He smiles timidly at his mother's reassuring words, all but blushing beneath her faint praise as he turns away from her to look out through the dripping veil of water to the oasis beyond. For a few moments he falls into a daydream, his brown eyes tracing the shape of the oasis' banks half-consciously as he wonders, not for the first time, what his father had looked like. El Aran had told him much about his sire's personality and history - about his bold, kind heart, for instance, and how he had renounced his family home and claimed the desert in honor of El Aran - but little if anything of his looks. Or if she had, it had been in passing and he cannot remember.
By his reasoning, his own appearance must be a 'halfway' color between that of his dam and sire. Considering El Aran's dark complexion, the fact he has black points suggests to him that Encantador must also have had black points, or at least very dark ones. And his golden coat must be the result of El Aran's coat color mixed with that of his sire's: which means (or so he thinks), that his sire must have been as pale as the sun. In his head, he also imagines Encantador as tall as the curl-eared stallion, if not taller, and with a mane and tail so long, lustrous, curly, and thick, that he is like a god amongst horses. The way El Aran praises him, Orhan half-believes (or hopes) that he will grow into an equally impressive specimen.
The fact that Renaissance had briefly popped into his thoughts has reminded him of something, however. A concern that he had pushed to the back of his mind now returns full-force, tightening his belly with discomfort and rattling his brain until it is throbbing with the beginnings of a headache. Orhan sighs, swallows, and peers at his mother out of the corner of his eye. "Ana... how will I know when I am old enough to make the desert my own? And... will I have to fight the curl-eared stallion? What will happen if I lose? What will happen if I win? Will you stay here no matter what, or follow me if I have to leave?" He lowers his head to scrape his teeth on his foreleg, pretending he has an itch to cover the all-consuming anxiety he feels.
orhan
yearling; mutt; buckskin; 15'1hh wfg; shiva |