Areo Hotah was certain he did not like the cold. Trained as he was, however, complaint never once left his lips. Rather, the behemoth of a stallion did as he was told and while privately thankful for moments spent closer to the small herd – closer to his queen – in order to steal from their warmth as he did theirs, Areo Hotah would not have argued if he was told to stand away, either. When the world was white, the wind howled and bit his coat; he remembered times as a weanling when his efforts had been less than satisfactory in the eyes of his general. Beneath the heat of the sun on hard, dry, cracked dirt he’d been forced to stand still and sweat.
Kunt la naqdir alttaqat alkhassat bik . Wasawf tasheur 'annak 'iijazat alttaqat alkhassat bik . Thumm sawf taerif nafsak bishakl 'afdal eindama tati almaerakat alqadima.
Dry tones of those who raised him filled his ears but were quickly drown out by the howl of the wind. His already sore muscles (from standing so tense against the cold) ached as he tensed against it, ears turned back and head lowering just slightly so.
“Kunt la naqdir alttaqat alkhassat bik.” Areo Hotah muttered to himself under his breath, shivering, his tone jumping because of it. This was a lesson inflicted by nature, he told himself, and he would learn from it exactly as he had learned in the deserts of Alrhama’. For his queen, he would learn. His eyes reached for her as a pull to strength – if she were fortifying herself in this hellish weather, Areo Hotah must do so as well.
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