Meadow

I could sense his hesitance as I led him to the water, although I could not know the origin of the reluctance. I tried not to take it personally; I knew this tepid, public water was a far cry from the private oasis we had once claimed for ourselves, but I needed this moment. To run my lips along his skin so that I might memorize the new scars he wore. To press my side to his, to remind him that we were once one, and might someday find that connection renewed.

I tried not to let myself doubt his interest. I knew that I was older and changed; my coat less rosy and my mane and tail turned salt and pepper gray. That I was no longer a young filly, able to turn the head of any stallion that I came across. Antares was my Husband, and while I knew in my heart that I had never been the only one he cared about, I did know that he loved me, as I him.

As I trailed water up his body, rubbing in small circles to try and loosen the knots of tension and pain that lingered across his body, he began to speak. Whatever I had expected him to say vanished the moment he confessed to the trials of temptation, and my ministrations stilled as I froze in place, shock stealing the warmth from my body.

Mere moments had passed since I had learned of his capture and imprisonment; certainly not long enough for my mind to walk through every way our respective families might have sought to leverage his loyalty. And yet, the knowledge of what they had done stole my breath away. I knew our families had their problems, after all, it was at least in part why we had both left home in the first place. To hear of the depths to which they had sunk, however, chilled me to my core.

Had these women that had been paraded before him been willing? Eager to usurp my position and steal my Husband? Or had they been as afraid and unwilling as I had been as a child? Forced to offer themselves to a man that they did not know? I was grateful Antares had not wavered, of course, but that gratefulness came with guilt. I knew that he had not resisted them solely for my benefit; to give in would have wounded his pride as much as it would have broken my heart, but I hated to think that he had endangered himself in any part for the sake of my vanity. Especially after my father had gone out of his way to make it clear to me that I had disgraced myself in the eyes of those in power, and that my only real value to them at this point was as a sacrifice. The only thing that had prevented my ultimate dismissal had been the people's adoration of me (misguided though it was) and the likelihood of outcry if they were to find out my own family had taken my life.

I was the stone around Antares' foot in more ways than one, and the knowledge that his family had tried to save him (as inhumane as their attempts were), only compounded the guilt.

I did not so much as look at them, he assures me, his eyes earnest, and I force a smile onto my lips, a token of gratitude that he deserved, but I should not have been eligible to grant. My Beloved goes on them, speaking of the other physical trials that he endured, and I watched as the tensions began to slowly melt away from him, enlivening his body and washing away the stiffness of his pains.

As he spoke of nearly freeing himself around the time I tried to find him, the guilt grasped at my throat, closing off all possibility of breath. He would have been so close then; we had likely been mere moments away from being reunited, saving us both from further heartbreak and yet I'd given up and given in and believed those whom I feared were lying. Instead of following my heart, I had capitulated and by doing so, forsaken us both further. Silent panic gripped me, but I pressed my lips to his skin and waited until the feeling passed.

He spoke of his brothers, and my heart ached for their absences. It had been a long time since I'd been so surrounded by family and I missed them dearly. In the beginning, their constant presences and questions and needs and follies had been overwhelming as I tried to untangle the complicated web of their backstories and connections and desires, but without them the world was so much more dull.

"I can believe it," I murmured quietly as he told me of Aldebaran. Without much in the way of wives or children to tie him down, there were far fewer strings they could have pulled to control him. By taking his brothers and their wives, they would have given the red stallion more ammunition than he needed to make himself a powerful nuisance... but an avatar of Shu was still a monumental claim. I wondered what all he had done during that time, what he had tried in his attempts to rescue them.

"Do you think they will come back here?" The questions rise to my lips and I do not stop them; the alternative is to speak of my time alone, none of which is worth much of mentioning. I might tell him of what transpired in Mahgrib, but such things seem trivial in comparison to that which he has endured and I do not wish to imply they are the same by speaking of them in the same moment. I might have been alone and afraid, but I was not tortured or tempted, starved nor beaten. "It has been so long," I say quietly, thinking of all the souls that had once been gathered close to us. "What if there is nothing left of us in the Dunes?"