Common

Ak Burun emerges from the ocean spackled with salt and sullied, on the earnest hunt now for the mare she has misplaced and departed from Salem long enough to complete this duty— and cool off from that conflict in the Hills. She doesn't know which is more despicable: that the sickly beast succeeded in getting such a strong rise out of her that her reaction was to leave the island entirely, or that against her better judgment Ak Burun laid her tongue against the flesh of a leper out of misplaced spite and an vicious coupling of childhood rage and shame.

She wants to spit until the thick taste of his skin is out of her mouth.

There stands a tree at one end of the claiming grounds, a lone thing that once offered shelter akin to nightshade to two mares just returned to the Isles. Ak Burun trots toward it now, her gait dogged rather than graceful, hooded eyes intent upon her destination. Well does she recall leaving Shararat here to the predictable whims of the fates, understanding that if a suitable band stallion from Salem was not drawn irrevocably to that jet-black queen, her Arabian doll would find her way to the golden sands of her rightful throne one way or another, and they would be together again.

The plan had not happened. Shararat had been, but was no longer, there. Why, eats at Ak Burun as each day passes until, finally, spurred by the wretch in the Hills and her own disgust at his scent on her coat, unwilling to return to the Dunes smelling so much of someone like that, the pale-nosed 'Teke does her due diligence and ventures to familiar ground to hunt Shararat down, starting with the beginning of their separation at this nondescript oak.

The Arabian will be found, and woe be to he who holds her captive without Ak Burun's consent.