The longer I stared at 'Luthien' the less eager I was to explore it. Although it was beautiful in its own kind of haunting way, it was so at odds with what I had imagined a forest was like that I was far too disappointed to give it a fair chance. Like someone offering a slice of cake, only to uncover a fruitcake instead of the iced and decorated birthday cake you'd imagined.

And so I turned to him, half expecting that this was some half-baked surprise. A giant gotcha moment. A prank of some kind, except that when my gaze landed back on the blue-black stallion, there was no mirth to be found in his haunting eyes. Only a predatory gleam that set every hair on my back to standing straight up.

Do you not like it? He asked, voice insidious and though I hated myself for it, I shrank back away from him. I knew the whites of my eyes were showing my fear as clearly as I felt it, as if my sudden step backward and furrowed brow did not already convey it. Wisely, I opted not to answer, choosing instead to square my body with his as the true danger of what I'd just done rushed over my head like an icy bucket of water. I'd accompanied not just a stranger, but a strange man, to a land I did not know, where no one would come to look for me, where no one else knew I existed. Dread washed over me and I sucked in a nervous gasp as I took another step back, noting the way his body shifted.

His lunge toward me was not wholly unexpected, and I realized as I read the intent that I had two choices. I could play the demure princess I had been raised to be, or I could try to be the bold sort of heroine one always heard about. The queens and matriarchs who rescued their herds and led them to new beginnings, the ones who fought for what was right before they (inevitably) settled down to have children. Baring my teeth, I lunged back at him with my ears flattened to the nape of my neck and eyes wild.

I knew it was a mistake the instant his body crashed into mine and felt the sharp pinch of his teeth against my neck. Still, I could see no other option except to keep trying and so I tried to pull away from him, to plant my forehooves into the damp sand and lash out at him with my hinds. He was far too big for me to be fighting with my inexperience and I knew it, but I would not go down without a fight.

"I am not," I snarl, but my voice trembles around the words, and as soon as my hind hooves hit the ground again, I take off along the beach. I am too nervous to try fleeing into the murky not-forest, and so I opt to stay along the open edges of the land, hoping that someone will see my plight and rescue me.