Escapee

“Illy, Illy get up!”

It was dark.

“C’mon, my Dad says we have to get up, c’mon lil’sis!”

“Jeet says?”

The filly lifted her head, her eyes still fuzzy from sleeping and her voice all tired and yawny, and she realised it wasn’t just Keet getting up and nudging at her - grown ups were nuzzling at all the fawns, or the bigger fawns like Keet were nudging at them and they were all getting up, even though it was dark.

“Yeah, c’mon!”

“Burp!”

Blinking sleepily, Illy looked over to see Rafe standing next to her and tossing his head towards the retreating tails of other fawns. Everyone was going and everyone was whispering and it was really, really scary.

Somehow, she stumbled to her feet and was moving, trotting along with her head down and her big brothers either side of her keeping lookout and she had horrible, horrible memories of the last time grown ups had told her to run and Keet had been looking out for her… but it was Jeet this time, and Jeet was good, wasn’t he?

Illy didn’t really know any more, and it seemed like they were trotting along for hours, hours and hours, and the sky was starting to get lighter and then she heard shouting.

“GO, RUN!”

And then everyone was running, and she could hear more shouting, and she saw guards everywhere and.. and…

Her legs were hurting and her lungs were aching and she was crying because she didn’t know what was happening or why but all she could do was run, run, run..

“Keep running! Don’t stop for anything, for anyone! KEEP RUNNING!”

It was Jeet the storyteller, but he sounded angry and scared and all Illy could do was what he told her to so she ran with the tears streaming down her face and her legs hurting and her lungs aching and she ran and ran because there was nothing else that she could do and then suddenly:

“MOMMA!”

Keet was screeching to a stop, his Momma was here! And then Illy looked up for the first time since Keet had woken her and she saw them, off in the distance.

She saw them and she smelled them and somehow, from somewhere, she managed to run harder and faster because there, right at the front was her Momma and suddenly she wasn’t tired anymore.

She felt like she was flying, like a bird, higher and faster than everyone else because she was there, she was home, she was with her Momma and even though they were still running, and there was no stopping and there were grown-ups yelling at her to run… she was home again.

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  Public Windborne Event I Summer 760 I Part 6Jailbreak
Featuring Jeet and Fox, mentioning the captured babies, Alliance sympathizers, and Main herd guards
Midsummer, Year 760 of the New Age
Gumtree Hollow, Windborne
Jeet
It felt wrong.
It’d felt wrong the moment he’d elected to tell the does, his allies. The whispers they’d shared had been quick and urgent. They didn’t have a lot of time.
Jeet had overheard Fox telling his guards that they were moving the patrol that normally watched the captured fawns to the eastern part of Gumtree Hollow- something about a group of tazzie tigers encroaching. ‘Didn’t want to risk it,’ he’d said, ‘they aren’t going anywhere.’
Jeet’s heart was still in his throat. That had been it. His mind had been made up as soon as the word’s left the Captain’s tongue. He wo 


Illy chose to run. Illy's sensible sometimes!