ORHAN
Orhan blinked away tears and followed his grown daughter’s gaze to the sandy hills beyond, which - thankfully - remained empty. His heart hardened to hear that the troublemaker had been from the Lagoon. The limp Orhan bore to this day he owed to a Lagoon stallion, who’d had the audacity to waltz into the desert once a few years ago and demand a mare. Orhan had seen him off, just as Koray was doing now.
Silently he thanked the gods for his son. Stubborn and temperamental as Koray was, he was young and able-bodied, something Orhan could no longer claim. If Koray was not here, the trespasser may well have made away with Indira, and Orhan would have lost her again.
His gaze flicked back to his daughter, and his expression - which had tensed in the few moments prior - softened again. Then it fell completely. “Your mother…? I thought… I thought she was with you. You disappeared about the same time…” His mind raced as he considered Arcana out there, all alone and heavily pregnant. She would not be pregnant now, of course… if she was even still alive.
Orhan had thought he was done grieving for her. He had accepted the idea that she’d left him, had packed up with Indira and their unborn child and sought out a new life. But… dead? The idea had crossed his mind a few times, but in the end he had always chosen to believe that she was okay. That, of course, had been when he thought Indira was with her.
He visibly shrank, like a wilting flower. His eyes stared at nothing. “I searched for you both… for months,” he said quietly.
It was then that his peripheral vision alerted him to something odd about Indira’s presence. He looked up, found her ear, and studied it with dismay. “Who hurt you? What happened to you?”
ARABIAN/AKHAL-TEKE/MUSTANG; 15’1HH; BUCKSKIN; 13 |