"No!" She says, the word ripping from her chest with the weight of a freight train. It crashes and scrapes as it escapes, drawing burning furrows up her throat. "You can't!" She says, even though he already has. In one fearsome moment, this dark-eyed stranger has stolen the only man she has ever dared to allow herself to care for.

They had watched - she and her young panther - from dunes away as the fight progressed, their presence summoned by the screams of battle. She had been so elated in the days past to learn that their golden leader was back, even if his scent had only lingered at the furthest water wells, far away from the rest of the herd. Sidika did not know why he stayed away, but she knew enough of shame to not intrude. Now, she regretted every moment of distance that she had allowed to stretch between them.

Every word that she had held inside.

The scarred palomino mare did not rush to the fallen stallion, having seen from the weight of his fall that there was nothing left to save. Instead, she rushed at the young dark stallion with mouth agape and rare tears dampening her cheeks. She is untried in battle, awkward and clumsy with her hooves but she flings every ounce of hatred and regret that she has ever felt at him. She races across the sands that separate them as if she has never walked over the Dunes before, ungainly and awkward.

Maslakhat had never seen her as just a healer, or just an accessory. She had been real to him, and by that simple virtue had won her unyielding devotion. Even now, if she had known of Zahhak's connection to Masklakhat and the painful history they shared, she would have lain down her own life to protect Maslakhat. He had given her Geçersiz, and with this single beautiful child, her hope for the future.

When at last she crosses the distance, she is already sweat-soaked and keening, the sound a strange, alien wail from her damaged vocal chords. She lunges awkwardly at him, her teeth seeking any part of him that she can reach in a desperate attempt to make him pay, somehow.

If only she could make him pay.

"How dare you!" She screeches in his face, rage making the syllables tremble in the air. Regardless of her own safety, she rushes in again, this time with blindly flailing hooves. For the first time in her life she regrets her own apathy towards the skill of fighting, but does not hold back. Not even the thought of her son and the future that stretches before him is enough to make her cautious. Without Maslkahat, her future was only more of the same, and she could not bear to go back.

---

Geçersiz is silent beside his mother, his dark eyes wide in silent fear as the fight rages. Never in his short life has he seen anything as fearsome or as beautiful as the two stallions that face each other down. He wants to go to his father, to join at his side and defend him against the stranger, but he does not.

Instead, he stays next to his mother, ready to defend her if the beast should come this way.

When his father falls to the ground, Geçersiz exhales sharply and then rushes in, trailing in the wake of his flailing mother. He lacks her understanding of the situation. He, who has never experienced death, stares into the face of the golden bay stallion as if expecting the light to return to his warm brown eyes. As if he might share an admonishing glance with his son over the tears that gather on Geçersiz's lids.

As if his face might smooth in that funny way that it did that let Geçersiz know he cared, even when they didn't have the words to say it.

The inky black colt presses his muzzle insistently against his father's cheek, desperate to make him rise. "Dad?"