[Tell that to the guy being assassinated.]

...you are right. Though they may be animals, they are also living, the same as any other soldier in our armies.

[For all the importance of horses to their culture, this wasn't a thought he'd ever entertained. It seemed so...sentimental and he couldn't afford to be on the battlefield.

But he couldn't deny that Damian had a point. If he thought of warhorses, not as tools but as something closer to a soldier, then of course they deserved a name.

If Mahmut were the sort to worry about these things, he may have wondered if being here, in a place so strange and yet so removed from any kind of war or conflict was making him soft.

But he found himself smiling.]

Vahide is a good name. It suits her. [Because she is, indeed, unique.] I didn't realize anyone knew Turkish here.