Darkness came and took her away. It wrapped her in its loving embrace and welcomed her home like a lost child. It cooled her overheated skin, sated her cracking tongue. There was no other soul there with her. It was the blissful silence she had always dreamed of, the wonderful solitude she longed for. All her loss and pain was taken from her as if it had never existed.

After the darkness she began to dream. The child came back, still whole but once again dark and beautiful, as it had been in life. It came to her, touched her nose, and called sweetly for her to follow. She rose to her feet, and they were no longer weary. Yes, I will come with you, she thought. In this glorious dream, she was actually happy to have a foal, and even wished for more. The real Laurel, the feeling one, was once more, and she dared to think to herself that it was too good to be true.

Oh how she wished she were wrong. Yet just before she followed her perfect child to wonderful happiness, she was rudely brought to reality. The heat flooded back, followed by the painful dry tongue, cracked lips, and burning throat. She lay upon the sand, fatigue overwhelming her, still only half conscious. A muzzle bumped her neck, and she twitched away from it. No, let me go. I want to go back. Had she been able to speak, she would have voiced this thought. But her entire body lacked the water to do so.

The nudging persisted. She wanted to speak out, lash out, make any effort to stop it. All Laurel wanted was to go back to the paradise she had just experienced in her mind. Finally, she opened her bleary eyes and perceived the shadow nearby. A few moments later she realized who it was, and despite her weak state her ears disappeared into her mane once more. It startled her somewhat that he was here. She assumed he’d forgotten about her, or more likely, stopped caring whether she lived or died. Wishful thinking.

Despite the fact that she wanted the darkness, and that she wanted nothing at all to do with this liver colored brute beside her, she knew what she must do. For reasons inexplicable to her, she knew that she must get up and keep living. How long, she was not sure. But it was necessary to go on, if only to irritate Badr to no end. He probably wouldn’t care. How infuriating.

Shifting feebly, she managed to gather her feet beneath her barrel, scrabbling a bit against the grains that made her life so difficult. She felt like a newborn as she slowly braced her front hooves a good deal in front of her and shifted her hind end to push off the sand. Eventually, after two or three attempts, she was on her feet once more, though not for long if she did not receive what she needed. In the meantime, despite all her best judgment, she shuffled close to Badr, the one she hated, and let him support her until he decided how to proceed.