[Flashback] The Dry Sea [Cantrip]

[Naama]

13th Fall 509AV She didn't know how far she'd walked. It wasn't the heat that drained the strength from her, no, for her eyes and skin were accostumed to the stark weather, and her life in Taloba more than made up for in it's own fair share of scalding heatwaves. It was the buffeting of the sandy winds, the strength it took to scale up shifting dunes, the futility of hunting for sustenance. These were not the jungles of Falyndar that she knew well. This was the other half of her heritage as her features could attest to. The sun did not blind her ebony eyes, and the pores in her fingers, often polluted with countless currents of energy now remained still, a testament to the barren landscape. She had arrived in Ahnatep for the earlier part of the season, but had only remained there for as long as her curiosity could keep her. The Eypharians disliked her appearance, often calling her a Chaktawe menace, treating her as if she'd been birthed by the sands themselves. Naama was rarely perturbed, but it was the wonders of the Ekytolian desert that drew her in. Fool as she was, the halfbreed walked amongst the shifting sands with little regard, a goshawk the only company. It came as a brutal surprise when a sandstorm tore through the still, calm air and ravaged the landscape in a vicious caress. The sand stung her eyes and tore at her leather garb, forcing her to take shelter beneath a rocky overhang and its sparce shrubs, now lost in the inhospitable desert. Why had she come here? Was it the promise of a new family? The hope that by finding her father she'd find somewhere she'd truly belong? Naama was unsure of even her own desires anymore. It was only the melody of blood and lust and material gain that kept her dancing between the swords that were drawn for her. She walked and walked, each step becoming another agonizing chore, and her throat was as dry as the ancient rivers. And then the ground came up to meet her, a puff of sand swirling into the hot air. The goshawk circled above, calling a mournful cry. Just a minute to rest. The horizon shimmered before her, something so beautiful and yet so sinister. Her lids became heavy, so tired of straining and straining, only to find nothing but sands and rock and shrubs.The darkness would be a welcome relief.

[Cantrip]

Harshly, the grit crowded her. The gusts were a murmur. You are as nothing, they moaned, raking at her splayed fingers, her back, as though to drag her away. There was no mercy in their touch. The desert hadn’t heard of mercy. There were only coppery, undulating dunes, ruddy ridges of barren, broken rock erupting like the hands of a deformed god, face caught in a vast, jaggedly agonized scream. The squat, forking shrivels of gray scrub swayed bleakly, mockingly, catching at her garb, jerking in a cruel, thorny gasp. The barbs poked at her skin, drawing tiny pearls of lurid crimson, jealously sucked up by the bone-dry gusts, by a few, desultory locusts that began to clamber over her body. They were just as weak as she, crawling drunkenly, feebly, spiny carapaces tearing asunder. The scavengers neared. Caw, caw, caw, the shrieks pulsed in her ears, a plume of carrion crows winging skyward to the tawdry beat of ragged feathers, a mocking cacophony. The crazy skitter of a lizard. There was a swirl of red sand, the cruel, scouring grains of sand chafing at her cheeks, a scorching heat on her skin, each breath the near agony of a furnace, a fiendish oven slowly baking her tawny flesh. The sands furled away, revealing gray bones, shreds of torn, bleached rags. Her jaded fate, a vague, mocking tracery. And yet, the wanderer wasn’t going to join this legion of dismal, bereftly fading souls, for the vagaries of fate held another, wicked augury in spiteful grasp. “Drink,” echoed the insistent whisper, clutching a leathery bladder against her face, a scant trickle of tepid water on her cracked, bloody lips. Beyond, the desert was just whorls of red, set over tan, tangling wastes, dark specks winking before her eyes. They slowly came into focus, lashes blinking over a tawny, angular face, jet eyes swathed by a tracery of white paint, broken by ruddy hues. “You’re late,” Seer spoke in a whisper, vaguely garbled, brushing back her thick, ebony braids, cradling the wanderer against her soft, tense curves, her long legs. Her taut, crooked nose was colored by bands of ochre, and she was clad in faded leggings, slit on both sides and fastened by thongs of leather. Her chest was covered by a jackal’s pelt, decorated by jade beads, a horde of feathers. Her belly was bare, pierced by a band of gold flowing like a vast serpent, and around her neck hung thongs from which dangled scraps of bone, beads of bronze, carved, lacquered mesquite, and hunks of mica and quartz. They clacked when she shifted. By her side, a painted quiver of leather, holding a half dozen shafts, heads crafted of flint, and a curving bow. “Come, the hour is near,” she urged, clacking her tongue as though it was a beak, yanking at a burnt shoulder.

