No matter how dark the night was, there would always be a dawn.
The Acha's mother had told him that as a foal.
She'd told him that the first time when his father had been taken by drought.
He hadn't been the only one- a half a dozen does, three bucks, and twelve foals were a lot of lives to hold in one's mouth, especially with the sun starving the oases.
The foals drank first, any time the herd found even so much as dew drops, safe cacti were kicked in to let the hardiest drink. Still, more fell as the young buck watched his mother lead them tirelessly. She was the oldest, and chewed the husks of cacti for every bit that they had to offer. When more of the herd had withered than remained, she gave to them whatever she could of herself, uttering, each time, that dawn would come.
When she fell, he wanted to cry and bawl, but there were no tears to shed. Nothing to spare. He put his horned head down, and put his herdmates on his back, and continued onward.
Onward, as the sky began to fill with clouds in the night that he bitterly expected to dry up in the sun's cruel gaze.
Onward, until he could see green on the horizon, and, half-expected it to be a hallucination. When, weakly, the doe on his back picked up her head and whispered a hoarse hope, he picked up his pace.
As the clouds opened up, trailing after him, day broke. The Drought broke behind them, before them.
Undaunted, Daybreak.