In the days since Antares and I had reconnected, I had forced myself to stop spending all of my hours grieving what we had lost. In truth, my moping had been selfish and I had known it; the vicious cycle of sadness that kept me enmeshed in the past was a self-perpetuating machine, feeding me more reasons to find myself unworthy the longer I considered my less admirable traits.

As I - recovered, for lack of a better term - I found myself looking outward for inspiration. Left to my own devices, I would have likely stayed curled in the shade of the scant trees around the oasis, lost in my thoughts. I had even begun to emulate Nyimara in small ways, though I did not dare to admit this to anyone. Given my Beloved's comments during our argument and the warning imparted to me by the monochrome stallion I'd met beneath the moon's light, I did not imagine it would go over well. Antares had been right in claiming her unfit to be his Mira, but that did not mean that she could not be an example of leadership for me to follow... even if the lesson I could take from some of her examples was simply not to follow in her footsteps.

Her fearlessness led me to approach her today, my brown eyes sweeping across the confident figure she portrayed, her gaze and thoughts seemingly far away. "I feel it is rare to see you alone, Queen Nyimara."

I settle nearish to her, close enough that we may speak without inviting a familiarity we did not possess. The first (and last) time I'd spoken to her directly, I'd hardly spoken at all, only hovered at my Husband's side as he negotiated our place here, a shadow of what I should have been. The Gods only knew what opinion she'd formed of me then and in the days since, wherein I'd largely spent hidden and sequestered in the oasis my Husband had taken claim of. "How is your younger daughter? I see her dance across the Dunes sometimes with your Husband in close pursuit."

I knew little of Nyimara, but less of her dark-hued lover beyond that of his rank and of his devotion to the silver-maned mare. They did not seem to share the same sort of relationship that Antares' and I did, nor that of my brothers and their wives, but I was not sure what else to call him. I did not imagine that calling him her concubine would go over well with either of them.