The dunes; they had become his home rather quickly. There were no trees here in which he could hide, with their branches reaching across his face and dark skin, where the brambles could get caught up in his mane and tail, sitting like little reminders of where he had been. No longer did he smell of moss and things that grew, but instead there was a thick musk of sweat and sand that hung about him. The desert had been healthy for him, and the dunes had been even kinder. Previously, under the lush comfort of the tall trees and the roaring mist of the falls, he had fed almost greedily upon the grasses there, his gut feeling bloated and his senses seemingly dulled by the lackluster lifestyle, he had lived easily. Almost too easily. Yet here, he had grown lean and svelte on a diet of sparse desert grasses and even sparser watering holes.

Badr had found, for the first time in a long time, he was the closest he had been to being happy. If happy were a tangible thing, of course, he would have put it into a little box and saved it for a rainy day- ergo, he prefers to maintain a stoic mannerism.

And yet, he was surprised when a body washed up on his beach.

He did not expect to find anyone here, in fact, Badr had all but assumed that no one would want to spend time in the great sandy hills that seemed to roll on forever. They rolled on farther than the eye could see, and the flaxen maned stallion had yet to explore into his own home that far, preferring to stay closer to the sea where the air smelt sweet and fresh, with salt hanging about like a reminder of what he had left behind. The stallion is even more surprised as the chestnut stranger falls into a heap on the ground in two steps, first their front end crashing forwards and then their back end tumbling after. It was rather unfortunate looking, and the man shifts his weight, feeling the sand slithering under his feet for a moment or two before he moves down the slope of the dune he had been perched on a little further inland from the shore.

It doesn’t take long at all for him to close the distance between himself and the other horse, but once he is close enough, Badr stoops his head a bit, regarding the woman (as he can see now that she is female) as though she were a sickly thing that might be contagious, he feels strangely uncomfortable in his own home.

Only because, as far as he knows, he is the only one that has been here in a long time.

Closer still, he relaxes to find that the girl has seeminly collapsed out of, he assumes, exhaustion, finding her soft bed in the sand. Blank faced but uncharacteristically curious, the stallion blows a soft snort through his nostrils and greets her. “Hello.”

badr
The lonesome vigilante.
stallion. flaxen liver chestnut. unknown crossbreed.
ee aa ff. fifteen & three hands. eight years. russell.