Falls

ARSINOE

He’d left her. Just like her mom. Just like she knew he would, eventually. Just like everyone would. Khan just…left her in the Badlands, alone with their father without a second thought. He’d told her, sure, that he was going to look for Darshan. But he hadn’t asked her along. Hadn’t even mentioned it as a possibility, even though he had to know Arsinoe would have gone with him in a heartbeat.

When Khan had announced it, heir dad had just shrugged, pointed him towards the Prairie with instructions to greet Zevulun and ask after their aunt, and then gone about his day. Arsinoe was hurt by that too, and after a sobbing conversation later on, where Rafe’s soothing words explained that he was going to leave despite Arsinoe’s wishes, that preventing Khan from finding this truth on his own would only drive them farther apart, Arsinoe had quieted.

And then, she had planned.

Ultimately, she was able to ask some of the mares who had done more traveling, come from different islands, just how to get to Luthien. Apparently it is far to the North, so far that Klara didn’t seem to think Arsinoe could manage the swim on her own, asked if Rafe knew that she was leaving. He doesn’t, of course, because Arsinoe doesn’t want to hear her father forbid her from her journey. SHe is going to find Khan. And when she does, she will yell at him about not ever, ever leaving her again until he listens.

She sets out at sunset, swimming north from the furthest tip of the Badlands. From there, she skirts the western edge of the Lagoon under cover of darkness, making a mad dash out of the dangerous bachelor herd territory. They had told her she cannot stop until she reaches the river that divides a great plain (and describing both of those things to Arsinoe had been difficult, give that she’s never left Salem before). From there, she can head north until she skirts the mountains of the Peak (where she will be safe, does not have to hide) and swim west for the Prairie.

It all sounds doable, and Khan had probably managed, but by the time she reaches a massive waterfall, Arsinoe is exhausted. Every single one of her muscles ache, her legs shaky and head drooping with exhaustion. As much as she doesn’t want to, Arsinoe knows she has to sleep. She can’t fight the ocean tides again, much less worry about nebulous boundaries of an island she doesn’t know, about falling into the hands of a stallion who would seek to keep her trapped, use her against Rafe.

It doesn’t hurt that there’s so much water here, and more grass in one place than she’s ever seen. So much water, so much food - but the wind is cold. The leaves on the trees aren’t green, like her mother said, but instead golden and gently falling. They don’t have autumn like this back home, and Arsinoe shivers against the wind, her thing coat ill-suited for such a land. The white and gold yearling approaches the crashing pool of water, lowering her head to drink before she catches sight of the other equine standing near. “Oh,” she says, lifting her head and offering a tentative smile, even as her sharp green gaze slides over the other, cataloging this potential new threat. “I didn’t see you there, or I wouldn’t have interrupted.”