Common

done a lot of things wrong, loving you being one

Hollis has no idea where she is. The last thing she remembers was another fight; raised voices, aggressive posturing and finally, actual violence which is what set her over the edge. Teeth, sharp and strong catching the sensitive skin of her flank as he tried to correct her behavior one final time. Her blood had run freely, staining her pale hide red and that had been it. Hollis didn’t care who this stallion was, how important he was to her father or her mother or anything. She wasn’t going to tolerate this behavior. She’d fallen for his honeyed words and his pretty face much too easily in the beginning, but she wasn’t going to put up with being treated this way. Hollis should have known when she arrived, the horde of cowed, quiet mares with their wide eyes and retiring body language hovering at the edges - always avoiding their stallion, but never leaving his sight. Her father had read it as respect, and Hollis quietly agreed (did she have a choice? She was handed over like chattel). Now she sees it for what it really was - fear. The thought of spending the rest of her life like one of the scarred, terrified mares she called herd mates is repulsive. So much so, that she didn’t fight back even though every ounce of her being wanted to return his violence with her own. She’s smart enough to know that was a losing battle, though, and so Hollis pretended. She spent the next few days acting contrite and behaving until finally her chance came. When it did, the young mare leapt from the high, rocky cliff that bordered her prison and gave herself over to the mercy of the ocean. Better to die than to lose herself; better to drown than stick around and be forced to carry his foals.

She doesn’t know how long she swims, only that the ocean around her becomes her whole world. Her eyes sting, her legs and lungs burn and there are so many times she wants to give up. But the tide flows towards his home, and Hollis will not give him the satisfaction of washing up dead on his beach. It seems unreal, then, that her hooves crash into something below, and she blinks the salt from her eyes to see landahead. Hollis lets out a bright, disbelieving laugh and presses on. She doesn’t know how much longer it is that she reaches the beach, legs shaking as she drags herself from the surf.

Hollis slowly looks around, blue gaze cloudy with exhaustion and barely registering the sight in front of her. She sees the meadow spread before her, trees a burnished gold, everything so lush and populated it may as well be paradise and it makes her want to weep. Food is more important than crying, though; she can get all of that out later. The pale young mare takes aching, unsteady steps until she reaches the grass and then hesitates, because her thirst is just as pressing. She decides it is best to continue on and find somewhere she can drink, eat and then sleep for an eon. Walking is difficult and slow going, and Hollis hopes whoever it is that owns this meadow lets her at least take a few moments to recover before sending her on her way. Just over a small ridge is a tiny brook, heavily shaded by trees and luscious green undergrowth. It is here that Hollis sets herself, drinking as much as she can before she feels like she will be sick, the water sloshing about in her empty stomach making her nauseated almost instantly. Without a care for that, she sets about eating as much of the grass about her that she can, knowing that she’s never had a meal taste this way. Freedom is sweet, Hollis thinks. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.