It was hot. Almost too hot.

The sun baked down on the desert without any sort of qualm or regret… the sun was the king of this land, and Sova be damned if she would submit to him. Glaring up at the golden disk from under her coveted rock of solace (she had so aptly named it after hissing and spitting and scaring away anyone that dared try and take it away from her), the girl looked haggard and thirsty.

So thirsty, that even as the sea of sand and rock spread out away from her little hidey-hole, she imagined that there was a lovely oasis to satiate her thirst; though she knew it to be a trick of the mind.

Sun-sickness, she called it.

Sun-sickness because she was sick of the sun and because she thought she would die out here without ever seeing a single soul again.

The black mare, the one from the pool of life (once again, so aptly named by the ashen-brown girl hiding under the rock), had been bathing in the water much like a bird, all fine-boned and beautiful. She wore the sun as though it were a blessing on her kin, whilst Sova was cowering from the sweltering heat in her shady refuge. It was fall! Anywhere else, the trees were growing old in their seasons, leaves turning red or yellow, and the grass was withering away to make room for the winter frost. Here, there were no trees, save from the bare-hipped palms that swayed near the oasis.

The oasis. She remembers it’s location, and casts a critical eye to the east, knowing that after a short walk that would feel like the longest marathon in her life, lay the lush and tempting over-sized puddle. The water would be cool on her skin, it would refresh her and soothe her… but the shade was lacking. The shade was the only thing that had survived her. Licking her lips dryly, she decides to wait.

It does not take long, but in the girl’s mind, it has been hours, for the sun to fade away. In the dusk, the cool ending of the day, the mare sets out across the blistering sands, aiming directly for the oasis, hoping that she would not be alone when she got there.

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