Devilish Dervish (Sairque)

[Cantrip]

17th of Spring, 512 AV The sun was jade. And that was bad. Zahra, unabashedly ugly, and far from graceful, just screwed up her gimlets and shambled into the wadi. This depression spread for leagues, trenching over rocky jetsam, frequently buried in the jostling grit. There’d been a time, the girl vividly recalled, when jade limned the frenzied pillars of dust, belched from their harsh, concussive lapping. That was worse than bad, she thought. But she’d made it this far, hadn’t she?  Mightn’t have if she’d stayed, which she might’ve if this tasking hadn’t plunged from the highest canton. Zahra lacked a thumb, and if anything, it was because she was professedly pig-headed, and profoundly terrible at making decisions. That’s why she worked for him. There wasn’t much use for thinking. That, and the infrequent feasts that stuck to her ribs and swelled, left her happily bloated. The gnawing pangs always faded from thought that plush expanse of roof festooned by cushions, vases, and exotic rugs, draped by a badly-dyed canopy that’d seen better days. Embellishment was always eccentric with him, but his florid garb was far worse. Gaudy pajamas and tight, shabby robes, a walrus bristle over blubbery jaws. That spindly, musket-balled intermediary always hovering like a horrid insect, while the fat man slowly gleaned the courage to deliver a kismet. Find her, he might’ve blurted, but riddling sufficed. Maybe. Might’ve sprung leaks, that pair. Might’ve fried their skulls, but the desert was bursting with might’ves. Zahra was sweltering under the alien turban, and far too grimy, tired, and confused to give a shyke. There’d been no saying who this she was, let alone where to look. That wasn’t a kindness. This she probably didn’t exist, might’ve been the glint in a shepherd’s visage, the figurative crook under his tunic. Zahra had already decided this was all just an intricate diversion, luring her into finding a she and then divulging her to her unwitting employer, who’d claim clairvoyance. Tubby men were inevitably difficult, especially when they let themselves go with that kind of jubilant smirk, the sort that just made you cagey, and gave you migraines. Zahra sighed. Breezes scorched her lungs and yanked at her leggings, the blues and reds flooding into a sulky violet, at discord with a blotchy, freckled face. The dunes wouldn’t relent, just undulated off like a rippy-snake, dealing in mirages, dealing in thirst, dealing in the impudence of walking. The bladders she’d strapped over her robes swilled dully, but it was the worst sort of swill. The empty kind. That only made her drabber in spirit, morosely picking over the clutter of bones and jumbled, sawtooth memosite that inhabited the wadi.  Zahra missed the warm gulf, but she’d stashed her skiff and left, because this she was, apparently, allergic to swimming, sailing, or any kind of buoyancy. That’s what she thought, at least. There’d been so many courses, the dusk pressing with an ungainly buzzing of corpulent, droning bees, that she’d dropped off during all the necessary parts, and subsequently lied about it. That wasn’t her fault, though. Plucking her gaze from the debris, she sourly pondered that lofty enormity of jade. This she had better materialize, or eventually she’d realize she was the she, he’d rambled of, and maybe she’d just embarked on a pilgrimage of sullen self-discovery at his horrid behest. The dilemma of fat men was that, occasionally, you found one that glutted on intrigue, and you implicitly liked simultaneously prejudicing yourself and feeling important. And, by all means, you’d a hankering for the kinkiest sorts of manipulation.