Desert

Rage.

Like the boiling noon day sun, Nyimara felt the heat of anger continuing to seer at her soul, wrapping tightly around the heart of ice and stone until it cracked and chipped beneath the pressure. Every dream, every blink of her eyes brought visions of the child she had lost from the deep recesses of the ocean that had become his grave. Always he stood before her in the same manner, his slight frame darkened by the ocean, salt water dripping from his sodden mane. Always, his pale blue eyes were haunting; as though he searched for something and despite the cries that slipped past her lips or the pleas that screamed in her mind, never did he seem to see her, never did he respond or acknowledge her presence. Even the beast within her hissed in her ear, she had abandoned him and left him to the clutches of the dark woman. It would not be until her blood coated the earth that she would be free of the hatred and the vision that haunts her endlessly.

Desperation keeps Cato close. Fear prickling at the back of her mind causes her to patrol the borders with near constant necessity. The once lean muscles beneath her silken skin grow more pronounced and more prominent beneath the constant patrols. Dark eyes rimmed with the red of exhaustion haunt her eyes but not once does she give up. She was born to be a queen and despite what the fates tossed her way, by the gods she would see it through. Determination coddles her children close, guarded by the watchful Warduna and the less than pleased Vivenne. Though only a half sister, still the bloodlines of the wolf ran deep enough through the painted mare’s veins that Nyimara trusted her. The wolf never abandoned its pack and despite the grace and cunning that she tried to use to cloak her nature, she would always be a true born wolf.

She was not done. She had not taken the Desert to merely disappear. She was far from retiring or disappearing from legend. She was Nyimara, the silver haired witch that haunted the dreams and nightmares of many. She would not go quietly into the night. Determination guides her tired limbs as the mahogany woman crests the dunes that guarded the desert from the ocean’s reaching grasps. Despite the sweltering heat that dampened her coat, Nyimara found herself hungering for the cool ocean breeze that swept over the sand covered shore. Slowly she walked along the water’s edge, allowing the warm salt waters to lick at her heels and guide her over the malleable sands. It was here that the impressions of another’s hoofprints are first detected.

Like the telltale signs of crabs marching along the dampened sands, the hoofprints draw her gaze and sharpen her senses with renewed venom and anger. An intruder. A stranger. Potential threat to her family.

Once more the beast within her rises, the hairs along her spine raise with the rise of adrenaline that flares her nostrils and arches her neck. Renewed purpose is evident in the thrust of her hooves as she charged up the embankment with keen, dark eyes searching. Ashen lips peel back in the beginnings of a snarl as slowly she progresses further, guided by the trail left behind by the intruder. Salt of the ocean overpowered any origins that was left behind, but Nyimara did not put it past Faolain to have sent a spy to her shores.

Small, dark ears prick as the next rise reveals a still figure standing statuesque against the horizon. Dark brows furrow together as for a moment, Nyimara lets her fierce gaze take in the form from a distance. Colored like the very sands she stood upon, Nyimara might have missed her, the perfect spy and yet something in the almost forlorn eyes that gaze with sweeping admiration over the Desert tells her that this woman could not be from Atlantis. At least not from the Ridge of Paradise anyway.

A somewhat gravelled nicker escapes her own throat now as the slender woman of dark mahogany hues breaks into a fleet canter, closing the distance that separates them with long strides. The tension built beneath her skin allows her to leap gracefully up the side of the ridge of rock and sand. Pebbles shower down the side of the hill in her wake as Nyimara comes to a stiff halt before the woman. An elder, she realises as the closer contact reveals the fine gray hairs that had been hidden previously by the distance. It is evident in the fine lines of wisdom that etch itself in the femine features that stare back at her.

Caution is evident in her own eyes as a single brow is raised, her finely dished head lifted to rid her vision field of the silken threads of pale hues that veil her gaze. ”Friend or foe?” she asks, her tones even as she could possibly make them. So far, there was no threat in the stranger’s stance, but if life has taught her anything, it is that everything can change in a mere moment’s time.