It was to the black mare Avangeline’s attention was drawn. She’d been in mid-thought, wanting to ask Gabbar if he might be willing to teach her words in his native tongue, but the moment she caught sight of the black mare everything else had fled. This was the first time Avangeline was seeing an Akhal-Teke who was not the memory of her mother and father. Faintly she remembered two strangers on crossing but the vision of them seemed so vague and unimportant her mind could not fully grasp to them. Instead it was the black mare she watched with intrigue in her eyes and her ears pointed forward, nostrils flared as she drank in the scent.
Her scent, though a stranger’s, was as familiar as the Dunes had become.
“Valve,” repeated Avangeline with a smile to move over her mouth shortly after. “Yes, I’m Avangeline.” Which meant of course Evaline, who’d elected to remain quiet, was now named more specifically. Avangeline felt a strange protectiveness over Evaline – which she knew would make the older mare bray with laughter if she were to find out – and she wanted to quickly carry the conversation forward so no one might linger too long and pry as to where the older mare had been off to.
“I’ve never really met another Akhal-Teke,” confessed Avangeline, eyeing Valve curiously. “Only my mother and my father.” So far she’d kept company with Arabians, which felt oddly rebellious considering Avangeline had never actually been from a place where the breeds were so separated. To learn there was a place where it was unspoken of, however, made her want to hold even further steadfast to the friendships with Arabian’s she’d begun to cultivate.
Did Valve hail from the same desert as Gabbar? Avangeline shot him a very quick, curious look, but then was back to looking at Valve. If she was, it appeared there were even more willing to overthrow biases they were raised in and that made Avangeline happy. How little did she know…
“Are you from here, the islands?”
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