Salem calls to me.
Salem called to Shenzi too - it had from the beginning. But these days, the call had turned melancholy, and in the days that followed her parting ways with Geçersiz, she could think of it only as a graveyard of the past, of the many things that had been lost to her, and not as… Not as Nyimara would want her to think of it.
Find me in Salem.
Shenzi had promised that she would look for Nyimara, and not stop until she found her. And in truth, she had tried. Made it all the way to the northern shore and squinted against the glare of the sun to stare at the dunes rising in the distance. She remembered the life she’d once had upon these sands, short lived as it had been. The dream, and the belonging. But it hadn’t been real, none of it, and though it had been difficult to come to terms with, Shenzi had perceived that she’d been little more than a pawn in the game she’d been playing with Maslakhat. She would never have been enough for him, no matter how he admired her fighting spirit. Buried beneath these sands there were bones. Maslakat’s. Sidika’s. And far more delicate, her second stillborn son.
Find me…
Shenzi had tried, but her heart was wounded and wary, and would not permit her to venture any further than the tideline. Even as she made her way through the sea back to the Crossing, Shenzi knew that she would regret it, but her course was laid before her, and she could not bring herself to deviate from it. Nyimara would hate her for a time, she supposed. Or maybe she’d simply forget, though, Nyimara didn’t seem the type to let go of things without a fight. And though the scarred barb mare did not keep her promise, she thought of the silver bay queen often. And she wondered.
I will reclaim what belongs to us.
What had Nyimara meant? Shenzi had no claim upon any land here, as many did. She was not born to these islands, and the only kin she had despised her. It was futile, trying to win back Azizi’s heart. Shenzi had burned him with her anger and her distrust. And where once she’d been resolute in her affection for and loyalty to Nyimara, her eyes had been opened. And like Maslakhat before her, Shenzi couldn’t help but wonder what role Nyimara intended for her to play. Pain and grief and imprisonment had been the things that had drawn them together, but Shenzi had hoped…
They were fierce fighters, both, but Shenzi was tired of the battle, and with each day that passed, each moment that she had time to think, she was beginning to realise that for Nyimara, maybe the fighting would never be over. And then, suddenly, during her lonely vigil among the trees within sight of the Peak and earshot of the eponymous Falls, she caught a glimpse of that delicate face framed by silver hair.
Pre-empting the bay mare’s reaction to having stumbled across her, Shenzi surged forwards, a low, savage growl rumbling in her throat as she charged. She expected anger, rage, and was determined to shore right up against it, to crash into Nyimara so that they stood chest to chest, where the brown mare would experience the full force of the bay mare, but hopefully avoid to worst of flailing hooves. There was nothing she could do about the snapping teeth of Nyimara, if the mare decided to set them to her skin.
But at least the scars upon her neck would be protected, along with the fresh one upon the tender skin of her nose. Planting her hooves, determined not to be moved or to give ground, Shenzi trembled with mixed motion, jostling about in a strange, angry dance, desperate to push right into Nyimara’s space and stay there. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she needed to ask, but when her muzzle snaked up, the words that came to her lips were hoarse and harsh, spoken in Shenzi’s native tongue, carrying the weight of everything. Tears burned her eyes, and Shenzi only hoped that Nyimara didn't see them, that she wouldn't hear the hurt and the hope in the husky hitch of her voice. “Ahadi ni deni,” she snarled in the silver haired mare’s ear, through bared teeth clenched painfully tight.
A promise is a prison.