Golden Storms | #Wattys2020

17. T H E D E S E R T

A/N: Here you go stormers! Hope you enjoy this. I know some chapters are slow and some are more exciting, but there has to be a balance which I hope you will like.

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If the sun and the moon are any indication, then I have learnt the price of love has always been to love from afar. But if you ask her, she would simply ask me who imagined the sun and the moon were lovers in the first place? Perhaps they are rivals, perhaps they are acquaintances. Or perhaps they simply cannot stand each other's presence.
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T H E   H E R D, رَبِيع ٱلْأَوَّل
O A S I S

Ishtar held on for dear life. The beast under her was not moving gracefully at all – she was being tossed around his back as though she were a piece of naan being flung up and down and left and right on a strangely shaped pan! She imagined she looked rather comical, but they were thundering across a desert and she could not care less.

"Ow-!" she gasped as her backside landed painfully on the iron like leather saddle.

Damn you Amaan! She cursed inwardly, I do not know how to ride!

She had seen Falaq do it countless times, but the animal beneath her seemed to have lost all sense of reason, galloping away as though his life depended on it – his four-legged partners in crime right behind him.

Their hooves pounded through the sand with ease, rythamic and coordinated. They seemed to be guided with some kind of sixth sense of direction, or perhaps with one thought – away.
Ishtar managed to wrap her arms around the beast's neck, clinging on for dear life. His coat was a beautiful Palomino shade, with a white flaxen mane and tail. Really, he was beautiful – but she had no time to appreciate his beauty.

With every passing bound all she could think of was how far she had left Amaan behind – or rather – been made to leave Amaan behind.
What was he thinking?? She could barely walk from one end of her tent to the other without causing some kind of disarray, and he thought she could just go galloping off across the desert?

That handsome man was surely foolish.
After what felt as though hours had passed, the small herd began to slow down. They were approaching a place of scarce vegetation, and she surmised the intelligent animals had gathered there was nutrition available here.
As soon as her steed came to a stop and began to sniff the plants, Ishtar slid off with a thud, landing in a heap in the sand. Sweat had her clothes stuck to her skin, and the heat of the sun came pounding down on her all at once. She felt plundered of energy as she squinted up at the Palomino gelding now trying to sniff her too.

"Right", she heaved herself up with a burst of determination, "now we just have to turn right back to where we came...."

She turned around, foolishly expecting some kind of trail back to the settlement.