Orhan

To his utter bewilderment, Arcana began to scream at him.

Helpless, the stallion turned his bloodshot brown eyes toward her and took her rage silently, his head low and his ears splayed to the side in surrender. She was an awful sight with blood on her face and blood on her side, staining her white fur pink. He could imagine he hardly looked any better, with the hair scraped raw from his barrel and his front leg soiled with red.

Then Arcana began to cry, and he felt shame like he had never felt before. The knowledge that he had unwittingly put her - and their unborn child - in mortal danger was unbearable. What had he been thinking? Now that he looked out to sea again, he could see just how wild the waves were, how unsafe it had been to step into the water. With the preoccupied state he had been in before, it had not registered precisely what a bad decision he was making.

Orhan coughed once, then hobbled closer to Arcana, favoring his injured leg. "I'm so sorry," he said, his voice a low, desperate croak. "I don't know what I was thinking. Are you all right? Aşkım, I am so, so sorry." The stallion stretched his nose out and touched her neck, his eyes seeking hers. His expression was slack with exhaustion and guilt.

After a moment, he pulled away and looked inland. His mind was muddled and he could not think straight, but he knew that he wanted to get as far away from the ocean as possible. "We should go back to the oasis and get ourselves cleaned up. Are you okay to walk?"