| Azizi blood is heavier than water |
| The sound of the wind skimming across the sand is all there is to hear as the silence stretches between them, and Rehoboam doesn’t answer. On and on it goes, and Azizi’s heartbeat drums in his head, almost deafening, because Rehoboam still doesn’t speak, and Azizi has never seen him like this before. But eventually, the older stallion breaks the stifling silence, and slowly, Azizi shakes off the foolish fears he’d allowed to curl along his spine. (I don’t know; it was not a rejection. Maybe the not knowing came in wishing that the way had happened could be changed, rather than wishing that they hadn’t happened at all.)
“S'okay,” he mumbles in reply, his voice all taut and gruff. Unconsciously, he finds himself echoing a sentiment so similar to the words Rehoboam had spoken to comfort him, that terrible day his mother had fled from the Lagoon, with Azizi’s blood on her teeth. “We’ll be okay.” Azizi needs to believe it now, like he had back then, and he needs Rehoboam to believe it too. He cannot help the instinctive cant of his ears when what he suspects is confirmed; his mother is not here, and as much as it soothes the anxious racing of his heart, knowing that even if the witch were to happen upon them, at least he’d not have to set his eyes upon savage Shenzi and the scars she wore so well… It also serves to unnerve him, because not knowing where she was, or what she was doing, was almost worse. “I don’t understand… You’re sure - you haven’t seen her, here?” And then some pieces fall into place. “That’s why Nyimara - it must have been just after she fought for you, when… She came into the Lagoon and found me, and I didn’t understand why.” Wherever Shenzi had gone, perhaps Nyimara intended to draw her back, using him as bait. But Nyimara didn’t know - Azizi had told Shenzi that he never wanted to see her again, warned her to never come back to the Lagoon. So even if she had managed to chase him out, it wouldn’t have been enough - Shenzi wouldn’t come back for him. But, perhaps, he thought now, considering a new take on the question he’d asked Rehoboam earlier… Perhaps it would have been better. At least then, Rehoboam wouldn’t have been alone. (And maybe Charon and Acheron wouldn’t have left, never to return.) “I’m sorry, I - I should have come sooner, I should have fought for you, but I… I was afraid,” his voice wavers and breaks, and his dark face twists with emotion. Not shame, though, he was not ashamed to admit to his fear of Nyimara and her wrath. Azizi knew now that it didn’t make him a coward, it made him wise. It was the way he’d learned to protect himself from the likes of her and his mother, who might use him and hurt him and claim that they’d never meant to. “And I still am, but I’m even more afraid of something bad happening to you.” It’s little more than a husky confession murmured to the wind, but it rings true enough. Rehoboam had always been there, and even when Azizi had withdrawn for awhile, the older stallion hadn’t given up on him. Truth was, Rehoboam was the only one left that really mattered. He dips his head and follows the grullo’s lead closely, trusting by now that the stallion had grown familiar with the land here, or as familiar as one could in a place that changed day by day in accordance with the whims of the desert winds. As keen as he is to not be discovered by Nyimara, the urgency with which Rehoboam moves and speaks serves to set him on edge, and the younger male suspects that far too soon, the painted stallion will ask him to leave. But Azizi knows it won’t be enough for him, not nearly enough, these few stolen minutes. How could he tell Rehoboam that he couldn’t go back to the Lagoon without him? Not because he’d not be welcomed. It wouldn’t feel like a place he belonged if Rehoboam wasn’t there. But, maybe he is wrong, because the tobiano’s next words prickle at Azizi’s soft heart. (Maybe, he thinks, it doesn’t feel like home to Rehoboam either - and why would it, when none - including Azizi - had come for him? Until now.) “No, I didn’t tell anyone, and I don’t think anyone saw me leave.” Even if his absence was noticed, Azizi doubts that any of them would think he’d come into the very den of the snake that was causing the Lagoon so much trouble. The seal brown stallion looks toward the canyons not so far off, and turns suddenly toward Rehoboam, reaching to touch him softly on the shoulder, partly just to serve as a small reassurance for the both of them, but also to gently ask for all of Rehoboam’s attention, so that when he hears the words spoken next, he’ll know without doubt that Azizi means them. “We could go now, just me and you. Don’t need to go back to the Lagoon. We could find somewhere faraway enough that they’d all forget about us, Reh, if you wanted…” |