“Corona,” Shenzi says, her lips curling around a small smile. “You run with the Brothers Four?” Though Shenzi had not directed with anyone on a deep level other than Maslakhat, she was ever a silhouette on the horizon, watching, always watching. While the other mares under Maslakhat’s protection were all slim, lean Tekes like he himself was, the Arabian brothers who lived in the eastern part of the territory mainly kept company with their own kind, like Corona herself. While Shenzi had spied a few oddities amongst them, with distinctive curved ears (one of which came and went like a shadow), there were none like her. In this sense, she was still alone, and it was something she was still coming to terms with, even after the several years she’d been here. “Where is it you came from, before the Islands beckoned you?” The barb mare asked, partly because she was genuinely interested, and partly because she sought a distraction from the gloomy direction her thoughts kept drifting towards.
Shenzi falls silent for a moment, acknowledging the weighty words that the mare speaks. And when she answers, her own voice is soft and solemn. “I suppose I am. Today was not my time.” But it could have been. And why? Because she’d allowed herself to be distracted. Never again, even if she had to forsake her heart to save her life. “I have survived worse,” she continued, the truth of it was heavy upon her shoulders, a burden that no other soul could bear for her. She remembered cries in the dark; her brothers as they were felled in a land far from these islands, and her own sobbing as not once, but twice, the babes that she’d carried in her belly never had a chance to make a sound.
At Corona’s sharing of the healer’s whereabouts, Shenzi thought better of going off in search of her for a moment, and shook her head lightly. “If she is busy attending to others I do not wish to disturb.” She would be content here for a time in the pool, cool and soothing upon the raw, angry flesh across her throat. “Besides, the water helps, as I’d hoped.” Shenzi readjusted a little, her movements sending out ripples in across the water’s surface as she settled. “I’d appreciate your company a while, if you had some minutes to spare,” the barb spoke lightly. If Corona had to leave, Shenzi would bid her a cordial farewell, but if the arab mare chose to linger, a smile would curl across Shenzi’s lips again. “Have you seen much of the isles?” Shenzi asked to make conversation, and perhaps glean a little information too. It was ever so helpful, she’d realised long ago, learning from the experiences of others.
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