Exploring was beginning to appeal to Fell as it had not appealed to him in the past. He had gotten his ass kicked plenty of times outside of the Bay, but he was getting better at taking his losses. His temper did not entirely control him anymore, though with Fall just around the corner, his hormones certainly tried. Each new battle he fought, no matter the outcome, yielded a scar. Large or small, he was learning to be proud of them. They became something to focus on, to distract from his muteness. He couldn’t speak, but he could fight, and he was getting good at it.

He had been to Salem a few times before, but his visits had been confined to the Badlands. He had nearly gotten two of the little striped stallion’s mares, but he was content with only the one, for now. He had nothing against Rafe, no reason for singling him out other than his collection of women, but Fell was no fool. He knew that his indifference toward the Badlands stud was not reciprocated, and his chances of getting away with a third attempt at one of Rafe’s herd were slim to none. Well, there was still the rest of Salem to catch his interest, for now.

Despite the suffocating heat, Fell still fared better in dry, flat lands of Salem than he had on Atlantis. The air was starved for moisture, which meant that Fell had room to breathe under the heavy cloak of sunlight that his ebony coat eagerly soaked up, rather than feeling like he needed gills to breathe in the humidity of Atlantis heat. The ground as well was easier for him to traverse; he could wind through the dense forests of Tinuvel on solid, hard ground, or he could trek over the shifting sands and dusty flat earth of Salem — so long as the ground was not unsteady and uneven at the same time, as the ground of Paradise was.

Far beyond the Badlands and out of Rafe’s sight, Fell slinked through the sand dunes until a familiar scent caught his attention. He had expected to encounter others out here, but no one that he knew. He dropped his dark head to the ground and changed his course. As he reached the peak of one dune, he could see in the distance the green of an oasis, standing out like a beacon among the sea of gold waves. Fell picked up a lazy trot, his big hooves covering the sand with relative ease. The dunes before him parted to frame the oasis, and as he slowed to a walk again, his eyes locked onto the figure drinking from the water source.

Nyimara.

He had never been close to his half-sister, and in fact, she might not even recognize him now. She had been… preoccupied during the time he had known her, growing up in Paradise with the tension between his family and the Ridge. Had she ever known he had existed, beyond a passive awareness of yet another Rougaru child running wild through the jungle? She might know him, by his hooked ears and the sturdy build that had clearly come from their father; by his muteness, perhaps. Aside from those distinctions, however, Fell was nothing special to look at. A plain, solid black stallion with feral eyes, and every stallion had feral eyes this close to Fall.

Still, the Marwari stallion stepped forward curiously, announcing his presence with an audible huff of air through flared, velvet-black nostrils.

FELL

stallion. 16hh. black. marwari x. Rougaru x visurix.