“It has been amongst the sands before.”

“Yes, I believe that it has. Not these sands though, I do not recognize it.”

“Shall I go and speak to it?”

“Be still, my pet, be still. We will wait.”

The foreign, lilted hiss of tangled voices was soft, barely audible above the faint slither of sand that prevailed in the dunes whenever even the slightest of breezes blew. To differentiate one from the other would be a truly remarkable feat; the slight tone of authority from one and the glimmer of reverence from the other would be the only hint as to which was which. Their nearly-identical bodies too, golden and sleek, would be hard to separate by an untrained eye. Tall, lean, and seemingly spun from the sands that slithered about their hooves, they made a smart match as they stood in the shadow of one of the larger dunes. Pressed flank to flank, it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began as they tracked the stranger’s course across the broad expanse of their most humble abode. Even their movement, the flick of an ear and the shifting of hooves, replicated one after the other.

The stillness was broken by the careful, glancing brush of muzzle to neck and as one, they erupted into the sunlight. Gleaming like freshly polished bronze, they flowed down the face of the dune with deer-like leaps and bounds, muscles bunching and twisting like snakes beneath their leather-tight hides. They raced, side by side with the occasional flourish of lifted heels or a snaking nip, toward the dark stranger that danced in silhouette against the sky. Tossing their heads in near unison, they scaled the dune with powerful thrusts of their slender hindquarters, leaving rooster tails of sand billowing in their wake. Cresting the dune and spinning to face the stranger, they press against each other once again, sides heaving and eyes sparkling with dangerous electricity. They surveyed her carefully, although quickly, before a gentle caress pushed the taller, paler version of the seeming twins forward. The regal face tipped carefully in greeting before a rolling, sharply accented, yet strangely sexless voice slid from his lips.

“What brings you to our sands, acemi?” he implored, flicking his ears forward and treating the dark, young woman to a faint smile. To his left, the other golden beast remained silent, though her eyes roved casually up and down the sleek flanks of the young intruder.

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sutekh & sekhet
stallion & mare / akhal-teke / buckskin / 16.0 & 15.3 hh / six & seven
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