When the chance had come to escape, I almost missed it because I was so shocked. For the past year I had been traded and bartered for - a collection from my herd being sold as slaves. For labour, if we were lucky and for the most part I had been. This was the third time I had been bartered away, the faces around me changing but the manners always the same. I knew enough about herbs to make me useful as a healer. Sometimes that meant they kept me away from the other mares intended for slavery, the stallions that had been beaten into submission, and today was one of those days.

My guard had gone to help deal with one of the other captives that was causing a fuss and I was alone. For the first time in a year I was entirely alone and it made me catch my breath. Hesitating just for a moment before I kicked myself for wasting that moment.

I ran.

I half-stumbled a couple strides out but by then it was too late, I had to commit to the choice I made.

My legs were shaking and my heart was pounding so loudly I couldn't hear anything else as I fled into the forest. I couldn’t tell if they were shouting after me, shouting orders. I feared those with magic, the ones that could shoot arrows and lightning after me without having to chase me themselves. It was a small band this time, they couldn’t afford to send many after me out of risk that the other captives might escape as well, and that would be my saviour.

I took off into the forest, weaving through the trees and not caring where I went so long as I could get away. Branches whipped and scratched against my cream coloured sides as I weaved but for all the stinging I would not stop. It was hard to hope that I would find somewhere safe but so long as I evaded my pursuer - for I was sure that there was someone coming after me - I could at least be free. Given the circumstances, I wasn’t about to be picky.

I didn’t know when I passed from one land into another, the forest still looked the same to me and as much as my lungs were burning I couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop until I collapsed or was captured. Because, I realized in my flight, that I was so far away from everything that I knew that I simply wouldn’t know when it was safe to stop.

Fate, however, had other plans.

My breaths had become ragged and painful and I was coated in sweat. Even though I had been forced to slow my pace I still had no intentions of stopping. And that was when the precious piece of cloth I wore in my tail snagged on a branch of an evergreen tree. The snag jerked me backward, I surely would have lost it as well as most of my auburn tail hairs if I had still been running at breakneck speeds. Several of the long strands had already been pulled out, as it were, and along with the piece of cloth my tail was hopelessly tangled in the branches. “Son of a bitch!” I shouted at the trees, at everything, panic setting in as I tried to jerk my tail free but the cloth in it had looped itself resolutely over a branch and the more I moved forward, the more thoroughly I was getting it stuck on there. “You have got to be fucking kidding me. Now?” Wild golden eyes flashed around as I try to see if anyone is coming, if I’ve just snagged myself on a damn tree and gotten myself captured again. My body was trembling with fear, with exhaustion, but the knot would not loosen and I could not bring myself to break it. I was stuck.

I was approached, but it wasn’t not from the direction I expected. Instead of the figure coming from behind, from the direction I had dashed through the forest, he had come from the other. As though just beyond the reaches of this forest there was civilization. My golden-brown eyes were rimmed with white, another clear display of my fear - if it wasn’t already obvious. Later, I would feel embarrassed for my state to which using the word ‘dishevelled’ would be a kindness but at the time there was no room for embarrassment - only fear.  

My first instinct was to resent the hushed tones that I was being treated with, as though I was a lost child. When the first approached, I stilled for a moment at his words before trying once more to work my way free from the branches - my ears laid flat against my skull at his voice. What did he know? I watched him with wild eyes as he moved towards my tail - vile thoughts raging through my head as I feared the worst. But with a couple pulls and the sharp sting that meant a few of my hairs had indeed been lost, he managed to free my tail from the offending branches. “Thank you.” I manage to get those scratchy words out as I scramble away but even those few steps exhaust me in my current state and I realize that I’ve run out of adrenaline to keep me going. Even if there was a new threat here, I no longer had the ability to escape it. But I could shift my stance so that I was looking straight at him.

My heart felt as though it was pounding in in my throat and I cannot think of a response, his manners and words baffle me after a year in captivity. He was young, a bay creature with a curious curved horn. In my home, antlers are the norm but I had seen those without horns and those with a single one before, they were just rare. And then two more were joining, with each emergence from the forest my heart rate picked back up so that I thought I might burst from it. The first was a mare, with the strangest hair I have ever seen. Purple, like the sky at dusk. She asked me if I was alright but I ignored the question and the answer that came with it.

Next, adding to the chorus of soothing voices was a tall beast of a stallion. Despite his size, he took every precaution to make himself seem unthreatening and it was with annoyance that I realized it was working. The rolling accent, combined with the safe distances that he and the others were keeping, was aggravatingly calming. They all speak with a slightly different accent, which I find strange. Especially since Zandora and Calder claimed to be from the same herd.

The same message was repeated by all of them. Dozens of scenarios were racing through my mind - almost all of them terrible. My heart was starting to settle its pace but my breathing is still ragged. I’ve been standing still for several minutes now but I couldn’t seem to catch it completely, not yet. Each breath burnt my throat and I had to hack a painful cough before I could respond to them. I finally managed, my normally smooth voice hoarse and cracked. “How can I know that?” I looked to all three of them in turn - all kind, if strange, faces that were gazing back at me. I started to tremble again but I’m fighting it now, wishing that I would stop acting so weak in front of these strangers. “How do I know that… Helovia.” I tested the word out, the pitch of my voice rising just a little on the last syllable and forming it into a question to ensure that I got it right. “Is safe?” They were asking me to trust them. Was it common in this land to approach a stranger and offer home and safety?

I took a step back from them, furious at myself because my honey-coloured eyes had started to shine with tears and I stubbornly willed them to stop. My legs almost gave way from that single step so I did not take another. And besides, I cannot go back from where I’m from. There was only forward to go. “Can any of you swear that I’ll be safe here?” I know I haven’t given them my name, I haven’t answered any of their questions, but I needed mine answered first.

