I am happy to see that my familiar words have gone over well with the mysterious woman, and at her question I smile and laugh. The Dunes had been my home for six solid months, despite the fact that the only creature that I bothered to make the acquaintance of had been Naz, the mare that had rescued me from the bitter cold of winter. It was only Shaydowfax's meddling that had left me homeless and shuttled to the Badlands like a forgotten child's toy.

Malika Feray had been kind, but it had been like being stripped of the last bits of home that I could hold to myself, and I had not taken to it well.

"It is indeed the first time that I have been back in a while," I answer to her first question, but find myself smiling with demure delight at her next statement. I did, in fact, love to run. Even as a well-guarded princess, it had been my greatest delight to slip the yoke of my station to run like a free mare across the dunes while the wind lifted and tossed my mane. Caught up in my memories, I don't immediately react to Ak Burun's immediate change of direction but my ears do flick backward briefly as we track away from Maslakhat. After the less than stellar showing of myself not so many days past, I was eager to soothe any ruffled feathers that I had left in my wake.

"My father used to tell my brothers that there was no better place to find your heart than at the top of a sand dune," I offer the anecdote with a small smile, although I quickly tuck the pain that it causes me out of sight. I cannot change my past, and dwelling on it here is only making me more miserable.

I do not miss the offhand way she brushes away my comment, neither unkind nor particularly interested and wonder what this means in regards to her relationship with malik Maslakhat. Surely there was something going on there? To leave a pointedly oblique answer implied that I did not need the truth and my tail whisks over my haunches. It does not bother me overmuch. Perhaps at home, where it was of grave importance that I read the faces and intentions and wills of my male kin, I do not feel it matters as much here. The motivations for the barbarians of the Isles had long since baffled me, and even though Ak Burun and I shared a small bit of a common tongue, I knew that our upbringings were as different as Mahgrib and Mira.

Eagerly I follow her up the dune, seeking my own path to the side so as not to make the travel more difficult for one another. I do not sink as deeply as she, but she is stronger than I and we reach the summit together. It is a beautiful sight, and I too lift my face toward the sky where I know Allah's blessing to be. Such a view is a small thing, in the large picture of the world, but it is a comforting one that reassures me that I am in the right place. Where else could a princess of the desert live but amongst the dunes themselves?

My ear flicks in her direction as she speaks again and I nod in agreement, but let her finish, a smile once more gracing my lips. Was she the Malika then? Maslakhat had not mentioned that there would be one, and yet she carried herself regally and implied that I had already been invited to the Dunes herd. I eye her shrewdly, not certain if she was trying to invite me without saying the words, or if she did not yet know that I was a stranger. Maslakhat had bid me visit, but that hardly counted as an invitation to stay.

"It is impressive Lalla Ak Burun, very much so. I can think of no higher praise than that which you have offered me." I smile, touched at her sincerity. "In truth, malik Maslakhat happened across me." My gaze flickers for one brief moment from the splendor of the view to the distant borders of the Badlands.

"I was lucky enough to call the Dunes home for a few months before Bahadir's absence allowed a stranger to take claim of the land," my voice cools as I speak of Shaydowfax, but I do not linger long in speculations. As much as I despised the mare for ripping me from my home, I did not know this mare's feelings of the buckskin. My gaze flicks to hers to read her expression before I continue. "We sought refuge in the Badlands, and your malik came to visit, and encouraged me to do the same."

I contemplate how to tactfully ask her for residency, already certain that it is what I want. This land was my home, even if it was once more filled with strangers. Thankfully, I am saved from finding these words by the reappearance of the golden bay stallion, and I allow a genuine smile to spread across my lips. I should be abashed, I know. I had not held myself to the highest standards in our first meeting, but I refused to let my sadness douse the fire of this opportunity.

"Malik Maslakhat, it is good to see you again." It still sounds strange to hear only my name, bare of its honorifics and titles, but I quell the thought. "Lalla Ak Burun was kind enough to remind me of my love for this land, and I am honored to once more call it home."

Even as I speak, my gaze flicks between them, reading into the way that my dark companion remains cool toward the golden bay stallion. I wonder what transpired between them to leave her so warm towards me and yet as cold as a desert midnight to him. It was not that he was unattractive, although his build was nothing that I would wish for myself. What history lurked there, I wondered.