Sighting movement, Shenzi moves her head, and it’s too fast, because the world spins and she winces at the disorientation, and the wave of nausea that breaks over her. By the time it ebbs, and she risks opening her eyes again, there is a figure before her, one that she would recognise even in the depth of a moonless night by the soft silver hair. “You…” the scarred barb mare squints, almost as if expecting the mare to disappear; a mere figment of her fever-muddled mind, or else a cruel trick of the desert.

But then that scent, and those eyes looking down at her, that face so composed, and that voice, speaking such heavy words with naught but a hint of cold indifference. As though she felt nothing. As though Shenzi meant nothing.

“Weak?” The word is almost a whisper, carried on a contemplative breath, but then there is a rattle in her chest and, half-delusional, Shenzi barks out laughter. It’s short lived, because she has journeyed far, and the fever has yet to break.

The barb mare shifts, body straining to stay upright, and her expression draws tight in discomfort, but she does not save her breath. “You would know weakness,” Shenzi says, and the feeble twitch of her lip makes clear that if she were in better shape, the words would have a bite to them.

Yellow-brown eyes take a moment to focus on Nyimara’s face, but Shenzi averts her gaze before she speaks again. “Looking back, chasing after ghosts, bending to accept honor and power that can be taken away from you on a whim…” There is a pause, unintentionally drawn out longer by the way her breath flutters in her lungs, shallow, her sides rising and falling rapidly.

“Is it because I left you?”

A stillness settles over the brown mare’s form, for a brief spell, and then, without hastening to stumble over an apology, both because the question had caught her off guard so she felt any attempt at apologizing for it would be rushed and reactive, rather than truly sincere, and because vulnerable as she was at the moment, Shenzi feared it would only confirm the silver crowned mare’s accusation, and further color her view.

So she spoke in silence, laying all things bare, not in a state of mind to care whether her words rang as excuses in Nyimara’s ears - the pain Shenzi still carried in her heart gave evidence that there was reason behind everything she had done - it had never been her intention to hurt Nyimara out of spite, but she had, and that was something they’d both lived with.

“I’d lost so much in my life, I couldn’t bear to lose him.” Even now she ached with grief over the way things had turned out between her and her first child to survive. “I lost him anyway, I lost all of them,” Shenzi couldn’t keep the quaver from her voice
.
Azizi. Tendaji. Askari. Kamari. And Geçersiz.

“I can’t lose her too…” With effort, Shenzi angled her muzzle to look beyond Nyimara, to where Zuri stood, head low and shoulders hunched, trembling in fear and uncertainty. A dry sob clawed its way up Shenzi’s throat - a mixture of exhaustion, discomfort, helplessness and the pain of losses that had been stirred up.

Her resolve wavered, and she made as if to roll over onto her side and collapse completely against the sand. But then Nyimara was circling around her, snapping figuratively at her shoulder as she snarled.

Had it been the motivation Shenzi needed? Or some subtle test?

Either way, the stocky barb mare steeled herself and used that momentum to dig her hooves in and heave herself up, snarling and sobbing with the effort it took. But as soon as she stood, even if on unsteady, shaking legs, Shenzi tilted towards the silver bay mare, her voice low and hoarse. “There you are, she-wolf. I see you.” Extending her muzzle toward Nyimara, Shenzi parted her lips, seeking to graze her teeth ever so lightly over the slope of her shoulder. “Not… weak.”

Neither of them were.

She drew back, and forced her legs to move, so that, slowly but surely, even with dragging hooves, the distance between her and her daughter and the water that waited somewhere beyond grew less and less. “Remember, all those years ago, I told you what my name… Who I am? Savage.” Shenzi trudged on, only slanting her gaze to try and gauge her companion.

The musk of a stallion was carried to her by a shift in the wind, and despite her condition, instinct had her coming to a halt and curling her head around, seeking for the stranger. When she caught sight of him, some distance behind, she lingered in her scrutiny, taking stock of him and not turning aside. But her near ear swiveled toward Nyimara beside her, and when she spoke again, her voice, having regained some of husky warmth, was muted, words spoken soft. “I am not for anyone.”

Not the Lagoon brutes. Not Collision Course or Kendry. Not Solomon, who’d bargained for her and then sent her to Salem. Not Maslakhat, with his purebred progeny. Not Rehoboam, or the fathers of her other sons and daughter.

“But I want…” Shenzi trailed off, a shiver running through her even as her coat was patched with sweat in places, appearing black where the sand didn’t stick. She drew another shallow breath, weighing her options, still half-fixed upon the stallion, half-focused on Nyimara.

I want to be for you. The words burned in her mouth, but Shenzi sank her teeth into them. Better to get a truer sense of where Nyimara was and who she belonged to - the stallion standing vigilant just over there? - before laying her heart so bear. Maybe, if given time and opportunity, she wouldn’t need to say it at all, because Shenzi was certain it would bleed into her every interaction with the more elegantly built mare. She had never been a creature capable of hiding how she felt.

So instead, Shenzi asked of the mare, who was her opposite and equal all at once, a favor, knowing full well that she and her weanling daughter were at the mercy of Nyimara’s kindness, and that the silver maned mare would be well within her right to turn away. But that she was still beside Shenzi, after spurring her to her feet, was reason enough for the barb mare to hope.

And heaven knew she’d had so few in her life that she dared to hope in, or count on.

Turning aside from her watch on the stallion, she settled her gaze on Nyimara’s face. “I want you to take Zuri, please, she - she needs water. I’ll follow you, but I’ll be slow.” A pause, and then a tentative attempt to caress the other mare’s face with a brush of her muzzle, heart quivering in trepidation of rejection, but no matter whether Nyimara accepted her or turned away, Shenzi was steadfast, the fever granting her a brief reprieve, or perhaps just starting to let go its hold on her. “I’ll follow where you go, Nyimara. I promise.”