The desert didn't seem like a bad choice at first. Zjeena's a hardy mare. She doesn't need lush meadows to maintain her figure, and there is enough growth around the swollen watering hole to sustain the few other mares Liland had collected. Even the rain and flash floods were welcome to Zjeena. It's the weather that follows that's not. Growing up in a cooler climate, her coat is already thick for a winter that will never come. She is honestly too fat for this kind of weather. She stinks of sweat, and the broad stretch of skin across her back burns in the afternoon sun.
It's early yet, but Zjeena can feel new life stirring inside her. She is excited to become a mother, but no one told her how hot it was to be pregnant. Not only is the sun beating down on her, but whatever is going on inside her uterus is generating quite a lot of heat as well. She can't even image how she'll feel later on in the pregnancy. At this point she doesn't know she's pregnant with twins. Zjeena has a long and difficult road ahead.
The mare, though she'll be more uncomfortable later, is quite uncomfortable already. Zjeena stands under the shade of a small Joshua tree, her rump pressed to the trunk. Her head hangs low and her parti-colored mane falls in damp clumps around her face. Her thick coat is streaked with alternating lines of dark, fresh sweat, and dried salt from old sweat. The hairs on her back are pale from sun bleaching, and the tips of her mane and tail are bleached orange. Her nostrils are both flared from the heat and wrinkled with displeasure. Zjeena's eyes and lower lip droop. She is wilting like the flowering plants around her.
She was active in her role as lead mare to start, but lately Zjeena has been isolating herself to hide in the shade, uncomfortable, and unable to eat. They need to win back the bay. She's not sure when, and she's not sure how, but it needs to happen.
Warsaw can kiss her giant, sweaty rear.