This girl is a gun, before you know it, it's done
And you'll be wishing that you crossed your fingers

he elections were drawing to a close, and the prospect of securing a new position was growing ever more realistic Marceline was excited, if a bit nervous, to find herself faced with the very real possibility of leading the Peak mares. Changes would need to be made and new rules implemented, but Marceline had never wanted for confidence, and felt assured she would be able to whip her little group of wayward ladies into shape in due time.

They'd need to change, if they were to secure the Peak's future and fight back against the parasite that was the Lagoon. Their numbers had grown exponentially as of late, their ill-wielded power increasing with each bachelor that joined their ranks. She was tired of their antics and their unearned sense of superiority, tired of having her sisters stolen away by their greedy hand. All would be set right once she was at the top.

But nothing would change without new sisters to swell their ranks. With Rafe no longer haunting Salem, there was nothing stopping her return, and it seemed as good a place as any to start her campaign for new recruits. So the former Salem queen set her sights south and made the long trek to her once-was homeland. Her aching leg slowed her journey, but soon Marceline was pulling herself from warm waters and onto familiar sands.

She'd never thought much of the Dunes when she lived here, but as she saw them rolling out in rippling red waves before her she could not help but think it was the most beautiful place on the planet. Her fondness for the Peak had grown with each passing season spent there, but nothing would ever compare to the exquisiteness of Salem. It was the one place she truly longed to be, and the one place she could never truly return to.

As Marceline picked her way across the desert, keeping a sharp eye on the horizon for any approaching horses, she reflected on the last time she found herself here. A piece of her had been left behind that day, the pain of losing Seraphine felt as sharply as if she'd had her skin flayed from her bone. Rafe had said she was lost to him, and it took all of Marceline's will not to sink her teeth into his neck right then and there. She'd screamed and cried and raged against his insistence that their daughter was gone. She'd searched the canyons high and low but true to what Rafe had told her, the overo filly was nowhere to be found. Eventually Marceline had been forced to retreat back to the Peak, alone and distraught.

She wondered if Seraphine still lived, if by some miraculous measure her headstrong daughter had survived her foray into the unforgiving wilderness and returned to Rafe happy and healthy. It was unlikely, but deluding herself into thinking Seraphine was out there somewhere was better than imagining her as a pile of sun-bleached bones, picked clean by vultures and buried by the sands of time.

She wondered about others who had been lost to her, too. Rosalie. Evrain. Senu. Truth told, it was Senu she thought of the most. Or rather, the one she tried not to think of the most, if only to avoid the awful, empty, aching feeling in her chest. It'd been so long since she'd laid eyes on her former companion, but thoughts of her lingered like a specter at the back of Marceline's mind.

It was hard, as she wandered deeper into the Dunes, not to keep a keen eye out for any glimmer of a golden coat among the sand and rock. The hope that Senu was still lingering, waiting, refused to die, an eternally burning flame she carried with her even after all these years. Though she wasn't there to specifically seek out Senu, there was a part of her that just had to look. Her gaze would always wander in search of her oldest and dearest friend, even if there was no one to find.

Yet, by some impossible measure which Marceline dared not question, today she did find someone. A familiar glimmer of gold rippled on the horizon, bringing Marceline's steady gait to a sudden halt as shock seized her muscles. Her heart leapt against the ivory cage of her ribs at a jackrabbit pace, her mouth turning dry. It was just a mirage, she thought, desperate to explain away what she was seeing, to not get her hopes up lest this all end up being an illusion.

But she had to know. Even if this was some cruel figment of her imagination, if there was a chance... Marceline pushed herself forward at an unsteady pace, the pain in her ankle ignored as each swift, uncertain, hopeful movement of her legs swallowed the distance between them. With each step forward the figure materialized until finally coalescing into one solid shape.

The name that fell from her lips was one she thought she might never speak again, falling as a scant whisper from her crimson lips. "Senu."

The breath rushed from Marceline's lungs then, stolen by the shock that settled over her as she drank in Senu's form. Her amber eyes roved over every feature, recommitting every detail to memory as if the striped woman might disappear again before her very eyes. When she speaks the sound of her voice is music to Marceline's ears and when their noses brush, hesitant and disbelieving, it is like taking a drink after being stranded in the desert, quenching a thirst that has not been sated in years.

After the first timid touch Marceline could not stop herself from rushing forward to embrace Senu. Their chests pressed together, the feel of warm skin and bone and muscle against her, was proof enough to her that this was not an elaborate dream conjured up by a desperate mind. It was far better than any dream she had ever had of this moment, when the strands of their fates would finally weave together once more. She was alive. She was unharmed. She was here.

"Senu," Marceline whispered against the rippled plane of her shoulder, "If this is a dream it is the best one I've ever had. I cannot believe you are really here."

It was impossible to know how long passed that they held one another, time stopping and the world falling away. It could be seconds or minutes or hours - she would not care, too enthralled by the overwhelming elation that set each sinew in her body vibrating. There were so many things she wanted to ask, so much she wanted to know, but when at last she pulled away and put a modicum of space between them, golden eyes meeting across the small distance, the first disbelieving inquiry that left her lips was, "Have... have you been here this whole time?"