Meadow

The stallion who materialized out of the rain was the only answer to Sabah's question. She eyed him with her ears twisted back, an expression of open disdain entwining with the rivulets of water that streaked down her face. Perhaps it was the intensity of the precipitation, but the stallion did not look particularly set on escalating his unwanted attentions—rather, he seemed content to leer at them from a distance—so Sabah turned away as though he was not there, presenting her hindquarters not in invititation but in warning of the hooves she was capable of using.

Her mind raced as she looked over the trapped mare again. Could she haul her out of the mud with a long stick as leverage? The idea sparked hopefully in Sabah's brain, then fizzled out just as quickly. A stick long enough to reach the mare, and thin enough to fit comfortably in their mouths, was almost certainly not a stick that would withstand the weight of two full-grown mares pulling on it. In her mind's eye Sabah saw the thing, already weakened by relentless damp, snapping and crumbling uselessly onto the mud.

At a loss, Sabah blew rain out of her nostrils and looked on hopelessly. Then, abruptly, her white legs were moving on their own accord. She strode right into the mud, the surface sucking at her hooves like the mouth of a huge leech, and then her feet were sinking a few inches with each step until she was more or less wading through the muck. Spatters of it flecked up her sides as she reached the mare and, without ceremony, threw herself onto the ground beside her, folded legs swallowed in a sea of brown. She looked at the mare and offered a resigned smile.

"We can be stuck together," she said, and as she looked the mare full in the face that feeling of familiarity returned, swelling until her heart about burst. "It's you!" she cried. "My sparring buddy! Look at us now." She laughed.