Ava’s small golden ears flicked forwards attentively as the stallion began his story. She was intrigued by him, this man who she had stumbled upon slowly withering up in the heat of the Desert, and she wanted to know more about him. Her bright green eyes were set on his face as she listened. Even though he could not see her expression, Ava’s lips twisted into a frown and eventually parted in shock as he revealed the details that had brought him to this point in time. Why would this mare try to kill him for an offence as negligible as stumbling into Orhan’s territory? It didn’t make any sense to Ava – such an act could not be justified to her for any reason, and it touched her heart to hear Yusuf’s pitiful plight. But Orhan had saved him. He was as good a man as he had seemed then – or at least so Ava could hope. “Oh, Yusuf,” she sighed, her gentle voice filled with emotion. “That’s terrible! How could someone do something like that?” Only minutes ago she had been wary of this stranger, and now here she stood beside him, her heart reaching out to him in earnest. It was a strange, strange situation. “I don’t know what to suggest,” she admitted glumly after a moment’s silence. She pursed her lips in thought, glancing over the water as it glinted in the sun. “Don’t you have someplace safe to stay?” |