She had a point; Kari didn't know what the Sultan and W.A.R general looked like. So he shook his head and listened carefully to the description Africa gave him, carefully storing the information away in his memory. A crowded place to be, for sure, considering all the visions he'd had from the time his body had slipped out onto the cold desert sand... Perhaps he was lucky that his memory worked like any other persons, capable of forgetting and pushing knowledge into the subconscious. It probably saved him from going insane.
Nevertheless there were a lot of things to remember, so Shadow had helped him come up with a way to store the things he wanted to know and pick them out quickly. He called it his Meadow of Memory; a vast field full of trees and rocks and creeks he had built in the mind, and whenever he wanted to remember something he created a detail and added it to the meadow. Now, as the cloaked oracle described the stallion he should be looking for the colt painted him up accordingly, placing a shadow with the design of this Gaucho at a bend in the creek, gazing into the water. The picture was blurry still, flat and lifeless - but once Kari had seen the brute in person that image would come to life, vivid and clear and moving slightly with life on its own.

He would always remember this stallion, and why he was looking for him, and how he had come to know of his existence. There were more ways than one of retaining memories, and Kari found this particular one to be quite fun indeed.

There didn't seem to be anything more to add, so Kari happily let the subject drop and immersed himself in the story about the gods, relaxing into the smile and lull of Africa's warm voice. He tried to imagine them as she told him who they were, head tilting and wings drooping in concentration, but what would a god even look like? It went beyond his imagination, they must be vast and powerful and incredibly impressive! He actually didn't believe the mare when she said they weren't scary, not so much because he picked up on her white lie but rather because a god surely had to be frightening... anyone that powerful must make horses cower before them, speaking with thundering voices and make the earth tremble as they walked.

And yet... If they were so powerful, why hadn't they saved his mom? "Did we do something to make them angry?" Kari asked. "Are they the ones who made the monsters come out? I wonder if they could help my.. Shadow, if I asked really nicely." He gave the oracle a questioning glance to see what she thought of that idea, not betraying with so much as a flinch why he had hurried to change the epithet of his guardian.


I see your true colors