"Yeni başlangıçlar en iyisidir,” Ak Burun replies in a voice velvet with satisfaction. Hence why she has brought Shararat all the way back here: to begin again, fresh, without history hanging over her in the form of a red tyrant, so that Ak Burun may guide the Arabian’s fate where she will. The thought of her late companion is the only thing that pulls the Akhal-Teke’s eyes away from the golden adonis she has been so fortunate to stumble upon, and she skims the lands below for signs of other life. There’s the vague shape of a sand-colored horse in the distance, distorted by heat and likely no more than a mirage, but otherwise no signs of life in the Dunes besides this distinguished stallion and herself.
Ak Burun’s pink nostrils flare as she sets aside the puzzle of where her Shararat might be and focuses on the one immediately before her. This unknown stallion is much more tantalizing. Rich in health, his golden gleaming skin wraps sleekly over taut muscles and a slender conformation as befits their kind. Maslakhat is a stallion to rival lions.
"I have been waiting, Maslakhat," she says without accusation. "But it seems my patience has rewarded me. I am Ak Burun, once a dweller of these Dunes." The curl of her lips is not quite a smile, not quite a challenge as she adds, "And so it shall be again."
She has met many between leaving Shararat on the Crossing isle and finding her way back to this treasure trove of sand, and thus far none have made much of an impression. Silhouettes of horses is all they have been when compared to the potential rippling over this one’s pelt. He is not raw or unrefined, does not carry himself as if life has whipped him into submission and when he speaks it is with confidence and clarity. Ak Burun’s efforts upon him will be the subtle polish a sculptor rubs with loving hands across each feature of a finished piece, her avarice all the stronger for having had to do none of the work herself.
Her ears tip toward Maslakhat. "What is it you see on the horizon?" she asks, her eyes holding his, speaking not at all of the distant place where the sand stretches parallel to the sky. |