Ever since the sun rose, Kachina had been on patrol. It was an odd feeling, the desert was dead quiet, as she wasn't used to it. She was used to the lions roaring about two miles away and it scared her. The roar was unlike anything she ever heard of and it sent chills down her spine. She would also hear the horses neighing, but that wasn't here. It was just silence. Kachina hadn't decided if that is good or bad. She walked across the sand dunes and looked at the horizon—nothing, but sand and the blue sky for miles. No wonder there weren't any other equines, they would be bored or frustrated with the lack of food. She could imagine a horse coming from the other lands and mostly complaining. Kachina would find it funny, Sokar on the other hand would be annoyed with their complaints. With Sokar on her mind, where was he? Was he patrolling somewhere else or was he doing something else? Sokar had been grouchy lately and it was best to separate from him for a while. But how were new herd members going to join? That sounded like Kachina could help with her being naiveté.

The dark bay mare walked more and noticed something in the sand. Part of it it was sticking out, while the other part was buried in the sand. She used her hooves to remove it and saw that it was a bone. She was a little nervous, but then she saw it was small and very old by judging from it. "Not a horse. She said with relief and continued walking. How long how was she out here? It was midmorning and she lost track already. Sokar would not be happy. She picked herself up into a galloped and started going across the sand without a care in the world. It wasn't long before she looked down and noticed hoofprints. She halted and with her wide eyes, she looked around. She could smell a scent, but who? Who dared entered the dunes? "Hello? Sokar is that you or did somebody get lost"? She asked, hoping for an answer.



tagged open
words 359
notes muse for has been itching

i grow,
i alter every day,
every hour and minute
— Muhammad Aamir Khan



Thirteen years.

Thirteen years pounding this godforsaken dirt, and there was really only one place his hooves hadn't touched.

But this year, his thirteenth year, had been one of excursion and introspection, and in his mind there was no better way to spend his time than by seeing the variegated planes of his homeland through a fresh lens.

Old eyes, fine, but a fresh lens nonetheless.

So into the desert he wandered, letting his battered hooves follow a southerly path illustrated anew each night for him by the bright, saccharine light of a thousand stars. He imagined he saw them glittering even now, as if they traveled in sunbeams to bounce in shimmering waves upon the crests of each golden dune before him.

An infinite sea of sand.

It was dehydration, surely, that gave this place its kaleidoscopic effect just now.

Ghazal trudged almost mechanically, having had more than one long, silent conversation with himself about death in the three days since he'd last tasted water.

Perhaps this was why he'd never found himself employed to any ends in the desert — let the fuckers who knew this place have it. Let them keep it!

The flesh inside his mouth felt melded together. Where was the beauty here? Three days ago he'd have seen it, but now...

'Sokar, is that you?'

A feminine call jolted Ghazal from his dark study. He paused his step, stilling his body with a single foreleg still hovering over the sand, his single good eye and both his tattered ears now in sharp focus. A moment passed before the speaker became visible to him, making her way confidently across the shifting sands. The warm autumn wind whipped her dark hair around her as she moved, lending her a distinctly wild air.

And see, how the stars adorn her.

"Hail, dune-strider," he rasped, his already gruff voice made even harsher through disuse and dehydration. His strength was fading. "If I am lost, it is the soul, and not the body."

He coughed, a dry, grunting sound, his throat irritated already by the movement of air across his parched flesh.

Ghazal peered at her with his singular black eye, willing her to be as he saw her: an agent of the celestial compass, marked as the night sky, and, like it, leading travelers like him to sanctuary.

"The body needs water."





notes: ghazal's makin his way down south, walkin fast, faces pass and he's here now :'D