He emerged from the sea and shook the water off. And the weight of life too. Because when he took to running across the Desert sands - a landscape he was born to thrive in - for the first time in so long, he could finally breathe, and Azizi felt free.
He thundered across the plains of the Desert, and when the Dunes of sand rose up ahead of him in the distance, he did not falter in his pace, merely altered his course to flow through the bone-dry valleys of the mountains that were shaped by the wind. The scent of the witch seemed to pervade his senses, which made little sense, given that there was nothing but sand on all sides, and a near-constant whistle of wind. Was it all in his mind? (Was he not so different from his mother after all, that he couldn’t be free of the woman that haunted them both, albeit for very different reasons?)
But then he caught a trace of the reason he was here, and without caring who else heard, Azizi tilted his muzzle skyward. “Reh? Rehoboam!” Because it didn’t matter if Nyimara found him (Azizi knew she would - he knew what the silver-haired monster was capable of), what mattered is that Rehoboam knew that Azizi had come for him, even if it was such a little things, and far, far too late.
He surged up a hill of sand and desperately scanned the area, searching for any sign of - there! Skidding down the other side, sending sand spraying up behind him as he kicked out his hooves to keep from falling, he hastened to the grullo stallion’s side. “Reh, I…” There were many things that Azizi had thought about saying, had wanted to say for far too long, but now that he was here, standing before Rehoboam, sides heaving, everything just withered and died on his tongue.
I’m sorry… Has she hurt you? … I wish - …
It’s my fault - it’s my fault you’re here.
In the end, he ended up speaking about… Something he hadn’t thought for the longest of times. “Do you remember, that time you caught us in the Badlands. My - my ma… I think she was trying to get here.” Couldn’t life be so ironic? Shenzi had wanted to be here but she’d never made it. And Rehoboam didn’t want to be here, and yet here he was, unable to leave. Ahh…Was that why? Azizi found himself wondering, even as he turned to scan the sand dunes behind him, not wanting Nyimara to sneak up on them unawares. The second she showed her face…
But no, Azizi hadn’t come here for her, he’d come to see Rehoboam. Flicking his ragged half-ear in something that felt like chagrin, the barb-teke mutt shifted his weight, and grounded himself in the present - for now, it was just the two of them, but there were no guarantees, so he’d have to make the most of it. “Do you… Ever think that maybe it’d have been better? If you’d just… Let her go?”
But that’s not really what he meant, was it?
How else could he say it though?
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