Once, El Aran had lived on Cimarron. Back when she’d lived with a stallion who’d abandoned the herd, when she’d tried to protect an Arabian because they were a herd. Those days were long gone, and the horses she’d known from that time walked the islands no longer. Cimarron had not left a positive impression on the seer, but she wondered what became of the horses who still called that island home. She wondered, too, if Soraya was telling the truth. Islands did not just disappear, and nothing in El Aran’s dreams had suggested anything about an island ceasing to exist. And the rest of what the mustang said— it made little sense to the black mare. Pressing her ears to her skull, El Aran jerked her head up and rolled an eye at Soraya. But she held her tongue, noting the coldness in her companion’s eyes despite the smile that turned her lips, and waited until the buckskin had finished speaking.
If Soraya’s first words had irritated El Aran with their ambiguity, the twisting in her gut prompted by the feeling that this mare had been keeping a close eye on the desert mare for quite some time prompted a swell of rage within her chest. It was a cover for fear. A horse’s strongest defense was to be offensive. Pressing her dark hooves against the gritty ground, El Aran’s hindquarters clenched, prepared to send her leaping forward or help her rise and pivot. But El Aran hated to fight, and these islands were not drowning in war. Her body trembled with tension as she chose to speak first. "I do not know you," she said, and her voice was a cold contrast to the heat that blanketed them. "Yet you have heard my name and the name of my partner. We are not a tribe, we are a herd, and your interest in us is suspicious. Why do you seek to claim kinship with me?"
Aşk's eighth eye
♥ Uforia
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