Once, when she was a young filly, her mother had said she would race the stars. Daughters of Shu they were, blessed by the god of winds--when Zazu was but a yearling the lords of Mira allowed a special ceremony to be held by the elders of her dam's old tribe. An elderly stallion had come to paint her fetlocks with the colors of Shu and tie flowers into her mane, he had given her back to Shu, as was promised of all the old tribe.

And so she had been birthed new, a child of the wind. Of the stars, the sea, the very air. Laughing at the mountains steep, dark edge, she catapulted herself into the ravines and into the places no others dared go. Her savored the spray of the sea on her face, the sounds of birds flying above her head, wishing, if only for a moment, to have their wings. Flying, she had thought, would have been the greatest adventure. To join her brothers in the sky, ascending to Shu himself. She supposed that was part of her reasoning to join the Scouts, placed firmly in the platoon of Pahket, to whom she gave part of herself--she could never quite give everything to Pahket, for her very spirit was Shu's.

Zazu had followed them and she had seen many things. The world was bigger than she had imagined it. Those left behind in Mira had not told her such things, they kept hidden the world from her dark eyes--even still, she was a soldier, she was a spy. Her mission had been to track down the princes and brings them home, which she planned to do at any cost.

He approaches her with a common greeting, their language is sweet and drips into her sharp ears. Her mouth twists, she chews her tongue at his words. He was slick, much like he had always been, his very air makes her eyes want to roll forcibly back into her skull and yet--

She does suffer him, though she is unsure out of some strange emotion or duty to her kingdom. Zazu takes only a slight step back, squaring her small body, her head lifted high, the sun gleaming like fire off the white streaks down her jaw and neck. She is a daughter of Pahket, after all.

"I am sorry, my lord, but it is my strictest mission to bring you all back to Mira under orders of the most high authority," Zazu says. Her manners are military at best, her words guarded, her eyes bent and hardened by her years of training. Still, she can feel the urge within her bones to run, to be free, to glance along the dunes with him.

Zazu snorts.

"If I'm to return empty," she says flatly, "I would at least like some water first." Zazu walks past him, her feet shuffling through the burning sand. Maybe she if she stayed, only for a little while, she could convince him to return with her. "Are you coming along, or are you going to stand there gaping like a fish out of water?"