[Naama]

She felt the heat crushing her. Wave after wave of unbearable exposure, but there were no words to cry out for they'd crumpled and seared away and soon she would as well. All she could imagine was the thrashing sea, the skies a gray swirl of cloud and wind, whipping at her face with cool rain. Why hadn't she died at sea? So much more peaceful, so much more her element. Here, where the sand sucked her in, and the critters came scouring for their first meal in ages, Ekytol's embrace was not kind. The voice of another only felt like an illusion, an unwanted presence, an intruder. Naama stirred in her pool of sweltering sand, almost angry. "Go away," She cracked, "I've no need of delusions." But the skin was pressed to her lips, regardless, and the touch scent a spark in her mind, a trickling revelation that perhaps she was not alone. Scorched hands clutched at the skin, draining what contents she could of the precious water. A single drop had arisen in her a vitality that could not be diminished, not now when someone, somewhere, had come to her aid. Against all odds, she had been saved. Her throat still felt a searing pain, and her lips were red with blood and water, but she gazed at her savior with an appreciation she could not put into words. Then she noticed the eyes. Jet black, solid, masked in paint, a mirror of her own. "I'm not alone." Was all she could say. She would not be the alien here, with eyes like a beast, drawing the unwary gaze of strangers. And yet, she was still an outsider. Through renewed vigor and an unstaunched desire to keep the woman in sight, Naama pulled herself up from the steaming ground and trailed after the seer, observing all that she could. "How did you find me?"

[Cantrip]

The sands were ever unkind to unsteady legs. They swirled away, ever shifting underfoot, capsizing the jut of spiny scrub. Tiny pebbles grinding tinier. The gusts lashed at her, sweltering. “There’s no such thing as delusions,” Seer tucked back the empty bladder. “There’s only what you see, and what you’d like to see. The only question that rises is, what d'you want?” Though they trudged, on legs made for such journeys, the undulating ridges of sand, broken rocks stayed the same. There was the lonely shriek of a buzzard, high and dismal, nearly lost in the vastness of an azure sky. The austerity of it, the disparity of the ruddy wastes, made it seem almost a sea, suffused by calm, defying the perils of that sandy frying pan. That’s what the crawling, baking corpses usually saw, just a faraway, plunging sea that either brought a grin to their cracked lips, or forced a curse to erupt from gritty lungs. That was just on the back, though. The way you crumpled was everything, else it’d just be sand, sand, and more sand before your eyes, ushering you to the vagaries of a subsequent cycle of reality. “You’re one of us, and you can’t conjure up an answer?” Seer gave a frown. Her path swerved, and then she was reaching for one of Naama’s hands. Then she turned it over, placing their palms together. Tiny dots sprawled over them, beads of jet. “That’s how I found you lying in the thorns. That’s not why I sought you out, though. That was just a dream. The scatter of crows, the tumbling of the bones, they wanted me to find you. Eywaat may’ve guided me, but there’s no saying why. That’s what we’re going to find out.” Seer’s nose crinkled. “Why are you here, …?”

[Naama]

"I want water, and to get out of this petching heat," She remarked, haughtily. The stupid sun was searing her shoulders, and overheating her jet black hair, now thoroughly powdered with sand. For all this talk of kin, Naama was aggrivated by her cryptic words. She vaguely recalled the name Eywaat, spoken long ago by some sailor she'd met in a distant port in the city of blue men. She listened to the woman, allowed their hands to touch, staring idly at her palm as if willing the answers to stream from the same black pores they shared. "I never learned how to use these," She confessed after a brief moment of silence, "I'm not the same as you, I'm different, not one or the other." The myrian stared beyond the red stone borders of the Burning Lands, shimmering as if in a dream. "My mother was Myrian, my father was Chaktawe. I left my home in Falyndar to search for someone I lost. And then I realized that I've lost more than just her. I never met my father, that's why I'm here. To find him. To seek answers, to learn." Naama offered the seer a wry grin, "I wandered into this desert not even knowing the first place to look. Sometimes I'm amazed I haven't fallen into an inescapable ditch, by now."

