Assume this is before Michael/Sasha events. He's gone round the south of Connlaoth and into northern Serendipity, and when he finally gets a horse he'll head up to Reajh...where Michael will eventually meet him and hijinks will occur!
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The livestock markets weren't usually where he set up shop. He knew his way around the pens as well as anyone could, but...yeah. Something about the smell - lanolin, dust, the towering mountains of muck each with a little civilisation of glossy black flies hovering above it - tended to put people off buying stuff like furs, and mead, and basically all the things that were his stock in trade!
There was a better market in Serendipity than in Connlaoth for some things - especially obsidian and amber and such like he was carrying in his pockets even now; something about them made them excellent for the little magics, household charms, minor fortune telling and such, and it'd been well worth making the trip. Further south than was his usual stomping ground, and he'd be cutting it fine on the return trip buck up Hyoite way, but...after the colic incident (poor old Nigella, the kindest thing to do in the end was to kill her, rolling around on the ground in agony with her guts all knotted) the plain and simple truth of it was that he needed another horse.
Sasha was big. He was strong. He'd pulled the Wonder Tent himself for a while after the colic incident - just until he could find a decent beast to take the load again - and it hadn't been so very difficult for him, not enough that he wouldn't do it again if he had to. It was just that a horse was faster, and if he didn't make it up into Sionad on schedule...well.
He'd freeze to death when winter caught him on the way, and half the tundra settlements might not have enough stored to have everyone last through either. There. If you asked a sionadyaki about winter, they didn't laugh much!
He rolled a bead across his knuckles thoughtfully, and tried to find a good place to start looking for another horse.