Han!
Evren lifted her head and pricked her ears. The voice was so faint that she could well have been imagining it, but it had been real enough to send her heart plummeting to her hooves. She cast a glance around at the herd, but if any of them had heard the call, they did not make a show of it.
Quietly, Evren slipped away into the trees.
As she walked, she wondered: who could possibly be searching for Han? He had not been close to anyone in the herd; in fact, he’d never had any close friends at all. Han had always kept to himself, and when he wanted company he found Evren. Their relationship, which had been more like a friendship than anything else, had always seemed to be all Han needed. Yet Evren could not forget what he had said to her before he’d left: that she no longer had time for him or included him in anything.
And then there was the question of what exactly Han was doing during all that time he’d spent alone, which Evren had not considered until now.
Mentally cursing her thoughtlessness, Evren strode into a sunlit meadow and would have walked right past the stranger if her golden coat had not caught the sunlight. Evren froze and gaped at the young palomino mare. Was she one of Shamwari’s? Evren lifted her nose to the wind and flared her nostrils. The girl certainly smelled of his herd. And -- yes, she had his look, too. One of his daughters, Evren guessed.
She slipped into a trot, tail flagged, and approached the stranger with a friendly yet somewhat sheepish expression. “Hello,” she said with a wry smile, “Was that you I heard calling, by chance?”
9; mutt; bay tobiano; 15.3hh
orhan x arcana |