He finally allowed her to leave, but only after he’d covered her. Only after he had from her what he’d wanted. Sobs wracked her body along with pain from strange muscles that had never before been used. The tears were lost in the water of the ocean and her thin, tired legs kicked out frantically against the cold, churning saltwater. Dock was only half-aware of the struggle to swim from Crossing Isle to Luthien as if she were in a dream and traveling where time simply snapped from one face to the next. Her mind was a mess of seeing him – the spotted stallion that had stopped her from leaving each time she wanted to come home, that had trailed her, laid his lips on her skin and left long, glistening streaks of saliva.

Beneath the thin light of the moon she pulled her body from the shallows and stumbled up the beach. Weak, so physically weak, Dock tripped and crashed into the ground, not getting up right away. Instead she sobbed, and hard, shaking and needing her sisters more than she ever had. For at least ten minutes she laid on the beach, barely holding her head up from crashing against the ground, and let hot tears splatter the earth beneath her. She couldn’t remember feeling this tired in all her life. She couldn’t ever remember being in this much pain. She was afraid, afraid he wouldn’t keep his bargain and he would follow her rather than letting her be free. At any moment she was afraid her escape had been for nothing and he’d come from the dark sea and swallow her world into fear again.

Eventually she rolled her weight, put her legs beneath her, and forced herself to stand even as they trembled. Her walk was slow simply due to exhaustion but there was no denying the relief she felt when the familiar smell of the forest hit her nostrils. Not because she loved the forest – no, Dock was a stranger here – but because she could smell the scent of her beloved sisters tangled amongst its leaves and dirt.

Dock walked until she found them, Dickere with her head over Hickere’s back, sleeping. A strangled cry burst desperately from her mouth the very moment she saw them and Dickere tore her head from Hickere’s back, a whinny of her own bursting from her mouth as she spun to see if it was real, if Dock had really returned home. “Dock!” She cried, her heart swelling with relief to see her sister. She and Hickere trotted toward Dock just as Dock trotted toward them, meeting quickly.

Hickere, angry, immediately began to scold. “Where have you been?! We were worried about you! You can’t just go off and –” Hickere cut off her words not because Dock said anything but because Dock, who normally was quiet and antisocial, began to sob the moment she reached her sisters. The cremello mare dropped her head and pushed between the two of them, her face against Dickere’s stomach but her weight leaning toward Hickere as well, as if she needed to touch them both. Her sobs were so full of misery and so strong that Hickere was stunned into silence, tears stinging her own eyes.

“Oh, Dock,” Dickere sobbed, tears falling from her eyes as she bent to place her muzzle on Dock’s shoulder. In that moment the moon lit the three and, given Dock’s pale skin, made every inch of it glow. There they could witness the ugly marks where a stallion’s teeth had pinched and bruised their sister’s skin and where his hooves had cut one of her shoulders. Hickere’s ears pinned immediately and Dickere gasped in horror.