Common

my waves meet your shore, ever and evermore;

Fearne isn’t alone for long; a stallion soon approaches, emerging from the hill behind her to draw close. He’s taller than her - a feat, really, as she’s always been a leggy things and was always the tallest in her family. The strange stallion is as spotted as she is, although he’s also marked through with bold white patches; altogether, it is a very striking image. Fearne cannot let herself be blinded by good looks, though. She has no idea what his intentions are, what he wants with her. Is she trespassing in her home? Maybe he’s here to chase her back into the ocean - a terrifying thought, because Fearne cannot stomach the idea of another swim. She is utterly certain that stepping back into the ocean will lead to her death. She doesn’t move a muscle, willing herself to stay still and not be so obviously, evidently weak. It must not work - she knows her limbs are shaking, the exhaustion and the cold combining in a vicious way to make her hardly able to stand. He tilts his head, and when he speaks his voice is gentle. Surprisingly, he offers her warmth. Fearne watches him with wide, surprised eyes but finally she nods. “Please,” she says desperately, taking a step forward and drawing close to him. “I’m f-f-freezing.”

Fearne doesn’t even have the chance to take him up on his offer, before some….tiny little thing is approaching in a golden blur. She doesn’t recognize it as another equine at first, until he starts biting at her. Fearne squeals in pain and anger when his teeth connect with her shoulder, and she kicks out; she doesn’t know if she connects, because he is damned fast, but she doesn’t back down. He sneers something about running, and the loathing and hate that rushes through her is so strong, her grief is chased away. She refuses. Fearne was chased from one home, and she will never flee again. It doesn’t even have anything to do with the kind, handsome stallion; she cares little for his opinion, right now. If she washed up here, maybe her mother did. She won’t be herded away like a disobedient child - she will stay, and she will hunt for her family.

Instead of going where he presses her to, Fearne stands her ground. She pins back her ears and tenses her muscles, body coiled and ready to strike if this pushy stranger comes in range again. He does, trying to use a non-existent size advantage to bully her the way he wants to go. ‘Half drowned and starved, and I’m still a match for him,’ Fearne thinks contemptuously. She snaps at him, aiming her teeth for his ear, his face, his throat, anything tender on the short little nuisance that she can reach. “I will not run from you,” Fearne sneers. Adrenaline is coursing through her body now, and she is no longer shaking - the rush has given her more energy than she has had in days. He pushes in close again, as if she will flee, and instead Fearne plants her feet in the frozen earth below her, bracing for the impact of the small gold stallion. “I will not run from you,” she repeats again. “So get out of my face before I squish you like the insect you are.” Her voice rises at the end, a note of hysterical anger in it that she doesn’t even attempt to control. This rude stranger will know her wrath.