It is a cool night, just cold enough to warrant moving at a jog to keep the blood flowing, and so Shararat flows across the hard sands of the Desert at such a pace. Her dished head is held high, ears swiveling with interest at this flat, scrub-speckled land. The sky seems so much bigger here than compared to the Dunes or even the Badlands with little rising to interrupt the horizon. Tail flagged, Shararat trots further into the foreign territory without concern for whether or not her presence might be considered a trespass. If she is asked to leave, she will, but until then the black mare will not carry worry across the border with her.
Living in the Badlands has made her heart ache for home, for Paradise and her youthful adventures with Ailill. She has been lonely, too, with Ak Burun still away and no sign at all of her warm friend Illusion since the herd was foisted from the Dunes. Shararat knows the resourceful ‘Teke will find her but worries about the gold mare who was first to befriend her in Bahadir’s herd. The black mare whispers a soft prayer for the pregnant mare’s health and lengthens her stride to a canter. As far as she has been able to tell, it seems the band did not entirely survive the move from the Dunes. With little to keep her tethered to her new territory and much to drive her restlessly, alone, through the canyonland, Shararat has decided on a new angle of entertainment via exploring the rest of Salem.
Perhaps she should be focused on meeting the generous stallion who rules the Badlands and has so graciously allowed Bahadir to rehome the herd, or making an effort to connect with the remainder of the Dunes group or even get to know the horses who call the Badlands home, but she has felt only the increasing need to run— whether away from the striated towers that make her heart ache with nostalgia or the feelings of abandonment she has been struggling to ignore. Shararat wants only to find a reprieve from how stifled she has been feeling and here, under the wide, starry sky of the desert, she can run unimpeded. |