Excitement had blossomed in Hiyori’s chest when she had scented the Peak strong and fresh in the lagoon. Finally, her sisters had realized where she was, and they had come to free her from this prison! But when she had raced to their scent, her eyes bright and her heart hammering in her chest, all that awaited her was a dead body. Vane lay unmoving and the smell of Marceline and Khar’pern hung in the air, but clearly they had gone. That light that had filled Hiyori’s eyes quickly faded, and her heart slowed, and at that moment she wished it would just stop. Instead, it shattered.


Tears streaming down her cheeks, the pale mare turned and just as quickly fled the scene. The Lagoon men would be there soon, and she didn’t want to face the wraith that the Peak mares had left in their wake. Only when she was sure that she had made it far enough away, did Hiyori allow herself to stop and the sob she’d been choking down to make it’s escape. Born in the Peak, raised in the Peak, and yet they had left her to rot here because she wasn’t worth their time. All the silent prayers she had sent up to the star filled nights, hoping that someone was listening, and that one of the Peak sisters would find her had been utterly useless. No one was coming for her. No one was going to free her from this rank, male filled swamp.


In the following seasons, Hiyori resumed her everyday life. Keep Himari close to her and away from the stallions that might start to take a fancy to her nearly grown daughter. Though she didn’t pointedly go out of her way to avoid Khyber anymore since the stallion had finally upheld his end of the bargain for her complacency, their paths had simply not crossed. Hiyori doubted that it would remain that way for much longer.


“Mom…” Himari’s soft voice made Hiyori pause, glancing back at her daughter, and then followed her green gaze over to see a lone mare standing against a tree. She looked exhausted, and her damp disheveled mane and tail suggested she hadn’t been here long. But Hiyori had scented her before and it made her curious to what happened, but not enough to ask. “Should I?” Himari asked, again bringing her mother’s gaze back to her. Hiyroi offered a nod and remained where she was standing as Himari walked over to the stranger.


“H-Hello….” Himari greeted her in a shy, nervous voice. She had never talked to anyone other than her mother and her sister that were no longer in the Lagoon. Himari’s heart ached with missing her older sibling, but for now, she was distracted from that pain. “If you’d like to lay and rest…. We’ll stay here with you.” The pale painted girl offered the stranger.


Even if they were strangers, Hiyori was sure that being prisoners of the lagoon meant that they should at least try to look out for one another. It seemed no one else was going to.