She awakes to numbness.

It is the same blank void borne of exhaustion and trauma that had greeted her when she awoke on the shores of the Commons, but it does not come with the relief of forgetfulness. She can remember every terrible moment of her second trip to the Crossing. Her mind wanders aimlessly through the memories with every intention of finding where she had gone wrong, so that she may never again experience anything like Tyr's embrace again.

She had arrived soundlessly in the night, her wails of pain and anguish gifted to the sea on her swim home. By the time she'd reached the blessedly familiar shores of Paradise, she had nothing left of herself to give. Not her fear, nor her anger. All of it was spent. Sonorae had slept on the shore of Paradise by herself, half-hoping that the ocean would listen to the pleas she'd made while swimming and rise up to swallow her whole in the darkness

It did not, of course.

It refused to answer to her the same way her memories of Before were nothing but grey blurs. There was only one creature in her entire memory that had ever sought to give her what she wanted, whether it be his touch or his comfort, and her heart leapt at the memory. In the blur of her escape from Tyr, and subsequent exhaustion upon arrival, it had been easy to assume that Rougaru would be upset with her for leaving, and that his affection for her would have left.

In the light of dawn, however, she knew better. Tyr may have been terrible, but Rougaru was a good man. Every action he had ever taken on her behalf had been gentle and kind. Even if he could not erase the way her recollection, or mend her broken heart, he would know how to soften the edges of her pain.

Sonorae scrambles awkwardly to her feet, her first steps as uncoordinated as a newborn's as she sought to force her limbs beneath her weight despite the pins and needles that sent pain racing through her nerves. Her lips pressed together as she forced a slow breath through her nostrils, struggling to separate the immediate discomfort from the lingering pain of her panicked swim home. The marks the brute had left over her hips and shoulders still burned each time that she moved, no longer dulled by the ache of her fear. All of her muscles felt as tightly strung as piano wire and she froze in place, panting through the pain until it passed and she could once again breathe freely.

Only when she is reasonably sure she can walk like a fully grown adult does she move forward, her rich brown gaze lifting to the dense foliage she has only just begun to think of as home. Only then does she call out. Her intention is to call for Rougaru, to beckon him to her side so that he can soothe her as he has always done, but it changes last minute in a sudden grip of uncertainty.

What if he blamed her? The thought is so sudden and disconcerting that her voice cracks and the chocolate stallion's name does not slip from her lips. Instead, a wordless cry for company replaces it, the sound jagged and stilted in her mouth. Sonorae isn't even sure that he has anything to blame her for She understood the act that had been forced upon her to be bad, and had an inkling of what it might be intended to accomplish in regards to procreation, but the societal norm of it being wrong to mate with a stallion outside of your herd was a more slippery concept to grasp.

What she knew was that Tyr's touch had been nothing like Rougaru's, and far from making her fear all men, it made her crave the one she trusted even more.