Learning to ride a horse was a very peculiar experience. A few months before, Evelyn had a friend of hers teach her to ride a motorcycle. This was completely different. A horse wasn’t a machine, something that she could have complete control over. Rather, it felt more like learning a new language, and the act of riding itself was an odd sort of negotiation being conducted in that foreign language. Does that make sense? Well, that’s how Eve felt about it.

Eve and Cat were traveling through grassy hills and plains, under the starry night sky. Their only source of light was an oil lamp that Oliver had given them, and that Cat now held as she rode Sirius through the night. Eve was worried. It didn’t seem that they were going fast enough to get away from the royal guard, not once those two guards from earlier woke up and decided to come after them. Cat herself could probably go faster, but she was having to hold back to make sure that Evelyn would be able to keep up.

After about two hours of traveling, the two girls reached a lake with a waterfall, and Cat brought Sirius to a halt. She sighed, and dismounted.

“Let’s take a break here for a while. I’m beat.”

That decision made Eve rather uneasy. “What about the royal guard?” she asked.

“They won’t come for us tonight,” Cat informed her. She tied Sirius’ reins to a nearby tree. Eve dismounted Antares, and did the same to her steed.

“How come?” said Eve.

“We’re in a part of the kingdom called the Wilderness,” said Cat, “and it’s a rather dangerous place to be in. Nobody ever comes here past sunset. Only the desperate and the insane dare travel these lands at night.”

“Is it wolves?” Eve asked. “Or bandits?”

Cat smirked nervously. “Wolves and bandits avoid the Wilderness too,” she told her. “There are worse things roaming the night around these parts.”

“You’re scaring me,” said Eve.

“That’s a good thing,” Cat replied, a little too cheerful. “In places like these, fear is what sets the desperate apart from the insane. I’m scared too, Evelyn. I grew up in this kingdom, and I’ve traveled all over the country with my father and the lords, but it’s the first time I’m setting foot in the Wilderness. There are stories about this place. Unpleasant ones. If half of those stories are true, then we have plenty of reason to be scared.”

The two girls walked over to the lake, and sat side-by-side, about two meters away from the water’s edge.

“Is this the only way to the prison, then?” Evelyn asked.

“It’s the fastest one,” Cat explained. “And if we want to get Brianna back safe, that’s our only choice.”

Eve nodded, grateful that Cat was willing to go to such lengths for Bree.

“I meant to tell you, earlier,” said Cat, “you’re doing pretty good with Antares for your first time riding, you know? All you need now is just a little more practice, and you’ll be up to snuff in no time.”

Catherine’s statement made Evelyn a little proud of herself. “Think I could beat you in a race some day?” Eve challenged her.

Cat chuckled. “With Sirius by my side? Not a chance. There’s no faster horse anywhere in the kingdom. And the two of us have been together for a while. Have I ever told you of how I learned to ride?” Eve shook her head. Cat smiled. “I’ve always wanted to learn, ever since I was a little kid. But father never allowed me to do anything interesting or exciting. I couldn’t even leave the... place we lived in. The only reason I’ve traveled so much around the country is because he wouldn’t trust me enough to leave me home by myself during his trips.”

Eve frowned. “Sounds awful.”

“It was, a little,” Cat agreed. “So, anyway, when I was eight years-old, dad got this beautiful black stallion as a gift from another nobleman. But the horse was wild, and none of my father’s men could tame him. Remember those stories I told you yesterday night?”

Eve chuckled, thinking back to Cat’s tales of powerful lords being flung into pigsties and piles of manure by a very cheeky black horse.

“One night, while everyone was asleep, I sneaked into the stables, and I found him. I named him Sirius, after the star. And, of course, Sirius wouldn’t even let me get close to him, not at first. But I kept going there, night after night. And I think it was after about a month of insistence that Sirius finally let me ride him. Of course, I was only eight, and it was my first time riding any horse, so I had quite a few accidents. I still have a few scars from back then to prove. But... I did learn.

