a friend is known in adversity
like gold is known in fire
Go, Nehir. I’ll be fine. It is important we find somewhere safe to reside, and I will only slow you down – you know this. Go, and come back to me. I will wait for you.
The mare stared out across the waves, a lone figure on a rocky outcrop that spiked into the grey-blue ocean. A storm was rolling in – she had been watching it for some time now. It was not so great that it should be feared, no, for she had weathered far worse storms thus far in her lifetime, which wasn’t long at all in the grand scheme of things. So it was not fear of the oncoming storm that creased her brows with worry and tensed her shoulder muscles so. The storm was an omen, and it did not bode well. Nothing good was to come of this storm, the winds off the sea were harsh and biting. And as she stood there, waves breaking only meters beneath her, roaring unceasingly, she recognised two figures in the surf, fast approaching, and she felt her gut tighten. The words she had spoken to her companion had convinced him to leave her, and she regretted insisting upon getting her own way. Enemies were easier to face when you had one you trusted watching your back. And yet, she could not bring herself to take her command back. The strange and wise older stallion, who was called many things, meant a lot to the young mare, and she could not bear the thought of him bearing injuries meant for her.
With a crack of her tail, she turned and limped inland as fast as she was able. The wounds she bore currently were the handiwork of those who had pursued her across the sea. The akhal-teke mare would never admit it out loud, but their resolve impressed her, despite the fact that it was her blood they had come to spill. An old feud, long dormant, had life and wrath breathed back into it, by her own foolish mistake; trespassing upon land that was not hers to cross, and gravely wounding the heir apparent, who had crossed her path and come too close, when she had defended herself. Deserts were not kind places to live; for the harsh elements and for the harsher laws often enforced by those who had been born in the sands and would die there too. Survival was a way of life, and one had to be strong from birth. She herself was a fighter, her coat marked in several places by old scars – one of them from her first battle, when she’d been little more than a filly.
Every inch of her gleamed a deep, rich red in the sinking sun, with no flecks of white to be seen upon her slender face or her sleek and strong legs. She was fire, pure and untempered. And she burned with determination. She had survived worse odds than this before, and so, even as she pressed onwards, grimacing in pain that ebbed from her left shoulder, she never wavered, despite the stormwinds that tried to extinguish her.
The two of them were waiting – comrade and sister of the one who had fallen before her, blocking her path. Arabians from a desert far from here, who had followed her to the ends of the earth and beyond in their quest to have their vengeance. It was the black mare who had delivered the bite that was still weeping upon the bridge of the red mare’s muzzle. The stallion, brown as the earth beneath her hooves (and as yielding as it too) had landed the kick to her shoulder. They stared her down now, tense and ready to lunge at her, should she try to escape. The sight of them, the anger glittering in their dark eyes did nothing to dampen the red mare’s resolve. Instead, she raised her head higher, taunting the mare across from her. She had faced them enough times now to know their weaknesses. The mare’s weakness was her pride. The stallion’s weakness was the mare. Their only advantage over her was their combined strength. That was why she needed to strike at the dark first, hard enough so that she wouldn’t rise again.
“Öfke ile yanıyorum,” she seethes, ears pinned and her right frehoof striking the sandy soil up in great clumps. A ripple of pain washes over her as her injured shoulder gives just a little, and she snorts her disapproval. The words she utters nextare dripping with disgust, and she knows, she knows they’ll be enough. “I struck down your chosen one, and you, you are the ones they sent to strike me down? You are nothing, and I shall come down upon you, just as I came down upon your brother, who was filled with nothing but korkaklık!” There is a lull in the air, as if the world around the three of them grew still. A whisper of briny wind curls about the red warrior’s flared nostrils, and she notes traces of a foreign scent, but is unable and unwilling to pay it any heed presently. She takes a step forward asserting herself as the dominant one, and her weak shoulder gives just a little, drawing a gasp from her lungs. That is when the black mare comes for her.
She was ready and she was patient, shying away from a few haphazard kicks and submitting to another bite to the neck, her own bared teeth finding flesh in return. The two females danced their deadly dance, neither relenting. After a minute or so, the tides turned in the arab’s favour, for the red mare’s limp grew more pronounced, and she seemed unable to bear much weight on that foreleg. The black mare reared, a victorious whinny ringing through the air, temporarily deafining the red. But she rose up to meet her challenger, and grunted when their chests collided.
They tumbled, and the black mare went down first. The red mare squealed as a flailing hoof struck her, but she did not falter in her onslaught. Movement in the corner of her eye had her prancing away, and she bobbed her head, haunches lathered with sweat, and her neck and shoulders a deeper red for the smears of fresh blood there – hers and her enemy’s. The stallion had come between the two mares, and his posture was defensive. A thrill of energy cut through the adrenaline that was tiring the red mare, and she breathed heavily, asserting herself once more.
“Go home,” she advised him, her tone laced with venom, “and do not come back to this place.” A warning if there ever was one. But, he held his ground, and she again was compelled to admire him. Anyone who fought for what they wanted earned respect in her eyes. In this case, a meagre amount, but it was respect none-the-less. “I spared her, but don’t make the mistake of thinking I will show such mercy a second time.” Still, he did not move, and neither did she. Until he left and took his companion with him, she would wait them out. She did not dare turn her back, for she was not so desperate as to put herself at risk like that. She was patient. She could wait.
The dark mare struggled to her feet, and snarled something that propelled the bay stallion forwards. And so, the red mare danced again, shoulder to shoulder with the stallion as they pranced in dizzying circles, each snapping at the other, trying to gain the upper hand.
The red mare fell to her knees, squealing again as her agonized shoulder jolted and the muscle there burned. As she struggled to rise, the bay stallion circled closer, far more certain of himself. And yet, still he hesitated. The red mare, her wounded foreleg still bent at the knee, the earth cold beneath it, fixed him with a glare that kept him at a distance. Her breathing was ragged, and she seemed to be gathering what little strength she had left to get back up. There was no forsaken look in her eye, and the fight refused to leave her body. Still, she knew that she was in a bad way, and doubted how much longer she could last against two – for even as she watched, the dark mare crept forwards, albeit with a great deal more caution. The snap of a twig nearby seemed to go unnoticed by them both, but the red mare missed nothing.
Perhaps this was the end. Some part of her grieved over the fact, and she thought of the one who had been and always would be a friend to her. Nehir. He had never given up, and nor would she.
“I am Fire,” she snarled, red ears lying flat against a red mane. “I am Ateşlemek!” With a groan of pain, she hefted herself up, chin high in the air because it was not in her nature or in her blood to bow to anyone. “Small I may be, and weakened, but I have heard stories of great forests consumed by fires that started with a single spark.” Ateşlemek pawed at the dirt once more, tail snapping behind her like a river that ran red. “So come for me if you dare,” the words crackled with energy and were heavy with threat.
She sensed another, perhaps the one who’d been lingering for some time, drawing close, and when she spoke again, her voice grew louder still, so that the stranger, or strangers nearby would also hear her, and know that she was no easy target. “Yanıyorum. And you will burn with me.”
A T E Ş L E M E K
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