Mercedes flinched slightly every time the stallion coughed. She was worried for him, but he seemed better at least than when she had herded him off the beach. He relaxed now as she groomed the water out of his coat, though he looked away from her face as if he were embarrassed.

She almost spoke, but he got there first, his voice rough and raw from saltwater, asking to call her Mercy. ”Of course,” she said. She liked the sound of it on his tongue, even if that tongue was burned from all the sea it had tasted. ”You don’t need to ask for my mercy, Fundamental,” she said, his name sounding foreign the first time in her mouth. ”I don’t want to be the one deciding whether or not you live.” She wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he’d die if she had decided not to help him, but she didn’t want to take that chance anyway.

With his shoulders dry now, Mercy began to groom the saltiness out of the fur at the tops of his legs, carefully avoiding his scrapes and cuts. Not ever having tended to wounds other than her own, she didn’t know what to do about Fundamental’s, and decided just to settle for making sure they were clean. Still, she worried about the pain he must have been in.
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