Diego's next lucid awareness was the sensation of weightless motion. He drifted, in body and in mind, his level of consciousness rising only high enough to be cognizant of forward motion, and an unsteady rising and falling.
In lapses, he slipped into dream. Once again, he rode alone across the vast desert, only now upon a great, black stallion; the beast's hoofbeats pounding at the sands, carrying him onward.
Diego was no longer weak, or idle and feckless. He knew purpose at last and he rode ever faster toward it.
Then, the soft scent of roses drifted about him and once again he was rising upwards to wakefulness. Now, he could feel the unequal pressures beneath his arms and knew he was being borne-carried bodily-under another's power.
A delicate, intermittent brushing at his cheeks further revived his senses and Diego was aware of his head bobbing, skimming once again against the silken softness that had earlier touched at his face. Then, dropping suddenly lower, he found his lips pressed alternately against the warmth of sweet flesh, then stung by the stiffness of coarse hairs.
His heavy eyelids creased and parted to reveal a sea of shimmering gold and ashen stubble, the crisp, white flowing lines of an elegant collar.
Then, a sudden, dizzying jolt threw Diego's head forward and upright and a bright, stabbing of light forced his eyes to narrow.
Beyond him, in some far distant and darkened place, a candlelight was flickering, and beyond,
colors and shapes. The sharp, brilliant red, a cooling white and the luminous warmth of skin. Long, flowing darkened curves, gleaming first silvery than deep, shimmering brown.
His lips parted, bursting forth a single, incomprehensible syllable and he reached outward, in desperate entreat, a sense of immeasurable loss and longing seizing at his breast.
Then, once again, his reality dissolved around him.