The Dunes heat was unlike anything the dunalino stallion had ever encountered - it was starkly different than his birth home, with its rolling grass hills and plentiful waters. No, this place was arid, with only sparse grasses and even sparser watering holes. It was a land that offered new challenges to the maturing stallion, challenges that he thought he was prepared to take.

Early in the morning - he moves with the rising of the sun - a lesson he learned within the first few days of claiming this desolate land. That if one is to survive that they must learn quickly or their bones will be picked clean by the buzzards and left to bleach in the sweltering sun. So, he learned on the fly, to rise before the sun and make his way to water, to drink his fill and then set out across the desert sands.

His hooves find an old worn path, that he supposes will bring him from the heart of the Dunes and to the sea. He follows the winding path, through the deep mountains of sand past new watering holes, and toward an unfamiliar, unchartered section of his new home.

A unfamiliar call breaks through the morning silence - it is roguish and masculine - immediately he sets his dark gaze in the general direction and jogs through the sands until a form begins to materialize from the desert. He slows to a walk as the stranger's details become clear.

Another stallion, striped with peculiar markings and a few jagged scars, a seasoned stallion. Suspicion rises in his belly. Had he come to take the Dunes for himself? Tension stiffens his muscles and slows his steps.

"What do you want?" he asks curtly. He knows nothing of diplomacy nor the delicate boundaries that he now treads.