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Franny

Water trickled around Franny, through the strands of her hair, crawling over her scalp like little insects. She flinched, and the slight jerk of her arms caused a small splash in the shallow water. Her head ached something dreadful, and she couldn’t quite make out the shade of blue of the sky. She had thought it the most cerulean of skies when she had embarked on her ride, but it seemed hazy now, darker.

She squinted, and a sharp pain sliced through her head. Where was she? She wiggled her fingers, and they splashed lightly, sliding over slick rocks. She shivered, the cool water having seeped into her breeches, through her thin lawn shirt. She should get out of the water. It was a hot, breezy day. She would dry quickly.

She made to sit up but immediately stopped as pain radiated through her again. Something was not right. She reached up and delicately pressed her fingers over her aching head. She encountered something sticky in her hair, a spot extremely tender upon even the slightest of grazes. She lifted her hands in front of her face. Watered down red coated her fingertips, trailing down her fingers in pink rivulets.

Blood.

Her fingers swam before her eyes, their color becoming hazy, just as the sky had before. She tilted her head to the side and stared up the bank of the brush-covered ravine.

Her eyes fluttered shut, and the scene flew through her mind. The fox darting in front of them. Blaze spooking. Her attempting to get him under control. Blaze shying backwards. Rearing up. Her falling, in what seemed an endless fall, as even after she hit the ground, she kept falling. Until she landed here.

She tried to open her eyes, but her lids were suddenly excessively heavy. Perhaps, if she just rested her eyes for a short while, the pain in her head would recede. Perhaps, by then, Rupert would have found her.

Images of their heated argument flashed through her mind and, along with it, another streak of pain. His mother’s impending arrival. Her thoughts grew vague, fuzzy. Would he even deign to search for her?

And then her mind succumbed to darkness.