She is suffocating on the battle of her emotions inside, a battle of what she wants and what she knows waging a war against the other. Her eyes watch him, sad now as she realizes that Atair has packed himself back up behind that mask of his, and with each step she attempts in his direction he takes another back. Her head comes up, ears slanting back when further realizing that whatever they’d had in that small moment was gone now and was only making matters worse. At his words she looks to where her Sakhmet had been, finding the grey lady gone just as he’d said. There is a sad cry that leaves her, stepping towards their vacant spot but she holds herself back. Sakh had surely seen Eness and Atair, she could have charged up here to disperse the pair but hadn’t; was her darling giving up?

“Did i do something wrong then?,” Eness finds herself asking out loud, turning from the male that sets her blood ablaze to look off into the direction that the one her life had been dedicated to, the life that had fought for to even be alive. Through thick or thin it had always been the pair of mares side by side, so the loss of Sakhmet was felt hard. “I am sorry my aleaziz,” a whisper of breath, eyes shiny with unshed tears when lifting her head up to her stars. Without her, Sakhmet would have died many seasons for just being born. Had Eness not followed after her father that day and laid eyes on the pretty little filly covered in sand and grit it would have been just another corpse for the scavengers to pick at had Eness not convinced her father to use the girl for what she was worth with that brilliant bloodied bay color she'd had at birth. That day Eness had found her backbone to protest and assert herself for what was right. Glancing over toward Atair, she wonders now if this is like that moment, a moment that could very well change her world.

“Sakhmet,” as if the mare is here and not miles away by now, “ruwhi ttwq liakhar, and i am most scared.” Would it be so wrong to find her kindred soul in that of this male? She had been raised for just that, to be pure for her husband when the time came but who could have predicted that a bloodmarked one would uproot every bit of fiber of teachings Eness had been taught; her sire would be most disappointed.

“Come then Atair,” she steps after him with her head up and tail raised, pulling herself away from the ridgeline above the others, turning her searching eyes away from the horizon, “keep careful watch over my soul this night, I fear it may very well tear in two.” Each step away from her Sakhmet feels like agony, but Eness trudges on past the mask wearing male, reaching out to him only when she is sure he isn’t about to bolt again to touch the skin of his back with a gentle brush of her nose against the starry pattern of his skin. The contact is over within seconds, not wanting to push her luck as she saunters past him with her skipping bouncy steps, her light body floating over the sands with each step.


Aleaziz- dear
ruwhi ttwq liakhar - my soul yearns for another