The buckskin stallion had always been prone to sleepless nights – a trait no doubt inherited from his mother – but as of late, his insomnia had been particularly bad. Initially it had been the aftermath of his intimate encounter with Vesti that had kept him awake; for days upon days afterwards he had been unable to stop thinking about it – not in a lustful way – but in an anxious, almost philosophical way. It had breathed life into questions he had never thought to ask himself before.
After the excitement of that incident had begun to fade, however, his concerns had morphed into something altogether more pressing. It was too early to know whether they had been successful in their attempt... but now all Orhan could think about was the idea of becoming a father, and by extension, Vesti becoming the mother of his first child. It was on his mind constantly, eating away at him, and he had secretly become almost obsessive in his anxiety over the chestnut mare’s wellbeing. Though he knew she had been a mother before – twice – he could not seem to stop himself from peeking out under his eyelashes at her every five minutes while she slept. He was not entirely sure what it accomplished, but he liked to tell himself that he just wanted to be sure she was okay.
He could have kicked himself one night when he opened his eyes to discover Vesti was gone. He had been dozing only a few moments, which made it all the more frustrating. His heart in his mouth, Orhan immediately set out to follow her trail, hoping she had not gone far. Thankfully, the seasonal rains had not come yet, and the wind was quiet tonight, leave her hoof prints undisturbed in the sand. His eyes heavy with sleep, he followed them at a steady trot and began to grow more anxious by the minute when he realized that her trail led straight toward the border. In his mind, he began to imagine the possibilities: that she was having an affair with a neighboring stallion, that she had never intended on staying with him as soon as she’d gotten what she needed from him...
He hoped, for both their sakes, that she was only out for some late night exercise, or was sleepwalking.
As he crested a tall dune, the muscles in his rump and shoulders burning with the effort of heaving him upwards, Orhan saw them: two horses, both mahogany-colored and with pale strands in their hair (from what he could tell in the dim light). One he did not immediately recognize except for the fact that she was a mare, but the other he knew immediately to be Vesti, and though he was relieved that she was not with a stallion, his heart still raced as he travelled carefully downhill and across the sands toward them, his neck held at a stiff angle. “Vesti,” he muttered as he came up on the mare’s left side. Though he touched her shoulder gently with his nose, his expression was hard and searching. “What are you doing out here?”
It was only then that he turned his eyes toward the stranger, and a moment later he realized she was not a stranger after all. His face slackened in disbelief. “A’idah?”
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