Every line of her body is tense. She braced for whoever approaches, part of her terrified it will be another stranger, another stallion come to rip her away. That fear intensifies when she catches a male scent on the wind. She freezes, and when the call comes Hollis shudders. Should she run? It would probably be the smart thing, fleeing while she still can.

Steeling herself, Hollis looks up, expecting to see one of the two vicious stallions who came for her last time, who held her captive and acted as if she should be grateful for it. “Oh,” she breathes out, gaze landing not on the tall grey stallion or his bay sidekick but instead the handsome golden captive that she fled from with Marceline.

It took a while before she realized fleeing wasn’t necessary - Marceline is brave and vicious and everything that Hollis wishes she could be. Surely the beautiful former queen hasn’t ever been made a captive, let herself suffer weak at the mercy of another. She proved that well when she stole this stallion away and has kept him here. Everything in her body urges her to flee, but Hollis fights her own self to stay. He’s proven he only wants to help her. When they were here for her again he helped even though it meant having to remain here.

“I…I am,” she manages to offer shakily, blue eyes wide as she stares at him. “Thank you,” Hollis blurts out abruptly. She will never really know if it was his presence that turned the table, that made her captors flee rather than fight. “You’re a captive here, the same way I was there.” Hollis whispers, unable to stomach any more eye contact. She looks down before she finishes, “You didn’t have to help. I…I don’t understand why you helped.”