Ni'Srilan: The Desert: And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Kinh is not like his companion, at least not outwardly. His breath comes in a languid rhythm that pulls and pushes at his broad, muscled chest and ripples across the brown country of his skin. Ebaran is all motion and excitement, full of meticulous judgments and full of a fluid, easygoing vernacular. Unlike the white stallion Kinh is not put off by the other, though he remains carefully distant and watchful of the shifting dunes. If Kinh is judging Ebaran as carefully as he is being judged, he doesn’t show it; he isn’t even looking at the other stallion, and his plain, modest face registers little emotion at the other’s prattle. Instead one hoof scuffs impishly at the broiling sand and his eyes half-close to the brisk winds that push the dunes into their faces. Wariness is part of him, because he is nature’s child, attuned to the subtle shifts of wind and the crunch of snow or grass or, now, sand that means a predator - but discomfort is not, not really. If anything he is oblivious, or acts it, disquietingly watchful of the sands beneath his feet.

He smiles wanly as he listens to Ebaran speak about newness. Quietly he thinks such a roundabout answer would be given only when the answer is as difficult as the lie, but he says nothing. Ebaran’s situation is of little consequence to him, and he has no interest trying to imagine whatever strange circumstances brought him to - or back to, perhaps - this strange, otherworldly desert. In the space of quiet where Ebaran is shifting gears and thoughts, Kinh reaches down and scratches a leg, offering half a lackadaisical grin to the stranger. If he were not so quiet, distilled as if from the higher reaches of life until only the finest, most carefree grains were rearranged to piece him whole again, he would seem childish. It is, though he is unknowing, the easy, simple confidence that saves him.

“Ni’Srilan,” Kinh replies softly, the hill of his shoulder lifting and falling in a simple shrug. “That is what they call the desert.” He knows because part of his welcome wagon, if you could call it that (in truth, it was his own painful naivety mixed with a draught of wide-eyed curiosity) was Baraqel, the army’s Commander, and though he, too, had a wild, unaffected air, he was forthcoming with the straight facts of the land. Kinh had not been grateful then, but he was finding reason now.

To Ebaran’s second comment he laughs, a brusque, masculine expression that starts in the base of his throat and bubbles suddenly up before ceasing entirely. He glances around in mock confusion, though his face is perfectly stoic and his expression grim, as if he would love to avoid whatever outstanding individual Ebaran spoke presently of. “Wouldn’t know him,” he says at length, a small smile crawling across those bland, blackish lips, “but I am Kinh.” – not that names matter, not when you know life by touch and scent and song – still, Kinh does not say this. He has no mind for the strange political games of cordiality, but he also has no reason to be rude.

“I have seen strange things, too,” he admits in that gruff, bemused way of his. “Pillars of flame and a horse enshrouded in it, saguaros erupting under the pressure of heat and sparks of lightning,” he lists the curiosities slowly, eyes still half-closed, now as if in remembering. “And some horses stranger than you,” he muses, “whatever – whoever – you are.”