The sight of his brother and young nephew lightened Khoshekh’s floundering mood as he watched them patrol the Bay’s borders. Everything had seemed to change all at once for the young stallion, and most of it in a very bad way, but things were beginning to settle. Khoshekh wasn’t so naive to think that everything would be the same as it was; in fact, he was hard-pressed to remember a time in his life when things weren’t shifting dramatically. There had never existed a true ‘normal’ to which he could fantasize about returning.

He could fantasize about his childhood, though; the days before Kohelet left and Fell dissolved. The days before he had killed that stallion on the beach. The days before change, no matter how positive, brought a dreadful anticipation of being unearthed.

Enver’s innocence bleeds into Kho like warmth from another body. Solzeren’s does, too, and Khoshekh can’t help but grin as he spots her trailing behind Emhyr like a stalking cat. He’s too far away to hear any conversation, but he can tell that the lanky filly is trying desperately not to be seen, to the point where she risks losing her older brother and nephew by the distance she’s keeping. Khoshekh peels himself out of the shadows of the trees once Emhyr and Enver have passed him, and casually he intersects the stalking filly.

"What are you after, little shadow?" he asks, taking her by surprise — she had genuinely believed herself to be incredibly stealthy, nearly invisible, in fact.

"Emhyr is taking Enver to a secret place," Sol confesses, unashamed. "With sambers, whatever those are. I wanna see em, too."

Khoshekh has no idea what a samber is, either. "Why don’t you ask?" he chuckles. "He might show you, too. Anyway, it’s rude to be sneaky. Just go up and ask politely. Say please and everything."

His little sister looks suddenly shy. "What if he says no?" she asks.

"Then we’ll find our own secret spot and put a bunch of sambers in it," he says decisively. "But if you never ask, the answer will always be no. It’s okay for them to tell you no, but it’s always okay to ask, too."

Unconvinced, Solzeren makes a face, but as she watches the pair move further and further away, she apparently decides to go for it or lose them. The filly takes off down the beach, and Khoshekh trots lazily behind, catching the tail end of Sol’s rushed question.

Solzeren, nearing the father and son pair, comes to a clumsy halt and barely avoids crashing into Enver. The words tumble out of her, as though launched at Emhyr by her momentum and sudden stop. "Can I please come with you to see sambers please," she says, out of breath.

Khoshekh comes to a far more controlled stop behind his baby sister, whickering a greeting to Emhyr. "I don’t know what she overheard, or what a ‘samber’ is, but I think she might keel over if she doesn’t see one," he informs his brother with a soft snort of laughter.

i see your ghost in the middle of the night