My dogs are gone.

Breath hitching, I run, feet carrying me out a little used gate into wooded slopes. I'd gone to see my dogs, and discovered their kennels empty; gone to see my dogs, and been told they were taken away without even a goodbye.

My eyes feel hot, tears leaking out the corners; I can barely see the broken tree stump that marks where I need to turn off the trail and clamber up the slope, vision blurry.

I'd been so sure it was a mistake – I love Princess, and Jasmine, and Little Love. They're my best friends, and I'd been taking such good care of them – fed them, washed them, been training them, and now they're just... gone.

Father frowned at me when I asked, like I was being unreasonable. Told me the dogs were gone, and wouldn't be coming back. Told me I had a new shixiong now – like some stranger could ever replace my dogs.

I drop to my stomach to squirm through where the draping branches of willows have woven themselves into the scrub, a tangle of leaves and twigs that form an almost-impenetrable wall. It makes this place safe, secret – a place that's just mine.

I crawl out of the branches, brushes leaves out of my hair and scrub my arm across my face, but it doesn't make the tears stop – now that I'm here, safe under a screen of drooping green branches and snatches of sky, the gentle rush of the river running counterpoint to my gasping breaths, the tears just flow heavier.

Father has never liked me, and now he's found a new disciple he likes more; someone he'll pick up and hold like I never was.

I hiccough, pushes myself wearily up to sit. I'm tired, wrung out; my face feels hot, nose clogged and stuffy, my throat raw.

Maybe I'll feel better if I wash my face. I crawl toward the edge of the river, pokes my head out over the water and looks at my own reflection back at me, framed by lotus leaves. My face is red, eyes puffy and swollen; there's dirt on my face and leaves stuck in my hair.

I plunge my hands into the midst of my reflection, image breaking apart at the ripples, and closes my eyes to splash water on my face.

It's cold, but it feels nice on my cheeks; soothing where it washes against my eyelids.

There's a noise, suddenly, very close, and I twist, eyes flying open and water spraying everywhere.

There's a – a creature – half in the water, tangled in lotus stems and willow branches. Some sort of horse-like being but with strange features I can't quite make out in the dappled light.

I try to scramble backwards, but my wet hand skids on a tree root and the resulting fall knocks the wind out of me. There shouldn't be creatures this close to Lotus Pier; I'm going to be killed and eaten.

The creature whimpers, a sound I've heard before when my dogs were just puppies, freshly weaned from their mother. It's not dangerous – it's afraid, and it's stuck.

I keep low in a crouch, just in case, and creep forward. What is this strange being before me?