Cerosi found it was hard to contain the sudden rush of energy she was receiving upon her realization of safety and friendship in the Desert. Akello led her around his home, and between oases and fruit trees Cerosi often gave a few more small bucks, sometimes accompanied by a small squeal. She thought Akello might think her silly for the outbursts, but she didn’t really care. She liked hanging out with him, and at one point she tried to bait him with a friendly nip toward his withers, her teeth grabbing nothing but the air right next to his fur. She remembered the stallion she met in the Falls just before coming here, and despite how recent the interaction was, the memory was quite hazy. She had not known how to play then, and she had rudely antagonized the poor boy just because she could. She still felt guilt for her sour actions, but almost as soon as the memory came to her it disappeared again. This was an entirely different interaction, and truthfully, the two were not comparable. The guilt faded as she pranced around her painted friend, hoping he would chase her.

Distracted from her appetite, Cerosi had not tried any of the fruit Akello showed her, but one of the trees bore a familiar golden-pink orb she had seen in her homeland. She paused for once, extending her dark muzzle to sniff the low-hanging peaches, and plucked one from the tree. Sweetness burst into her mouth as her blunt teeth sank into the soft flesh of the fruit, and she turned to offer Akello a bite. ”I think I remember these from when I lived with my father,” she said around the peach. ”I was really small. He gave me away when I was less than a year old, I think.” Those memories were definitely hazy, and tainted with bitterness, but she could think badly of the stories her father had told her as a child. Those she recalled vividly. Dexter had had a talent for spinning stories, as it turned out, and utilized it often to please young Cerosi.

They moved on, and the cool water from the bay Akello brought her to washed the sticky peach juice from her muzzle. The sun was setting, bleeding peach-colored ink into the sky as it sank beyond the horizon. The painted yearling asked if Cerosi needed an escort to her place of rest, but she realized she didn’t really have one. She’d been sleeping on the outskirts of the herd, close enough to discourage predators but never in the same place twice. ”I’m not sure,” she said, watching the sunset and thinking. Part of her did not want the day to end, but she was growing sleepy, and her belly was full of fresh water and peaches and desert grass which made her even sleepier. She chuckled, a little embarrassed. ”I haven’t really found a good place to sleep yet,” she admitted. ”I’ve just been lingering at the edge of the herd. I hadn’t really worked up the guts to meet anyone until today.” She did not want to also admit that sleeping alone was terribly lonely. She thought she would like it - being crammed in with the other mares of her old tribe was suffocating, so the space should have been a relief - but with all of the other changes she was experiencing now, she missed the sense of normalcy that would come with bedding down in close quarters with others.

She turned away from the sunset to face Akello again. Cerosi felt shy once more, which was a saddening change from her earlier energy. ”I think I’ll be alright on my own, but thank you. And thank you very much for showing me around today.” She gave him a sleepy smile, thinking she would find a tree to bed beneath that was, once again, just close enough to discourage predators.

• CEROSI •