Tsavo had grown tired. 

Fatigue seeped deep into her bones, her mind, her heart.  Nothing had been easy since the fall.  However she still couldn’t bring herself to regret it and her part in it.  Perhaps that made her a fool.  Had she not had status and power while the government stood?  

From the outside, she had a privileged life. She was of high birth and high rank in government.  Now she was the subject of scornful stares and whispered words.  Now she was nothing in terms of status and power.  Now she had no family to speak of. She had nothing.  But she did not regret because they all had fallen.   

But she was tired of their eyes.  She could feel every set of eyes on her as she passed. The scorn burning her flesh worse than any summer sun.  She walked past as if she did not see them.  She walked as if she could walk through the fires of hell themselves and they could not touch her. But the lioness is not fireproof.  On the inside she burned.  On the inside flames tore away of what remained of the strong, prideful woman that has survived for so long on determination and will.  She could feel the flames licking away at her resolve, slowly turning her dreams and desire to ash.

She’d grown tired of this life.  Watching her future blow away like ash on the summer wind was not how she wanted her fate to unfold.  Control was slipping away which was both unsettling and uncomfortable to the woman who had become a master of control.  She gritted her teeth as dust kicked up around her dark hooves.  Something had to change.  Dorobo had fallen.  She had fallen. 

But she would rise again. 

Opportunity came more quickly than she could have imagined and from the most unlikely of places.  Kiuaji. She wasn’t expecting to see him and certainly not headed away from Dorobo.  Figuring she had absolutely nothing to lose, the lioness fell into pursuit of the poisonous fellow making well sure to keep herself out of sight and only follow his tracks if necessary.   When the border of Dorobo fell away, it did not keep her from her pursuit.  Kiuaji was headed somewhere  - all she could do was hope that he was headed somewhere better than here. 

Tsavo spent her days following tracks into the distance taking great comfort in the fact that now only the sun was beating down upon her back.  There were no uncomfortable stares from the clouds.  No rush to judgment from the suns rays.  No slurs whispered on the wind.  The lioness felt only liberation in her solitary trek into the unknown.  No fear. 

Though the hesitation settled in her stomach when the land before her spread into a vast forest and the smell of other equines burned strong in her nostrils.  She slowed her step and allowed her gaze to wander over the strange trees that grew in this place.  Thick greenery brushed against her fetlocks.  Her blue eyes couldn’t rest on one thing in particular, too overwhelmed with all there was to see here.  What was this place?