Hollis breathes in the cool, crisp air of autumn and for a long, terrifying moment wonders if this is all a hallucination. If she is still held captive by that hateful grey stallion on the humid, miserable shores of Atlantis. It still doesn’t seem possible that so many had rallied around her - Marceline and Khar’pern and even Marceline’s….lover? Whatever the golden stallion that had trailed them to the Peak back from where Hollis had initially found her broken and bleeding in the Commons.

But they had - like an answer to every prayer she had ever had, every desperate dream she cast out across the ocean and back towards her home during her captivity, they had come. And even though that evil stallion and his stupid second in command had trailed her to the Peak, they hadn’t been able to make her go back. Her sisters had driven them away, had welcomed her back in with relief and glad words and Hollis had been nothing but tears, unable to do much beyond shadow Marceline further in.

It has been a few weeks, but Hollis is home, she is safe, and she stands now among the changing leaves, savoring the chill in the air and the dusting of frost across the gold-burnished grasses, safe from the attention of stallions.

After the election things in the Peak had been more tense than usual so Hollis has been hiding further up, tucked away in one of the little valleys that dot the landscape. But today when the sun rose, she carefully picked her way down the loose shale sides and into the lower meadow where most of her sisters can be found.

He breath is coming quicker (after all, she had been down here when he came for her) but after a furtive glance around, Hollis cannot see anyone else. So she creeps forward finally settling to graze. She’s safe; she’s home. She can do this - living in fear forever, refusing to ever show her face again is giving him too much power and she won’t do it.