Wonderland’s stars began to appear in the sky; tonight they would be hanging directly overhead, low in the sky, but centrally clustered. They seemed brighter out here than from her palace balcony. She squinted east, her breath catching again as the flowers changed to a startling, striped blue. Yes, she had gone too far; they were beginning to inch away from the end of the Twisted Wood. Past the Ninth Sea was a huge expanse of nothingness, which ended at the Todren, exactly the direction her father saw her riding last, and the direction she wanted him to follow. It was time to walk back. She gave one long, lingering look at the Ninth Sea rippling in the wind, the colors shifting from breeze to breeze, never the same blue twice. I could stay here all day, she thought, just fade into the blue, disappear. I wish Charles could see this.
She picked a flower near her feet to toss back into the sea, but it withered and died in her hand. Dinah released the dust instead, and it danced in the wind over the shifting waves of lapis. She let out an exhausted sigh and turned around. Morte looked confused as Dinah carefully backtracked, but soon he followed suit, placing his hooves into the prints they had made just a few hours ago. Dinah was stumbling frequently now, her exhaustion made dreadful by the overwhelming ache in her right hand and the stabbing pain of her left hand. She was so tired, so very tired. I won’t make it, she thought, I won’t make it back. Her heart felt like it was pounding outside of her chest, its beat thrumming in her ears. She stumbled over her feet again and again. Every other step ended on her knees. Finally Dinah stayed down, closing her eyes to the bright stars above. I’ll just rest, she thought. Just for a moment. Morte stood impatiently over her until he finally nudged her roughly with his huge nose, the steam from his nostrils singeing the hairs on her arm. With a punishing effort, Dinah pushed herself up, her legs obeying when her mind could not. Morte lifted his hoof and brought it down hard on the ground, repeating the gesture again and again.
“What do you want?” she pleaded angrily. “Let me sleep!”
Morte stared at her blankly until it occurred to her: he wanted her to ride him. The thought made her glad, but she was unsure how to get onto him. She sometimes had a hard time mounting Speckle, and Morte was twice his height and had no saddle. Using his mane to get up seemed a sure way to die a painful death, plus she could never muster the energy to pull herself up. Morte lifted his hoof again and held it aloft, then brought it down with a resounding thud.
Oh. Her body trembling with exhaustion, Dinah laid her hand against Morte’s side. She could feel the monstrous heaving of his ribs, the pounding of his strong heart. He lifted his hoof. She gently placed her boot on the end of the spikes, balancing ever so carefully, aware that the spikes could easily impale her foot if the weight wasn’t distributed right. Eyes closed, she mumbled a tiny prayer and stepped up. The spikes pushed deep into her boot as Morte lifted his leg. Dinah flew up, up, up until she was at the right height to pull herself onto Morte’s back. His expansive back was comfortingly warm. The muscles of her legs gave a painful throb as they resumed their position straddling Morte’s thick neck, but she could not have been more grateful to be sitting. Dinah raised her voice to command him and then thought better of it. She sat quietly until Morte broke into a quick trot back in the direction they came. It was not the mad sprinting that had brought them here, but it was three times faster than Dinah would have gone if she had been able to sprint the entire way. The motion cradled her, and Dinah closed her eyes, resting her body against his large head. She fell asleep quickly.