They were all strangers but I wanted them to reassure me, I wanted to hear promises from all three that Helovia was safe and that I would know what it was to have a home again. They had all stayed here, after all, for whatever reason. I wasn’t sure if I trusted them but I was so tired, I didn’t know if I had the strength to find somewhere else to go. No, I definitely did not have the strength. Standing still was helping but my adrenaline was fading away with each passing moment and I feared that I might collapse then and there in front of them all. And when I woke up?

But no promises come forward, just apologies that they couldn’t. There was a moment when it was working, their reassurances - the promise that I didn’t have to be scared while they were with me - soothed me. That moment did not last long, however, as well intentioned as the gesture might have been.

I flinched away from the magic that Caenan used, ears flattened and a strangled scream managed the work of any words to convey my alarm. My golden eyes widened and I took a few steps backward until I felt the needles of a tree scrape along my back signalling that I had once again backed myself into a tree. I shook my head as politely as I could when an apple was offered to me, the calm I had felt moments ago gone and leaving me cold and trembling one more in its wake. I would have scolded him myself if I hadn't been so surprised. Magic! He seemed kind enough, he truly did, but it was too much. Wild thoughts of poisoned apples raged in my head and are not helped by the fact that neither Zandora nor Calder take him up on the offer.

I was quickly realizing that my only options were to go back or to go forward - so I needed to decide whether what waited for me on the other side of the forest was better than what waited for me here.

The turning point at that moment came from the purple mare. My fear became less sharp - in fact, my entire body softened - at the mention of Zandora’s pregnancy. There was no single emotion that could be picked out of me then - sadness for the foal I had lost, a fond longing at the idea that I could have it again. If she was pregnant and wandering about alone and had not been pestered by brigands, then my question was answered. They all spoke of safety in  numbers and I understood that but the freedom to be able to walk around on my own helped to sway my heart.

I returned to my previous spot, before Caenan’s magic spooked me, and attempt a gracious smile at them all. It was hardly anything, a few moments of peace could not completely erase everything, but it was a smile.  For I was thankful for their kindness, after all. And if nothing else, I reasoned with myself, if I found somewhere to rest up I could flee before becoming captive once more. “My name is Elspeth.” Normal formalities and manners had been forgotten for the time, but if I had thought to add it - it was a pleasure to meet them all.

And then I looked to Calder, recalling now one of the questions he had asked earlier, and thinking maybe I could get through this if they helped me. And if Caenan kept his magic quiet. “I am seeking sanctuary. What… what are your homes like?”

I was smiling for a brief moment, a surprising and involuntary reaction to the jest from the dappled stag after I gave my name - the gesture fading just as I realized it was happening. How strange. Confused by the ease at which it was brought forth, I focused instead on Caenan - who has begun to speak again.

I watched him carefully, the kind bay stallion that had untangled me from the branches just a few moments ago, and my wariness grows when he started to describe his home. It was a curious thing, to state almost right away that it wasn’t somewhere to go if I sought sanctuary - or not only sanctuary. A year ago, Caenan’s speech might have stirred me - beckoned me to follow with him. I would have been intrigued by the talk of the mists, by the cliffs and the forest. But now… I wasn’t willing to make the gamble that somewhere so filled with adventure was also somewhere where I could find peace, if only for a while.

My instinct was to find somewhere safe for now - I wasn’t thinking beyond the next few days that I fully intended on spending sleeping. And there was nothing about his description that truly made me feel safe - the first part of it, the enticement of adventure, actually frightened me more.

And was he actually daring me to follow him to the Edge? The idea of adventure was too overwhelming for me, the adrenaline that had been coming in waves having receded again and the true weight of my exhaustion - of all that had been happening to me - was settling down on my shoulders. Brown-tipped ears flattened for a moment again at the word ‘flighty’ and I snorted in objection - muttering a low “Of course I’m afraid.” Was there anything else someone would be in my situation? I had spent the last year living in fear and now I was standing on the threshold of something entirely new. A little fear was warranted, was it not?

But then, I reminded myself, they didn’t know who I was or where I had come from. He didn’t know my fears.

The rest fell into turn, the pregnant Zandora speaking first about the Basin. To be quite honest, neither of the herds sounded like pleasant places to live. Were all Helovians daredevils that chose to live in remote and dangerous lands? I felt skeptical about my two options but knew that I needed to pick one of them.

It was Calder that helped make up my mind - my heart giving a squeeze at the thought of family. Could it happen again? Nothing had been sugar coated but I found myself wanting the home he described, if only for a few days until I figured out what to do next. I rationalized with myself that there were other reasons for my choice. It was pragmatic to go to the Basin. I’d be safer (assuming I could trust these Helovians) with a pair instead of a single escort and if Zandora was pregnant and could cross from her homeland then surely that path was okay.

“I think I’d like to see the Basin first.” I tested the words out cautiously, aware that I must sound unconvinced, but as I spoke I felt as though it was the right choice. I look to Caenan without apology but with sincerity. I was ignorant of Helovia politics, wouldn’t understand the implications of choosing one herd over another, and besides - I could hardly apologize for not being able to be in two places at once. “I hope I can come visit this Edge of yours sometime? It sounds like a lovely place. Thank you, for welcoming me.” I cannot bring myself to move toward him and bump muzzles as I believed to be polite, but I did offer a smile to the bay before turning to the duo that would presumably lead me onwards.

“If you please, I fear if I stand still any longer I may faint.” I did not want to fall unconscious before I had a solid wall of rock behind my back to stop anyone from sneaking up on me.