He races winds he had never tasted, crossed dunes as he had always been held back from doing save in the good natured freedom of his brother’s company when they’d left. They simply could not bear to give him his head in the Old Country. It was all messages across land that might or might not be a willing participant in his fun.

It had been when the war began that he truly felt his calling being fed to him, bite by bite the reins fit more firmly in his teeth until at last he jerked free and ran with his brothers to this new place by the grace of Shu’s guidance.

Prince Aldebaran, Son of Mira, Fourth of Sirius, Sanctified of Shu, Pack Brother of Wepwawet.

It had been his place to follow the wind since his birth, to know it’s every breath across his back, between his ears, through his mane. Priests had come to him for it, just as those of Montu went to Atair, just as those of Thoth went to Rigel. They spoke so clearly the things of their gods, understood what few others could. He shakes himself of that historical burden and just as he is about to break free of his silly overthinking - a scent.

A scent that catches him like when one is caught by the ear, pinched and tugged by a scolding mother. He had scented here or there a familiar woman, but it had always eluded him until now. Zazu, Daughter of Kalais’s Lesser Wife. Begotten of Shu, no matter that she was not Sanctified to him. She calls out to him and he snaps alert, looking over his back until he manages the snake-quick snap of his haunches to spin in place with but a few dancing steps.

The sabino bay matched his form, for all that so many had idly dubbed her plain. She was not meant to be some delicate flower - but to build and rise like Sekhmet’s own sandstorm, whipped up by Shu. Her subtle mockery prickles down his spine, remembering his promise left waiting in the wings back in a home he would never return to. Funny, he hadn’t even thought of that misadventure till she appeared again.

She approaches and he bows to her as much as her station permitted back home, an angled head and an exchange of breath. He is careful of a bite, sore as she had already been with his giving of advice on her method of racing and her form at a galloping pace. She had challenged him, he recalls, and he doubted very much if she had so easily forgotten as he had done. “Peace be unto you,” he says in the common tongue of their home, rather than here in this barbaric place. “You have come a long way and hidden too well to have many questions or any doubts to our answer about returning to Mira. We are Princes of Mira, but no longer bound by her suffocating society. Come run with us instead, Zazu. Who needs an audience when we can be free.”

Never call him anything short of a used-car-salesman. Not even missing a beat.