Just like that, the Dunes became a little less empty. As if conjured, a mare - sleek of build like Maslakhat, but black as the sky above, save for her slender white nose - moved like liquid shadow from the undergrowth to stand alongside the golden stallion, and as she fixed her gaze upon Kore she felt the warmth of its potency like midday sun on her skin. She’d had so much energy mere moments ago, but under the stranger’s eye, she froze.

Over the past two years, Kore had grown used to this kind of appraisal: every few months, it seemed, as soon as she’d grown out of her lanky yearling body and into obvious womanhood, a stallion would come a-courting, having spied her either under the tall palms at Eleusis or quietly accompanying Demeter on her many errands. They would meet with her mother, according to royal protocol, and discuss her like some sort of bargaining chip, a newly-discovered bauble of great value. For what it was worth, her dam always turned them away; Never, she vowed, would a man take her from the safety of Eleusis, of her mother’s warm, protective embrace. Kore had been told what these men were capable of, and she saw it in the way their eyes raked over her curves, hungry. She was grateful for Demeter’s guidance, truly. She just wished she’d been able to speak for herself.

This time, however, she had a voice.

The second the other mare broke her stare, Kore felt her muscles relax. Her ears, having flicked back in uncertainty, rounded slowly forward, and she dipped her dark head in a respectful greeting, turning up her lips in a modest smile. She didn’t know entirely what the mare’d said, but she knew the tone, and murmured a soft “Thank you” in response. Looking at her, Kore noticed their similar coloring - dark, tipped in some way with white - and wondered idly to herself if the golden stallion beside them had a type.

Kore pondered, though, how best to answer her next question; she’d yet to tell anyone, even Ember, of her homeland, and here, with others of her own kind, she wasn’t sure if it would be safe to do so. Would they know of Eleusis? Kore had never seen them before, but she hadn’t seen many other horses, sheltered by Demeter as she was. Maybe they were Olympians, too, and reminding them of the far-off mount would dredge up too many questions she didn’t want to answer.

Perhaps, then, the easiest route was best.

“I’m - I’m not sure,” the Arabian replied. “A cyclone took me in the night and delivered me to your shores.” In the grasp of the waves, she did not know which way she was being dragged towards, only out and away. It was as if Poseidon himself held her there, under the water, until she’d lost consciousness. By the time she awoke, she was on the shores of the Falls, and that was that. Simple - if they let it be.

“My name’s Kore.” The bay glanced from Maslakhat to the other mare, her gaze filling yet again with questions. “Have you been here very long? You,” she added, looking teasingly at her dappled escort, “did not mention a companion on our way here.” Though her eyes weighed heavy on Kore’s body, the mare already brought comfort just by being present; she was used to the company of women, and knowing that the stallion had managed to keep at least one other around made her uncertainty at following him back to Salem grow ever more quiet. Demeter’s warnings about unknown men might have had less teeth than she originally assumed.