violeta
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"Never walk alone, but especially do not walk alone with a stallion you are unpaired with," says Violeta's mother. "It is not our way, and for good reason. You'll understand when you're older."
Violeta muses over this, then says, "But I wasn't alone. I had Ver. How could I be alone when my brother was with me?"
"Don't be stupid," her mother spits. "Never walk alone with a stallion, especially family."
As Violeta's cry fades into the cold dark, her body rigid with the shock of pain, the thump and rustle of the serpent's approach swell like the tides that had nearly claimed her. They envelop her until they're all she can hear, and she squeezes her eyes shut, her mind's eye conjuring images of a great sea snake with rows of teeth and a cavernous jaw unhinging for her demise. A final pulse of frantic energy fills her and she renews her struggle to free herself, her hooves digging into the damp earth, teeth clenched and branches creaking as the pressure along her crest builds.
Just as half her mane is threatening to rip free, a deep voice addresses her.
Violeta's dark eyes snap open, and her nostrils quiver with immobile breath. The stranger before her is cloaked in the shadows of the midnight woodland, but he is unmistakably pale in color, almost becoming luminous as the moon re-emerges from cloud cover and spills silver light through the trees. He is tall, too—taller than any horse Violeta has ever encountered—and so the overall affect his presence inspires is one of awe, as if some ethereal forest spirit has come to rescue her. Is this a dream, or the afterlife? Had she not survived her swim after all?
"I— I—" she stammers, her breath curling about her in delicate clouds of water vapor.
There's a rustle nearby, and the sleek obsidian form of Viorel emerges from the bracken.
Violeta's heart drops, and she stiffens with a hiss of intaken breath.
As the soft lighting shifts across the stallion's features, however, the illusion melts away. He is all fine arches, his frame light and leggy where the Family's—Violeta's included—is petite and robust with supple curves. Her ears twitch to catch his strange, lilting speech, but with the roar of her own heartbeat in her ears she can do nothing but stand frozen with bewilderment, her eyes like wide gleaming pools as she processes just how strange her circumstances have become. The stallions' intermingling scents are heavy in her nostrils, mixing with the stench of mud and rotting leaves and the unpleasant coppery tang of her own blood, and her head swims with the weight of the sensory information and conflicting emotions warring within her.
"Please, be careful," Violeta pleads to them both, eyeballing the area she had last spied the monster, but there is naught but shadows and twigs among the leaf litter. "There's a serpent over there somewhere—or, was. I— I tried to run, and got caught. Can one of you help me? It really hurts."
There's a shiver of disturbed foliage as she tugs lightly at the tangle of her mane, wincing as her raw skin is pulled taut.