the path to enlightenment
A R I S H O K
is paved with ignorance
Solitude had become a constant companion.
Standing atop the highest of the dunes, Arishok was a marble statue; unmoving as the stone save the indeterminable rise and fall of his chest with each breath, the stallion gazes out across the endless sands. Lost deep within his own mind, he chases stray thoughts as wispy in his consciousness as the clouds were overhead, paying no heed to the burn of unquenched thirst in his throat - there was a greater burn within him; a thirst for knowledge, a thirst to understand this strange world. As a gust of heated air grasps the strands of his ivory mane, Arishok recalls the words of the baa'ri Rhaella: How can you hope to guide those who would resist?
Finally, some animation; his ears swivel from their relaxed position atop his burly crown as the dull pounding of hooves on sand sounds in the distance, eyes narrowing to catch the trail of dust streaking the horizon. Being a harsh land of little sustenance, Salem did not harbor as many equine as some of the other isles - but this visitor, if visitor it was and not an individual with a more sinister purpose, was not Arishok's first. With a dim smile he recalls the intriguing individual who called herself selah, as eternal as stone.
Returning his attention to the distant figure, he notes that it has stopped to rest atop a dune, not unlike himself. He was not bothered by the presence of another in the Dunes, feeling none of the territorial tendencies that many herd stallions did; he may have claimed the land, but he did not own it. All followed their own purpose and path, and if that path led them here, then it may be that the threads of their lives were meant to intertwine.
In a sudden burst of motion his muscles uncoil, propelling him from atop his perch. Settling into the unharried gait of one who knows they will reach what they seek in time, Arishok sets a course for the mysterious stranger who has been led to his kingdom. The answers he seeks, he knows, will come in time.
a bloodstained gray stallion
standing proud at 16.2 hands and
following the ways of his warlander ancestors
for nine years and counting
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