[Cantrip]

Naama spoke freely of her past, confessing her ignorance in their ways. That wasn’t so strange. There were many of their people that came to such a loss, whether during the lonely roving of youth, or before they’d even found their way. These wastes were a cruciform, but they were also more than sun and sand. Seer forced a wry grin. “There’s no using, they just show us the way of things. That’s how we find water. That’s how we know if a scorpion is near, just by that vague tickle on our fingers, like a sudden swell of wind. That’s how you know.” Long legs carried her over shifting grit, through the shards of baked ruddy rock, her bones jangling, feathers creasing and rustling. “Chaktawe is what we are, but that’s not all we are,” she spoke. “Tatsuwaat, Kalanue, and Suli, that’s our handful of tribes. Tatsuwaat are the red crows, keeping to their keerdash groves, while Kalanue are the ravens of the rocky wastes. Then you have the Suli, the vultures that bide by the crumbling ramparts of Ahnatep, trading with the Eypharians. However, in our hearts we long to wander. There’s only such much water, only so much game. That’s why we stray.” Caw, caw. The crows hadn’t left. They were tiny, inky whorls of beating wings stamped over the sky’s glare. They only had to wait. There was a flash of coppery skin, jet eyes fixing on her. “Though I haven’t lately been among any tribe, I used to live among the Kalanue. Kasha the Seer, that’s what they’ve always called me. That is, until I gave up my claim to the former. There is only Seer.” The edges of her mouth pursed, chin giving a vague jet. Her glance was curious. “You speak of finding your father, yet you’re here devoid of understanding. You’d surely have died, and been fodder for the crows. That speaks volumes. There isn’t cause to dismay. Not yet, at least.” “Do you know his tribe, at least?”

[Naama]

Naama raised her hand, as if the seer's explanation inexplicably unlocked the illusive power she'd inherited. She felt the skitter of a lizard several feet away, the scattering of critters that dwelled deep in the sands beneath them, their essence seemed to wash against her fingers, profoundly alive. So immersed in her newfound talent that Naama hardly registered the seer's next words. She glanced up, blinking, her thoughts wading through the memories for an answer. Where had he come from? Kalanue, Tatsuwaat... Your father? He was a Suli warrior, a worthy one. That is all I will speak about the matter, do not mention him again. "Suli." She answered, "My mother mentioned Suli. It's all I have of him." Yet she'd spoken of nothing else, why mother? She glanced inadvertently at Seer, "Why did you leave and choose to live out here," she gestured toward the baren, searing landscape, "alone? Was it your choice?"

[Cantrip]

“Suli?” That brought a glint of jet, the tug of bare shoulders. The coppery skin of her face tensing, as if her mind was deeply engaged in reflection. There was a pithy hush, just a break in the empty swirl of grit. Then the end of a tongue forced from the crease of her dry lips. “They’re cunning, for certain. They prowl the forbidden oases, taking the sacred water from under the noses of the many-armed masters. That doesn’t mean they prefer to stay elusive, for they’ve dealings outside the tribes, dealings that certainly explain your presence.” Seer’s voice was melodic, though perhaps a bit scratchy. Maybe she hadn’t used it for a while. Maybe she was sick. There were a jerk of her jaw, the edge of her bow clacking on the haft of one of Naama’s curved swords. “That also clarifies the spirit beyond these,” Seer gave a terse shrug. However, the queries evoked rigidity in her. There was a clenching of her face, her muscles tensing ever so vaguely. This was a woman unused to such questions. The blinding, blistering sun, the chafing of grit, the placing of one leathery sole beyond the other, that was her reality. The answers were as vast, as cryptic as the timeless shifting of the sands. Caw. The crows were circling, lazy but confident of their next meal. They had enough time. They only required the eyes to see, and foresight to wait. Their beaks would not stay forever. Seer sniffed the air, her back arching. Then she knelt, thrusting her hands under a dune’s leeward slope, and let the ruddy grains slough through her splayed fingers and carry on the fitful furnace of a gust. “For us, there is a searching, a practice for children to become one with the desert, and our gods. For me, it has lasted far longer the span of a few days.” The cast of her face, though youthful yet, was proof enough. She rose, jet eyes locking on jet eyes. “Suli hardly ever venture this far. There are a few nearby, though. They were but a few days away when last our paths did cross. They may have left, but we can catch up, if you’re desirous of whatever words they’d give you.”

[Naama]

The myrian instantly regretted prying, if only because Seer's words were veiled in an umbrage she could not hope to understand. "I'm sorry," She offered quietly, knowing that words would never mend the past. Ahead of her, she could only see the endless, shifting hills of sand, red rocks jutting forth like spears of earth, while the sun seared everything in sight. It was the dry heat she was not used to; the cracked lips, parched throat and flaking skin. But she wanted more. She wanted culture and songs, and children with their laughter and play. "The Eypharians," Naama replied absently, "Those deyhans have no respect. They call me wild and savage, as if the way they treat others isn't savage enough." She smirked. A creature skittered beyond the scope of her vision as she shifted ground. "I'll follow you," She answered, gazing hard into the eyes that mirror'd her own. Like a sister I never had. "Even if they know nothing of him, I want to know more of my--.. Of your people."