Orhan

Orhan lifted his head when the black silhouette in his peripheral vision began to move, stood, and waited for her to come to him. He watched as the Akhal-Teke mare glided across the sands with storm clouds at her back, her movement fluid and confident. It had been years since they had last seen each other, but she still looked strong and healthy: everything he was not. Suddenly he felt ashamed of letting himself go. The mare should not have been seeing him like this.

If only he could remember her name. He felt it should be branded there by now, with how ominous his memories of her were.

He regarded her from behind a gaunt mask of impassivity when she spoke. Had there been any fight left in him, he might have been angry that the first thing she said to him was regarding his mother's death. Orhan had successfully blocked that mental image from his brain for a long time, and now here it was again, creeping at the edges of his brain, trying to sneak in and rake its fingernails across an old wound. But he was practiced, and he did not let it. Suddenly he remembered.

"We have a habit of finding each other in unfortunate circumstances, Valve," he said in a low voice, and waited for a roll of thunder to pass before he continued. "I'm sorry for dropping by unannounced, but... I've lost several other herd members. I came to ask if you had seen them passing through, or heard any word of their whereabouts."