
and the world above needs your blood

Did she intend to give Lyden a chance? Dock truly did not know the answer to that question. Avoiding him and any other strangers (up until this encounter with Black Heart Machine) had been Dock’s main goal. A silent war was waged within herself as she wondered if she might ever push herself to give him a chance. To give the Forest a chance to become home. Her heart ached as the word “home” made her think of the oak grove. She swallowed against the rise of emotion in her throat, pink nostrils flared as she sucked in a sudden breath of air while keeping her lips pressed together.

Finally, Dock began to speak. “I was always told that when I was of age I would go to a herd and life would carry on the way it had for my mother and her mother before her.” There was a quiet thoughtfulness to her tone as the young filly puzzled over this new information she had been given. These islands were a very peculiar place indeed. Did her heart and soul crave to be freed from the bonds of man to where she could stand on her own without his oppressive shadow? Not exactly… Perhaps Dock had not been exposed to the knowledge that she could possess free will. Perhaps as she’d stood in a herd and thought of her future she’d found there was no reason to argue against it and never played with those sort of thoughts. Would they now tempt her? Now that she knew she didn’t have to be a herd mare?

“But I do owe someone.” Her voice fell and her blue eyes left Black Heart Machine, watching the ground instead. “I came here with my sisters,” she explained quietly, “it’s always been us. It’s always been the three of us. We don’t… We don’t separate. They picked the Forest, they wanted to live there.” Miserably, her heart ached. “I just want to go home.” Was she really happy at home, back in the oak grove? No. Home was simply familiar. This new, strange situation was something she was struggling day by day to accept.