Her heart was pounding. Alice whined from where she was jogging to keep up with Hotaru's long-legged pacing, a torrent of emotions shared between the pair of them, the bond open and flooding. It only served to increase Hotaru's speed, until she was racing, eyes wild and breaths panting in a misted cloud that clung to her sparse whiskers. Alice kept pace with her, growth and breed her only saving grace as her mistress fled into the starry night. She was a wreck, a total mess. It was abnormal, awful, completely uncalled for. But she was feeling it, and it was wrongwrongwrong!

Who could she go to? Should she even? Oh god, she couldn't handle this. How dare he? How dare he make her feel, when she'd numbed every nerve and synapse with medical precision since the moment she realized the world would never love her? Oh but she had made it love her. She had excelled in so many ways, so why why WHY was this happening to her?! 

She was aimless, hooves skittering and sliding on hidden patches of ice yet never faltering in her breakneck sprint along the crest of the mountains. Alone, where her people could not see her, could not find her, could not judge or jeer or use this against her. Because this wasn't her, this wasn't Hotaru, and where had she lost herself? When? The last time she'd ever given a stallion control over her...a flash of stripes and orange flashed in her vision, the man she'd once loved growling out broken glass, saying how he wanted to cut her apart and devour her unborn foal. A choked sort of sob left her ragged throat, and a flicker of color caught her eyes from the summit. Blindly she turned, torn and shredded, almost senseless in her confusion and memories of the past. 

Alice did not understand, how could she? She wasn't even born back then, even Arya hadn't been. Hotaru had been all alone, so so alone. Still herdless, an outcast with a belly full of foal, and the one stallion she'd trusted - the only soul who had ever befriended her, too - had turned into a murderer. In part because of her own cruelty towards him. And here she was, making the same damn mistakes all over again, because her heart still existed no matter how many times it was stomped upon and how valiantly Hotaru attempted to burn it out of her chest. All she ever got in return were scorch marks on her bones and further failure. Abandonment. 

She was meant to be loved. She deserved to be L O V E D.

But they only loved the creature she pretended to be, the one she made them love. Did she truly deserve it, then?

As a pair they streaked across the thin snow and tundra grasses, until inevitably Hotaru stepped wrong and the world tilted crazily about her as she slammed to her knees. The skin split almost easily, blood staining the snow and her knees in an array of contrasting colors. Alice yelped at her side, skidding in turn as the pain shot through their bond to transfer to the hellhound. Hotaru lurched back to her hooves, tears on her cheeks and grimace on her pretty face, inexorably reaching for that flickering light like a lost soul. Mindless as to why it existed, the awareness that she knew who had built it.

Snow dissolved into tundra and then further into stone, and she stumbled and limped into the cavern with heaving breaths and wild eyes. Shivers wracked her frame and she moved towards the fire, letting it warm her frame and soothe her rattled nerves until the tears slowed. Though her breaths were still ragged with emotion and her cheeks still tellingly wet, it was a start. And with her slowing heart rate, it clicked that she knew exactly where she was. Ashamin, jolted into her thoughts, and she whipped her head up from where she'd been staring into the flames to glance around the cave. Thank the Gods, for there was no painted form to be found. 

Though...she did need to speak to him. And the distraction was enough for the moment, to be able to focus on something aside from her tempestuous emotions. Yes...the mirror gazing, Haruspex, gods...the things she'd missed by not returning from her patrol soon enough. That, at least, was a safe train of thought for her to exploit. Her head hung low with grief and confusion, knees sluggishly dripping blood down her forelegs, a miserable excuse for a Lady. Alice slowly made her way towards Hotaru, curling up between her front hooves and gazing up at her sadly. A deep exhale swelled and sank her belly, and for a moment she let herself be as ugly on the outside as she always felt on the inside.