Initially, Gabbar thought, this interaction with the strange mare had been going well.

However, when they reached the oasis the mare hesitated for a long time before stepping up to the edge of the water to drink, and when the bay stallion turned to look at her he was unnerved to find her staring at him intently. Still, he asked his question, determined to get to the bottom of what had happened to her (and, mainly, whether or not it had happened on the islands or off), and was expecting a moving tale about familial betrayal or some other such story of exile.

He loses count somewhere in the sixties when she addresses him as “spirit-colt.” If she’d spoken with any amount of malice Gabbar would have immediately placed her as coming from his desert despite all the other signs pointing against it —colt was an especially effective way to condescend to a breeder who had particularly fucked up— but everything that comes out of her mouth after the potential epithet is so confounding Gabbar can’t help the horror that flashes across his face and tips his ears back and to the sides.

"No," he says slowly, reevaluating the mental capacity of the mare. Perhaps the injuries on her head go deeper than the skin. She sounds addled. "I have not... What do you mean, it was time for you to die?" he says, voice picking up speed and a little bit of volume as he tries to imagine what madherd this mare has come from. What was she, sacrificed? The Akhal-Tekes used to do that, a long time ago, but had stopped such a barbaric practice for reasons undisclosed to him. Or at least, such was what he’d been led to believe. He can’t imagine anyone making the decision to end another’s life— and yet, was that not what his people decided with their allies when they went to war? To bring death to a people solely because they disagreed with their lifestyle?

Obviously he has no idea what has truly befallen this mare, but he has a vague idea of what must have happened, given the nature of her wounds. Gabbar focuses again on her face. "I don’t know who did this to you," he says sternly, "But it was wrong. A horse’s life ends when Uzay chooses, and not before. You’re lucky you got away with your life."