It hurt a lot when your mane got tangled in the slats of a dock because the waves pushed you up in just the wrong place, and now you couldn’t move because you were stuck in the most humiliating position possible right as your greatest dream was on the cusp of achievement. Nothing could make this worse.

Except another Each-uisge spotting her here. Maybe Asgall, who might kill her. An orca probably wouldn’t come this close. The greatest likelihood was that she’d be stuck here until morning, when the humans would see her, and the Each-uisge’s existence would be known. Her carelessness could mean the end of her species.

Then discovery must not happen. She’d pull until her mane ripped off and her scalp bled. No matter how much it hurt, she couldn’t put the herd at risk. She braced herself, her sharp teeth grinding together, prepared to pull⁠—

Footsteps on the dock.

Hæra froze. Her ears pricked up until the wood bent their soft tips down again. Those were human feet wearing their hard coverings—shoes—moving in beats of two, not of four as beasts did. She caught a scent on the ocean breeze. A scent she already knew by heart.

“Hello?”

Sister Madeleine’s voice sounded much less apprehensive than it had before. Now it sounded confused.

Hæra held perfectly still. She mustn’t, couldn’t move until Sister Madeleine left. Any hope of tricking her was gone, but the possibility of death by humiliation remained. If anything could be worse than discovery by humans in general, it’d be discovery by this human in particular. Hæra’s human, or the one who should have been hers.

“Hello?” Sister Madeleine repeated on top of the dock, and then she gave a soft groan. “You dummy, is a horse going to talk back?”

If only she knew.

“Moreover,” Sister Madeleine continued, sounding irritated even though she was only talking to herself, “you’d see a horse, wouldn’t you?”

Then came the flash.

A sudden, sharp beam of light shone from the top of the dock and glided over the dark waves in a circular shape. After a second, Hæra realized it was harmless and had come from Sister Madeleine’s little stick, but that was a second too late. She’d already startled, splashed about, and made a noise.

“Oh!” Sister Madeleine said.

Curse it to the depths and back. Maybe Hæra hadn’t been blessed by the Great Mare after all. This could be punishment for daring to go against the natural order of things. What was worse: getting caught here, or Asgall being right?

The wood creaked as it bowed when weight was put on it—just slightly, but it was enough to put pressure on Hæra’s head and make her tail thrash in protest.