Desert

No need to apologize Lilija… Her name in his deep, rumbling tones made her feel somewhat flush. He reached for her and she accepted his brief touch with another smile, tucking her speckled face back afterward. Somewhere in her mind an alarm tried to go off, her father’s warning words a cried echo in her ears… but Lilija heard none of it. The hormones of the season and her constant loneliness had her now, and as the older stallion offered to accompany her to the Hills, Lilija already knew the answer.

What harm could come from sharing a walk with him? He seemed gentlemanly enough…

“You flatter me,” she said with a soft laugh and then declined her head with acceptance, “I would be grateful for your company.”

As they turned, Lilija falling to his guidance on which way to walk, she found her gaze drawn out to the landscape rather than the stallion she traveled with. This was her first time seeing Salem in earnest and what the chocolate stallion beside her had said lay fresh in her mind as she looked it over. “It has its own beauty,” she said thoughtfully a moment later, then flicked a dark ear toward him and glanced his way. “Your home, Salem.” She explained where her thoughts had drawn her. “I was born on the islands but left quite young, I never saw much of them. I have vague foalhood memories of Tinuvel… and now I know Luthien, as it has been my home since I returned.”

Lilija, for all she proclaimed to her father to be wise and smart, fell into comfortable conversation with her newly met acquaintance. She did not consider any words she spoke could be clues used for any sort of gain. She only sought to fill the space, to prompt him into conversation, her curiosity growing with each step they took. Lilija was quite interested to know more of this silver-haired stallion and hopefully the trip to the Hills would be long enough to satiate her. With that in mind her eyes drifted back toward him and she thought to prompt him with a question. “Are you a Salem native yourself?”

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