No one is going to come. Hollis can hear hooves behind her, hear the terrifying sounds of her captor and no one is going to come for her. She shouldn’t have slowed, shouldn’t have ever come to the Peak. Maybe…maybe if she had gone somewhere else, traded the devil she knew for whatever lurked in the Ridge she would have been better off.
Just as she is resigning herself to dying here, taking her final breaths so close to freedom (because she won’t go quietly this time - she will fight, she will be as her sisters are), Marceline appears. Hollis lets out a sob of relief when the red and white warrioress reaches her and Hollis chokes out, “Marceline - I -”. She doesn’t manage anything else - her savior, their would-be leader pushes her to keep running. Their eyes lock for a moment, terrified blue to determined gold, and Hollis nods. She’s no use in a fight - being here would only make it worse.
She has to keep going - Marceline knows what she is doing; she’d fought off the painted stallion who came for her and then dragged back a buckskin just to rub it in. So Hollis runs; she tucks her feet under her and puts on a burst of speed…Only to slam to a stop, rearing back. There is another stallion in front of her - of course her big, idiotic captor brought backup. He says something, and Hollis just snorts in disgust. “Get away from me, you monster!” She backs up a few steps, terrified to continue on alone with him. What if he is worse than the stallion behind her, held off by Marceline?
She doesn’t have to hesitate long - Khar’Pern appears out of the dark and Hollis makes another relieved noise, eyes wide and flashing whites, head lifted in panic. She dances back, unwilling to turn on him in case he gets violent. Better to see it coming, to trust that her sisters behind her will protect her from her captor growing any nearer.
She’s backing away when a stallion melts out of the dark, slim and desert-built. She blinks at him in fear before she realizes that they’ve met - he found her and Marceline, and let them go on to the Peak. Perhaps knowing Marceline as she does now it was less that he allowed them to leave and more that he knew he’d never win. Hollis has no idea what he is doing here, ready to have to have to face a third stallion vying for her captivity when he shows his allegiance, throwing his own voice into the mix, backing her. Hollis cannot resist the urge to shrink behind him, safely tucked behind her three saviors. Tears are still coming heavy, and the adrenaline rushing through her has her ready to vomit.
But she manages to do something she has not so far - she raises her voice, looks at her captor and says, “I - I’m not going with you. I’m never going back there.”