“A few weeks later, dad told me he was thinking of putting Sirius down. ‘What’s the use of a horse you can’t ride?’ he would say. I protested, of course, and tried to change his mind, but he ignored all of it. Now, you see, I couldn’t just abandon Sirius. When dad and his men walked into the stables to fetch Sirius, I mounted him and rode all the way to the Crimson Forest. Dad came for me later, but you can imagine how surprised he was with the whole thing.”

“You saved Sirius,” Eve remarked, smiling. “That’s so cool.”

Cat shot her a weird look. “How is saving a horse related to temperature?”

It was an honest question. Evelyn realized that some words from her version of Earth didn’t carry quite the same meaning in Cat’s.

“Where I come from,” she explained, “the word ‘cool’ can also mean ‘nice’ or ‘amazing’. You saving Sirius was amazing. You’re amazing, Cat.”

Cat grinned. “Aren’t you praising me a little too much?” said the girl.

Eve’s cheeks grew hot with that realization. Cat noticed it, and laughed.

“I’m just messing with you, Evelyn.”

“Right,” said Eve, chuckling awkwardly.

“So... I told you about me, now you tell me about yourself. What was your life like, in the other world?”

Eve shrugged. “Not much to tell. I’m really just an average girl.”

“You don’t look average to me,” said Cat.

It made the shorter girl smile. Eve realized that Cat was probably referring to her tattoos, her piercings, and the funky haircut she used to have. None of those were very common in Cat’s world. But it still made Eve happy to hear her friend say that. It made her feel... special, maybe? Just a little.

“Although,” Cat concluded, “I’ve never been to your world, so it’s not like I can tell.”

“No, you’re right,” Eve told her. “I guess I’m a bit different in this and that way.” Such as, you know, liking girls. But she wasn’t about to tell Catherine that much. “I play music, did you know? I learned the piano and the drums, but my favorite is the bass guitar, though I don’t think you have those in this world, not one like mine. Music is... kind of my dream. I wanna become a professional musician, one day.”

Cat smiled. “Cool,” she joked, and they both laughed.

Silence settled between them, broken only by the constant white noise of the waters falling on the rocks, nearby. Eve looked at the girl by her side, and Cat stared back into her eyes, smiling. The fire in the oil lamp illuminated Cat’s face, delineating her soft features. Cat attempted to tuck a rebel lock of hair behind her ear, only for it to come loose again, making her chuckle and roll her eyes. Eve watched, grinning. Every time Cat smiled at her, she couldn’t help but smile back. It was so comfortable, having Cat there by her side. Comfortable enough that for a moment she felt completely at ease. And that’s when she got careless.

“Evelyn?”

Hearing Cat say her name brought Eve back from a sort of trance, and she found that she’d been inching closer to her friend. Eve’s face was just a couple of centimeters away from Cat’s. She saw Cat wide-eyed and surprised, and pulled back immediately. No way! thought Eve. No way no way no way! What the heck am I doing?! Get a grip, Evelyn!

Eve winced, blushed, looked away, and got up on her feet, all at once. Then she made her way back to where the horses had been tied up. Whatever it was that had just happened between them, she didn’t want to think about it.

“We should get going,” she told Cat, stammering a little. Eve didn’t even turn to look at her, ashamed as she was. She was starting to work on untying the knots that bound Antares to the tree, when the horse backed down from her suddenly. Antares neighed loudly and stamped the ground, while pulling at the reins to try and set herself loose. “What’s wrong?” Eve asked her. Then she looked at Sirius, a few meters away, and saw that the black stallion was doing the exact same thing. Something was distressing them. An unsettling thought came to her, in the form of Cat’s words from earlier.

There are worse things roaming the night around these parts.

Eve turned around, and what she saw then horrified her.

Cat was still sitting by the lake, staring at her, but she was completely unaware of what was going on in her surroundings. The thing that startled Sirius and Antares, and that was now filling Evelyn with dread and fear, was a huge lizard-like creature creeping up behind the other girl. Its “face”, if one call call it that, was illuminated by the light of the oil lamp for just one moment, revealing three pairs of menacing eyes, contorted horns, and a mouth with enough teeth to give most sharks a run for their money.

“Cat!” Eve screamed. “Behind you!”