Shararat completes her circle and faces Illusion once again, swimming back to shallower water until her feet touch the underwater shelf and she can stand likewise with the golden mare where the water is only chest-deep. The Arabian shakes out her head and presses her toes more deeply in the sand as her eyes drift half-closed. "It’s a good cold, no?" she asks. "I like the way the water pulls at me when I’m in it this deep. All those currents— some trying to wash me back ashore, others eager to pull me out." A little like standing between Iftikhar and Ak Burun, or trying to defy simultaneously both the sun and the moon.
Her eyes open as her gaze returns to Illusion. "Are you excited to be a mother?" Shararat asks, unaware of whether or not that is a polite question to ask. "Mine had so many rules, so many expectations for how I was supposed to behave. It seemed such a chore to have a child, I’ve never seriously considered it for myself." She supposes that now would be the time though, wouldn’t it? Settled comfortably within a herd, away from a land at war, free to make her own decisions— free to choose Bahadir, who thus far has done nothing to make her believe he would be a poor sire. His lines are strong, his coat bearing the marks of the gods. If such a thing were to influence her, he would be the obvious choice.
Still, she barely knows him, and the idea of carrying a foal... Shararat really hasn’t given it any thought until now. It seems like a decision that should not be made lightly, for the sake of everyone involved. "I was born in Paradise, over on Atlantis, and as I recall I was the only foal in the herd at the time." She gestures behind Illusion, back to where the herd congregates out of sight at the oasis. "I’m sure some of the others must be pregnant, too. It’ll be nice for your child to have company as they grow." Hers might have been a lonely childhood, if not for Ailill and daily access to the ocean. Shararat has done all right, she thinks, for having been raised more or less by the elements and land she was born in than by her painfully attentive mother and no father. |