Thunder. Rain. A flash of lightning that lit up even the dark space behind her eyelids. Cora drifted through a strange twilight place between unconscious and awake — sleep was calling her, tempting her deeper, cajoling for her to ignore the things that were calling her back to the light. Just stay still...stay here...stay where it was quiet, and warm, and where she wouldn't have to think for a minute about the funeral of a baby that didn't even get to take its first breath, about the disappearance of her best and only friend, about a world with no sense or justice whatsoever...about the distant drumming of hoof beats...

Hoof beats?

Cora stirred, felt her limbs move against mud and slush, not the hard road surface she'd been expecting. Why had she been expecting that? No, stay asleep, stay down here...but worry was beginning to take over. She banished it automatically, sending the rising panic to the back corner of her mind to wring its hands while the rest of her sorted out what was happening. She was flat on her back in the mud. Right. How had that happened?

A flash of headlights...the road late at night...what was the last thing she remembered? (The hoof beats were getting louder, observed the section of her mind she'd surrendered to panic. Alright, she thought, I'll take that under advisement, now shut up.) Hugging her client goodbye — God, that young woman had to be the bravest person she'd ever met, standing there politely thanking her guests for coming with the tears on her cheeks not even dry. Walking out into the cold night air — cold, yes, but not raining, no sign of a storm like the one she could hear lashing the treetops. (Treetops? Had she driven to the countryside? There weren't that many trees within twenty miles of her apartment...) Getting in the car. Headlights on. Exhausted by sadness on the drive home, yes...headlights bright in the oncoming lane. Too bright. Too close. And suddenly —

With almost theatrical timing, a bolt of thunder struck as she remembered the car drifting out of its lane and hitting her head-on. Cora sat bolt upright on the road and screamed.

The last thing she expected was to hear her scream echoed by the whinny of a horse.

But as she opened her eyes, there it was, framed against the black night sky — a dark shape, but recognizable as a horse rearing onto its back legs, hooves striking wildly at the night as its eyes rolled. There was just enough light to make out the shape of a rider on its back — and then the sound of a strangled curse, a heavy thump, and the horse was riderless. It dropped to the road and cantered on a few paces down the road, hooves thudding wetly in the mud and spraying her with a little more mud as it went. Charming.

" — ye great gallumphin' eejit," she made out from the litany of curses that were arising from the pile of limbs that the horse had so neatly deposited in the mud nearby. "You've broke me head clean across —"

"The horse is gone, buddy. No use swearing at him," Cora called, and it wasn't until she heard her own voice over the rain that she realized that the man had an accent thicker than her forearm. And he was hurt — or carrying on like he was hurt, anyway, and she knew full well that shock was as much a killer as anything else these days.

Speaking of. Cora took a moment to check herself over. Wet through to the bone, of course, and her dress was a little torn, but she was unharmed, which was pretty impressive given that she'd woken up miles from her car after a head-on collision. (Questions arising from the cordoned-off Panic Section of Cora's mind included: Where's the car? Where's the other car, for that matter? How did you get here? Why are there no street lights? She didn't have any answers, so she didn't pay it any heed. A refreshing strategy, if a rather short-term one.)

The man was on his knees, panting as he struggled to rise, and though Cora could barely make him out in the darkness, she knew the look of a man about to make a damn fool of himself. "Stay there," she said sharply, with the comforting but irrefutable voice of a woman used to giving instructions in high-stakes medical scenarios.

"How dare you give me orders," the man growled. "Some mad witch out in the middle of the night —"

"You're out too, aren't you?" Cora interrupted, irritably. "And you've fallen off a horse and probably split your head open." She made her way across the dirt road to where he was kneeling. She reached for her pocket, but her phone was gone — she half remembered putting it into her handbag, and throwing her handbag (of course) onto the passenger seat of her car. And now her car was gone, and so was her handbag, and so was bitumen and streetlights and civilization. God, how had she ended up so far from home? She'd heard of people entering fugue states, driving for miles and miles with no memory of how or why they'd gotten where they ended up. Had she finally snapped? Had the stress finally gotten to her? It had been a fairly grim week, to be sure, but she'd gotten through years of medical training without losing her marbles. It wasn't like her to let stress get to this point. Cora had always prided herself on her toughness, her self-sufficiency...had losing Audrina really done her that much damage?

She'd taken the man's head firmly into her hands and was conducting an ad-hoc examination as these thoughts raced through her mind. The darkness made it hard to see any wounds, but as far as she could tell, his hair was wet with nothing more serious than rainwater. She took his rough hands into hers, checked his wrists, elbows and shoulders for any serious injury. He seemed to submit to these ministrations out of surprise more than anything, but as she began pressing on the sides of his torso to check for broken ribs he made an impatient sound and rose to his feet. God, he was miles taller than her.

"Blast it, I'm not the one who needs aid. I've fallen off horses enough times to know how to avoid breaking me neck. Just need that damned animal to behave itself for long enough to —"

"I'll go get the horse if that's what you're worried about."

She heard the man scoff with disbelief. Rude. Men got like that when any kind of accident struck. Spend their lives thinking they're indestructible, find out they're not, lash out at whoever's got the misfortune to be nearby. Well, today that was her. What luck.

"Ye won't catch him, lassie. He's a belligerent old coot with a devil in his bones. Kick your head in soon as look at ye."

"Fine. Sure. If I fetch him for you, will you be polite?"

"He's long gone, girlie —"

"Nope," Cora said flatly, letting a little of the frustration she was feeling at her profoundly confusing situation creep into her voice. "Not girlie, not lassie, definitely not witch. I'm offering to help you. The least you can do is to stop being so damn rude."

"Do you have any idea who you're talking to?"

"No idea, don't much care. Wait here, I'll get your horse. Men! Honestly!" Cora hauled herself upright and tried to wipe some of the mud off her dress. It was freezing cold and the air smelled strange — like trees, and rain, and starlight. Something was missing from it. Cora set off down the path, leaving the belligerent hulk of man behind her on the road.

The horse hadn't gone far — relieved of its rider, it seemed to be happily grazing on the grass along the sides of the dirt road. As she approached, she saw its head go up. Too dark to see much beyond its silhouette, but she knew the drill well enough. You didn't spend your entire adolescence absolutely obsessed with horses without picking up a thing or two.

"Now, look at you. Haven't you just caused an enormous ruckus? You big old doofus," she crooned to it like a lover as she edged steadily closer. "You stupid great lout. You moron. You absolute maniac." A gentle exhale of breath told her the horse was relaxing at the sound of her voice. Good. A calm horse was a manageable horse. "Now, I'm going to grab your bridle, and you're going to do me the huge favor of not being a prize jackass about it. Deal? Great." She reached her hand out, slowly, let the horse feel the approach before she made contact with its neck. Hot, even in the freezing air, and wet with sweat as well as rain. Cora frowned. "He was riding you hard, huh? No wonder you wanted a break. That's fair. That's fair enough, my sweet, my big dumb friend. What's your name, hey?"

The horse huffed, and she felt it crane its neck around to inhale her unfamiliar scent. The arch of its neck held her in a strange kind of semi-embrace, and she shut her eyes for a moment. Horses were comforting. No matter where she was, or what had happened to her, horses were something she could predict and understand. As though it sensed her worry, the horse nuzzled at her shoulder, its sweet, warm breath on her skin.

"I'm Cora," she told it quietly, stroking the soft velvet of its nose. "I'm having an extremely strange evening. Let's sort it out together, huh? You and me."