the path to enlightenment
A R I S H O K
is paved with ignorance
Wariness characterizes each motion as Arishok draws to a halt a few yards from the new arrival; though he has known the meaning of fear but once in his life, he had learned that reservation was wiser than recklessness. Only when it is determined that this fiery apparition provides no true threat to him and his kingdom does the stallion relax, allowing the tension to drain from his limbs as the female questions him. If Arishok had brows, one would likely have been quirked - as it is, air is expelled harshly from his nostrils in response to her ashqaad tendencies of babble and nonsense. He was in not in a patient mood today, particularly not to be interrogated within the boundaries of his own land.
"And what would I be boss of, basran? The earth, the sky? These things do not obey the whims of creatures such as ourselves."
Shaking the sweaty bangs out of his mahogany eyes, he falls silent once more, his piercing gaze locked with hers for many moments. From the beginning, the dunes had called to him as a place of solace, where he could exist in peace away from the ashqaad and their chaotic, unnatural ways. Now it seemed that there was no escaping them; they walked where they pleased with no regards to the will of tal-sunnah, trampling the ideals of purpose and prosperity beneath their hooves as they sought to make of themselves something other than what they were.
It was frustrating for Arishok, who longed for the militant efficiency of home.
But he cannot restrain the curiosity of his mind with the chains of his will. As an Arishok, it was meant to be that his strength should be tempered by wisdom, and he finds himself wondering of the purpose of this unusual mare in his kingdom. If tal-sunnah had brought her to his path, perhaps there was more to her than met the eye.
"What is your purpose here?"
Arishok finds himself asking, the irritation now gone from his baritone voice.
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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