Naz wasn’t alone for long. Though the mare had approached downwind from her, she had caught movement in her peripheral vision and snapped her head around to watch the figure move closer, her golden eyes bright and focussed. As the mare drew closer, Naz nimbly slid down the dune to meet the buckskin on more level ground. It was largely a strategic decision, for if it came to it, the gentle slope of sand they now stood on offered more stability and purchase than the crest of the dune. But, it was also out of consideration for the stranger. Even from a distance, Naz could see the swell of her sides, and now standing before her, there was no doubt that the mare carried a child in her belly.

Naz was confused, and the longer she stood before the buckskin, and her confusion only deepened as she processed Shaydowfax’s words. The marwari had first assumed her companion to have been lost, or a mere traveller passing through. She was Queen? Despite her bewilderment, Naz kept her expression neutral, and dipped her head in greeting. She was not known as the best spy in the herd that had taken her in as a filly, barely weaned. “Greetings, Shaydowfax. I am Naz.” Her tail swished, and she flicked one of her delicately curved ears. Pale nostrils flared to take in the buckskin mare’s scent again, and she found no hint of stallion on her. Strange, very strange. The marwari didn’t understand. “I was looking for a desertbred horse, a pale stallion...” Naz shook her head and trailed off, her curiosity leading her in another direction.

“You live here? Alone? Where is your king?” Surely the mare had others to protect her. There was no way she could protect herself from danger in a climate as harsh and ever-changing at the lands of the desert sand could be, especially given her condition, and the fact that she was nothing like any of the desert breeds Naz had ever met. “How long have you been here? Are there no other places you could go?” The dark mare reigned herself in, not wanting to heap too many questions upon the buckskin mare. She felt it was her duty to warn the mare, and she hoped Shaydowfax would take it as a sign of goodwill, and not take offense. “These desert climates are rarely kind, even to those born to the plains of sand.”