Head slung low, world wrapped in darkness as she shut her eyes to it, all Dock could comprehend was emotional pain so powerful it transcended to become physical. The entirety of her body trembled with it as her throat, her lungs, and her eyes burned. Thick, hot wet salt tears bubbled over her eyelids and squeezed out, following the hollow dish of her face and dribbling off her nose. The sweet sound of rain was gone, the kind and strangely comforting presence of Valentine was forgotten. In that moment it was only horrible memories that stole her conscious mind away from the world and tugged it to where it had been forgotten. Greedily it persisted as though it was angry she’d ever tried to forget it in the first place. It latched on tighter, the memories became more vivid, and Dock cried harder.
The thin legs that held her upright began to shake and might have collapsed underneath her if a new sensation hadn’t come to lodge a block in the cogs of the bad thoughts. Contact – physical contact – came from the darkness in a soft hush of sound as hooves squished against the wet forest floor and a sharp masculine smell invaded her tender nostrils as he drew so close. The muscles of her body tensed at first, not used to having anyone other than her sisters so close to her, but then she felt his warmth as it radiated from his body and seeped into her skin. She thought of Valentine as she had met him first on Crossing and she thought of him now, inviting her to visit his home and being genuinely kind to her.
She relaxed. The violence of the sobs slowly came to nothing more than hiccups with small trickles of hot tears, her neck turned so she could press her face against his skin and forget for a moment that they were barely even friends. So that she could forget for a moment that she’d never had a friend before. She needed the comfort more than anything, for all the times she had been trying to pretend that she didn’t.
“He wouldn’t,” she sucked in a ragged breath of air as she gave a strained whisper, “he wouldn’t let me leave, not until I… I couldn’t come back to my sisters. I tried to fight, I swear I did.” She doubted anyone believed her, she doubted anyone thought she was strong enough to try and fight anyone. But she had. She’d tried to fight, she’d tried to run. But he’d been there, like a ghost that could manifest from thin air, he’d always been there. “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have run away that day, not without telling my sisters.” Dock leaned her body toward Valentine as the tears finally stalled and her heart felt pressed into her throat. “I’m scared, Valentine.” She whispered this to a stallion she hardly knew when she couldn’t even say it to her sisters, “I’m so scared.”
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