They aren't on any great adventure when they hear the call. In the summer fever the oasis has been a pleasant temptation, a welcome respite from beating sun and burning sand, hot winds and the arid atmosphere. Despite their relative comfort in the heat, there comes a time when inclination drifts away from the usual and toward the strange. The waif and her brother are creatures of fire, but this does not stop them from seeking solace in damp, sighing their pleasure as liquid courses down angry throats and settles heavy in their narrow waists.

So it is lazily that they approach, bloated with water and content in their weight. Africa's voice is a beacon in the static; it draws her and others to its source, beckons them closer with the sweet sincerity of its melody. Others have beaten her, denizens of the Throat arisen from the sand, wraiths and apparitions called forth by their queen. Jet eyes drift from form to form as the pair hovers, hesitant, judging the crowd. Africa reigns, the center of them all, but four others have arrived in in the absence of the pair: an unknown girl of champagne and horn, and three more she knows, with mixed emotion.

It is the garish mare who captures her first, fuchsia and gold wreaking alarming war upon the hide of the lilac draft. The girl remembers a fallen form, prone on the earth in the wake of uninvited power. Alija, a healer, They arrive in time to hear; and the firechild feels a wrench in her gut, a sinking sensation of oh Sun God, why?

The next form brings emotion of quite another type. When last she saw Sacre, the boy was a mess, swooning, enraptured, his mind a toy caught unknowing in her hands. Again, her magic had run from her will, wrapping up someone and laying them bare. Her gaze flicks uncertain to the bloodstained boy, fleeting and wary, again and away. Guilt is undercut by anger and pain, hurt that he would fall for the opulent stranger, envy for the attention she knows he would never pay her again. If ever they were friends she knows now that they are not, that what tenuous ties of affection he has held for her must be broken by her misuse of power, her betrayal of trust.

Endless gaze darts from the red-eared boy to the antlered mare. The outlines of a pattern are beginning to emerge, and how they reflect on who she is is unsettling, at best.

It is the third she approaches with a tentative smile, the little grey colt who hovers like she, not a part of the crowd but neither a stranger. "Kari," she smiles to the younger child, willing plasticity into her face. It has been months since they met in the dark of the caves, two lost children and the unknown void. She is far greater now, nearly full-grown, and his diminutive size stirs a fierce protection from deep in her heart. She strides to the side that is furthest away, unconsciously placing him as a shield against her sin; one more glance at Sacre before she turns to the youth, black eyes gliding over slate-grey form.

He reminds her of a newborn child, who she tried so to help but succeeded in loosing; her reminds her of her many mistakes, and she uses these memories as fuel for her fire. She does not touch him for fear of herself; she can feel his magic, taste the grey and thyme in his soul, and a secondary current of incense and ice. Instead she tells him "I missed you," though it may be a lie: she has thought little of the boy she met once, yet in her brief thoughts of him there has certainly been longing, a curious wonder as to where he had gone. Not a lie, she tells herself then, but something perhaps he will be happy to hear. She is learning, though she does not know, that sometimes words can be told without truth; that a smile is worth more than the comfort of silence, and that an offering of kindness can go a long way.

At her hooves, her brother pines to play with his friend, but the girl's upset keeps him pinned to her side. Instead he calls to Inari in his vulpine speech, conveying a greeting across the soft sand. He thinks they are foolish, the horses they own; and he wonders if the one-tail agrees, or if he has yet to learn just who the wise one in a bond really is.