"Owwwwww," she hissed beneath her breath, tears squeaking out from her clenched eyelids. She had been creeping along in the shadows, doing her best to spy on the Bay herd without being noticed when disaster had struck. "Owowowowow," she continued under her breath, curling her slender body around so she could peer at the affected foot.

In her eagerness to follow along with the herd as they moved, she'd been slinking through the piney undergrowth without paying attention to where she'd been walking. One careless step later and she'd driven the pointy end of a broken branch straight up into her frog. Of all the things she'd been worried about on her little adventure today - of daddy catching her, or mommy following her, or accidentally falling asleep while she was walking, or even getting lost - stubbing her toe hadn't been on the list.

The slender tobiano ducked her head down to peer back at the offending stick with her fuzzy ears pinned tightly to the nape of her neck. "That's not nice," she addressed the stick, and made an exploratory grab for the piece of wood. Given her angle and inexperience with removing foreign objects, the abrupt movement resulted only in a sharp cry of pain that she couldn't control, and an ungainly little jig in place that had about as much effect at reducing the sting as one would expect.

"No, no, no," she muttered under her breath, angry tears spilling down her cheeks. "This isn't fair." Svetka still had rather a lot to learn about the objective fairness of the world.

With a soft huff of frustration, she set her hind limb down carefully, tiptoe first, and peered out in the unfamiliar Bay forests. "Can anyone help me? Please?"