She had seen her son perk up and take off across the heat-riddled sands, but she had stayed in the oasis. There was finally a stallion in the Desert that El Aran trusted would not disappear, and she felt no anxiety when Orhan’s frosted mane bobbed out of sight. The black mare contented herself with dozing beside the pool, one hind hoof cocked and resting on its tip as she breathed evenly in the shade of the rock wall that protected her from the worst of the winds. She flicked an ear as she heard the hoofsteps of a horse and opened her eyes when she realized there was more than one horse entering the oasis.
El Aran did not recognize the sorrel mare who walked beside her son, and she flared her nostrils to get a better hold on the stranger’s scent. Ah. That, she recognized. In the time the seer had occupied the Desert, she had seen the strange horse once or twice as it passed her oasis. El Aran had investigated once, but upon discovering the spoor of the stranger was not male she had lost most of her anxiety and decided not to pursue the intruder. After all, she had not shown any aggression and El Aran had not felt watched or overly scrutinized. She was finally learning that not every horse posed a threat, although her guard had been kept high for several days in unconscious habit.
Orhan and the mare stood on the other side of the pool and talked. She could not catch their words and was disinterested in eavesdropping, so she returned to her interrupted nap. It felt so good to be able to sleep again. She was glad Orhan was home. The black mare drifted off to sleep and by the time she awoke, the sun had shifted significantly. A glance at the other side of the pool convinced her that Orhan and the stranger had finished whatever conversation they had started, and so El Aran stepped forward, stretched out her neck and legs, and shook herself out before rounding the large pool. The seer dipped her nose in silent greeting to her son but did not engage him physically of vocally. She had come to speak to the stranger.
"So, Gölge," the black mare said, her voice slightly rough from sleep. "I see you in daylight at last." There was a dry humor to her words, although her dark eyes never left the face of the other mare. At least it was not a Purebred who stood before her. El Aran had no desire to face down one of those haughty fools now that her life had settled into something like normalcy.
el aran
Seer of Aşk. |