Ni'Srilan: The Desert: To Sisuei, whose nickname reminds me of Mortal Kombat.

He, too, knew the common oasis where they watered parched lips and parched souls; he, too, avoided it now.

The lone saguaro is something of a commodity to him, broken limbs stunted and vilely defensive, to sun or flesh or whatever else might haunt its ragged lines. Mostly he is impressed by the dunes, or, rather, the ambiguity of them; he has been here little less than a week and each day, he thinks, there is new geography. There are the same basic contours of land and position of sun, of cactus-branch, and, of course, oasis - but he remembers the first night when his eyes had closed with the comfortable shoulder of a dune to his east, and he awoke with nothing there but a half-molehill on the other side. That is what he loves, the adaptability of the desert, the honesty of it. It will not remember them, he thinks, not even the ones who burn pillars of fire into the sky; it forgives, it erases, it forgets.

Kinh is content with anonymity - impressed by it, even.

Which is why it is unusual for him to see the little mare by his favorite cactus, whose stingers were bright and vivid and harsh, though a little desert-owl did love it, too, as he did - and why it is unusual for him to approach. He supposes she could be pretty, but he doesn't think of that, not really; he is more content watching the phoenix-flame grow and quell along her back, a union and a reunion, her homecoming. He, of course, is unknowning as his mud-brown limbs carry him closer to her (he is not quite built for the hot, arid sands of this place; later he will think perhaps he was best suited to the mountains, which seem bland and less regal, less demanding of elegant figures and dainty, careless hooves) and his neck curls into a serpentine figure lazily.

Where she is several parts feminine and delicate and gentle - like his mother, he thinks, the mother who was though he had never known her womb, for he knew her love - he is not; he is thick and short, gruff but suave, a careful mixture of modest and quiet components. He will be a good soldier, with no real care for winning or losing, though he also claims no true attachment to this place; fealty is something he has never understood, not with the wind at his back and the stars in the sky.

"There is," he tells her quietly, breaking the silence, and it is surprising how nice his voice is, deep and smooth and almost sultry; it is the only beautiful thing of him, "a little bird that knows these haunts." He reaches back with his plain face, and with his squarish teeth scratches an itch on his plain, brown, sloping shoulder, before turning quiet eyes back to the girl. "Kept me company for a few nights," he continued, "but I think you just scared it away."

He's teasing - maybe - but the quiet modesty of his eyes won't tell her that.