Nyimara watches from her high perch as Rehoboam climbs the slope at a slower pace, his dark eyes intent on the ground beneath his hooves. The thin line of his lips are proof enough that her taunting actions had unnerved him more than any words that she might lash out. Sweat darkened the gray and white hairs of his body and though he did not visibly pant or breathe excessively, Nyimara knew that the hot Salem sun was taking its effect on the stallion. He had never been forced to endure such heat without the protective shade offered by a canopy of thick leaves above. Again, a twinge of sympathy pokes at the icy edges of her heart but she quickly dismisses it with a shake of her proud head.

Instead of commenting on his discomfort, or trying to make it worse, Nyimara instead sets off down the backside of the dune as the stallion joins her on the ridge. It would do her no good for him to have a heat stroke before she got whatever information she could glean from him. ”This way.” she murmurs, picking up an easy high stepping trot, impatient herself for a thirst quenching gulp of fresh water. The salty ocean had dried out her tongue and made it feel heavy and large in her mouth. No doubt Rehoboam felt the same way.

Her prodigy attempt at casual conversation is met with silence. Even without fixing him firmly in her visionfield, Nyimara can sense the tension suddenly tense the muscles of his body as though she had suddenly grown a second head. She arches her neck now, glancing at him with a slow blinking eye veiled by a thick webbing of silver white forelock. A single brow raises expectantly as she struggles to contain the knowing smirk that lifts the corner of her ash dusted lips. For a moment, nothing but the sound of their hooves tamping down sand can be heard. Clearly, he was hiding something and if anything that merely heightened her curiosity even further. Apparently he did not want her to know something…. But what could it be?

Whether it was the silence itself or the steady, unwavering gaze of her dark eye, finally Rehoboam speaks. A single fluted dial twitches at the dry, level sound of his voice. ’Ny…’ the calmness with which he shortened her name causes the smirking grin on her lips to twitch and a deep chuckle to shake her breast. She had her ideas but no concrete proof, however she was determined not to allow him to know that. That would give him an advantage and she was not willing for that to happen. Perhaps he was not as shallow brained as she thought.

He turns the question on her now, persistent and expectant with the tone of his voice. A rise of irritation causes her nostrils to flare as she shoots him a hard, unwavering glare. For a moment, silence lingers between them as she slows her pace to study the fine lines of his handsome face. There it was. The set of his jaw. The muscular arch of his neck. The hard, unwavering gleam in his dark eyes. Even without the faint crisp of Tinuvel on his scent, Nyimara would have guessed him to be a spawn of Solomon if only by the outward patchwork of his coat. The taunt is too much for her to ignore.

She slows her pace to bring herself alongside him, pressing the slight of her shoulder against his own to turn him towards the next Dune. ”There is an oasis with fresh water and grass beyond this slope.” she remarks casually, ”Son of Solomon.” she finished glancing at him through her peripheral vision. She needed the answer to come from his lips. Needed to know that her suspicions were accurate and that her challenge against the Lagoon stallions had not been in vain. He had asked why it mattered to her, why she cared so much about where he was from but by the gods she was not willing to let him know what she had planned.

A sadistic laugh rumbles from her breast and she gives her head a toss before bounding to the top of the slope and down the other side in a spray of sand. She comes to a prancing halt at the edge of the sawgrass and turns back to glance at Rehoboam once more before wading through the grass and to the water’s edge. Small hooves sink into the malleable sands beneath the shallow waters as the mahogany woman wades into the shallows and drinks deeply of the refreshing water. Only when she has had her fill does she glance back at him, droplets of crystalline water dripping from her ashen lips. ”So… son of Solomon. Tell me why it is that you decided to join the bachelors?”