My first instinct is to ignore the woman’s call, as it often is when some kind of gathering is imminent. Folding my ears into my mane, I tuck my head down, already walking in the opposite direction while my muscles quiver and the red sand stirs in my wake. I might have made it to the other end of the island had her words not registered, offering the promise of keys. Stopping abruptly mid-step, I stand frozen (for a moment, several minutes, I’m not sure), listening only to the erratic thrumming of my heart and the shallowness of my breath while my thoughts churn through the tangled mess of my mind.

The instinct to hide wrestles with my desire for a key—to have free access off this island, which is only becoming smaller with each day that passes. Chewing on my lower lip, I grapple back and forth with myself—because sequestering myself from everyone would be so much easier, but the thought of being trapped on this island forever is enough to choke me—before, finally, I turn with a throaty huff and a graceless pivot on my heels.

With the silky length of my hair dragging behind me—now matted with the Throat’s dust, because I haven’t cared enough to pamper myself with a wash—I trudge in the direction from where the call had come from, using the flickering flame as my guide. I walk with quick little steps, hoping to reach the crafter before I’m able to change my mind.

“What is that?”

The familiar droll of the blue jay’s voice rumbles over the desert, and I raise my eyes from where they had been tracing the movement of my feet. Comforted somehow—even if only a tiny bit—by the large stallion’s familiar presence (because he something to anchor the weariness of my broken mind), I find myself approaching with less wariness than I had expected. “Water draak-slang—hydra,” I murmur roughly in his native tongue, a shadow of a smile softening one side of my lips, and I manage to glance to him briefly from the five-headed water dragon-snake; or hydra.

“They are mostly creatures of myth where I come from,” I explain simply, having only seen one or two before in my life—and even then, only in cages as they had been bartered and sold along the trades of Uumalah’s streets. I blink after staring for a moment, smiling (smiling might be too generous, simpering?) wordlessly to Sunjata before I look to the peculiar mare. “Hi,” I greet her awkwardly, barely making eye contact. “You said you had keys?” I try to smile, to soften the coolness of my blunt request (because I shy away at the thought of dragging it out), but it has little effect. I shift my weight uncomfortably waiting for a response, my eyes flickering occasionally from the sands to the mare out of duty to politeness.

“Speech.”