A lone figure skirts the empty wastes of the no-man’s-land between the Desert and the Dunes, where the flat expanse of the former gave way to the rippling hills of sand of the latter. It was a fine line to walk, straddling the border in such a manner that she would dare any stallion from either side to call her an interloper and claim she was trespassing, but it was something that Shenzi had more or less perfected during the time she had called the Dunes home.
Never idle, ever restless, she had wandered alone often, and the fire in her nature had always driven her to the far-flung boundaries, because it was there she was most likely to find an opponent with which she could engage without fearing bringing reproach upon Maslakhat. He’d never asked her to watch the borders, but she’d done so all the same. Hadn’t run into any real trouble, aside from the prowling lioness she’d provoked into attacking. In the aftermath, she’d met Corona, and Sidika…
Night was falling as she approached the oasis – she saw the glint of the pool of water from a distance, and despite herself, she felt her heart wither just a little. When Maslakhat had left, Shenzi had abandoned the others. Where they still here, she wondered? (Would they forgive her, when she could not bring herself to forgive him?) Without warning, the barb mare froze, her limbs stiff and her muscles taut. As if her reckless and rabid thoughts had summoned him, she saw the lithe figure of Maslakhat in the shadows near the pool where Sidika had tended to her, with her son and Corona watching.
“Mwanaharamu!” The bellow of rage rang out across the distance between them, splitting the silence which hung heavily over the Dunes this evening. And even as her cry was still leaving her lips, Shenzi was rushing forward, driven by the self-same savagery for which she had been named. “Bastard!” she snarls as she closes in on him, for once not content to leave him wondering what it was she had rumbled in the tongue of her own kind (of which she was heartbreakingly aware that she may be one of the very last, and she was all alone).
It all comes rushing over her, igniting the very blood in her veins: the crippling grief, and the losses piled upon losses that she feared she’d never shake from where they lay so heavily upon her shoulders, unseen by all, understood by none. In the wake of all that she has suffered and shut away within her, buried down deep, not even the hope that Nyimara had planted within her bruised heart was enough to turn her aside from the Teke stallion now that he is in her sights – no, she gives in to the wrath and reaches for the ruin she so desires. “I’ll kill you!”
And part of her believes that if the silver bay were here with her to behold the ruthlessness with which she pursues the Teke stallion beyond the border into the fringes of the Desert, Nyimara would understand. And Shenzi would not be forsaken by her.
But even as she moves to strike at the male, now that she is up close, all becomes clear. He is not Maslakhat. Quickly as the flames inside her were stoked into their raging inferno, so now do they sputter and die, and her legs become feeble and weak beneath her. She squeals her misplaced hatred, it is not fair, and still, still some part of her is relieved. It is not Maslakhat – she did not hurt him. It makes no sense, the relief and resentment warring within her. Shenzi doesn’t understand, and she snarls savagely, trying to shake free of her destabilized mindset. Self-preservation kicks in, and she hastily retreats a small distance, cowed and grudgingly submissive.
“I’m sorry,” she says, but there is little sincerity in her words. Already she feels the anger rising up inside again, and Shenzi feels ever more starved for the vengeance she feels she is owed. That a stranger bore witness to her struggle, had been the misidentified target of her savagery, only made her present reality all the more a disappointment, and there is such a bitter taste in her mouth as she offers her feeble excuse, still panting from the exertion of her fleeting and failed attack.
“I thought you were someone else,” she grunts as she maintains her small distance, preparing herself for a possible retaliation, which was no less than she deserved. But for the first time in a long time, Shenzi could not bring herself to turn her burning eyes upon the figure whom she’d approached. She’d scented blood on him before she’d even made contact, and that he had managed to shrug her off so easily despite the wounds he was recovering from was a massive blow to her pride.
It rankles the fierce brown mare, the knowledge that she had been brought so low, so easily, and by a weakened opponent. It fills her with shame, and like everything Shenzi felt these days, that shame turned into anger and resentment, and hidden inside, her heart began to smoulder with even greater intensity – edging ever closer to self-destruction.
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