That seemed to intrigue both of them, wildly, but they said no more. He left them where they were, moving off towards the west, muddy and a little bloody and a bit tired. He had dealt with a kajat and he had made his first contact with the Selani, a meeting that had turned out more or less as he expected.

But at least he wasn't thirsty anymore.

The face wouldn't go away.

He stood on one of the rock spires that dotted the desert that sunset, climbing up to look at the beautiful spectacle from a higher vantage point. He had run the rest of the day, without water, to distance himself from the Selani behind him. He was thirsty, very thirsty, but there would be time enough to drink later on.

The day had been eventful. He had seen a desert reptile up close, and had his first meeting with the Selani. Both had bolstered him a bit. Both had been exhilerating encounters, but had proved to be not too dangerous. With some luck and patience, he had a good feeling that he'd get across the desert in one piece.

At least physically. The face of the girl was still there, behind his eyes, and he was tired. He would have to sleep soon, and he was certain that she would be in his dreams, waiting for him. That terrified him more than any kajat or Selani horde ever could. From the girl with no eyes, there could be no escape, no quarter, no mercy. The dead had no compassion.

Sleep was something he did not want to face, but he had to sleep. The desert really took it out of him, and he had to rest, to do more than just sit. He had to sleep. And he knew that she was going to be there. The very thought of facing the dream again was almost enough to send him flying into a panic, but that wouldn't do him any good. He would take the time before having to sleep and try not to think about it, enjoy his calm before the storm to come. When it was time to sleep, then he would face the dream, face his punishment for his evil, stand before their accusing gazes and know that he had become what he had always feared. It was unavoidable, inescapable, and the only solace in it was that he would eventually wake up, and it would be over.

Again, it seemed that he had little choice in things. But then again, the choice that would have avoided it had been made long ago. And he had made the wrong choice. Now it was time to pay for that mistake.

The flutter of wings heralded the return of Sarraya. He couldn't see her, but he could smell her as the wind picked up. She was coming up from behind. He heard her wings right beside him, and then a blur in the corner of his eye told him that she was visible again.

"You're a mess," she said conversationally. "What happened to you?"

"I was dancing," he told her quietly, staring at the lovely sunset. The sun was almost all the way down, and it painted the sky with breathtaking reds, yellows, and even some oranges and greens. The Skybands were just beginning to flare into their colored brilliance, bisecting the sunset in a most breathtaking manner. The desert was a land of extremes, both extreme dangers and extreme beauty.

It was a land that mirrored his own soul. A barren landscape of desolation, but with certain beauty, if one cared to take the time to look for it.

"I'd hate to see your partner," Sarraya chuckled. "I'm, I'm sorry I left you alone all day, but you made me really mad. I left you out here all alone, with just one waterskin. You must be parched."

"I've had enough water today to last me a month, Sarraya," Tarrin said quietly, somberly. "I'll tell you about it over dinner. Come on, I found a nice little cave where we can spend the night."

Tarrin began climbing down the rock spire, the stark beauty of the desert sunset forgotten in the moment. But it was still there, waiting for someone to look up and take it in, to look beyond the harshness immediately before them and appreciate the beauty in the distance ahead.

To: Title EoF

Gasping, sitting bolt upright, Tarrin recoiled from the dream in the cold night air, feeling the cold air all but freezing the sweat slicking his body. His heart was racing, and that nameless terror had again swept over him. He panted like he'd ran fifty longspans, his heart pounding in his chest and his paws trembling visibly.

No rest. For ten straight nights the dreams had haunted him, and he'd managed to get very little sleep. Not even shapeshifting into cat form helped, which usually did when it came to dreams. The lack of sleep had been getting to him, but not nearly as much as the dreams themselves.

Ten days. It seemed like an eternity of torture. Ten days since he'd skirmished with the Selani, ten days since fighting with the kajat. Since then, he'd only seen a few small desert dogs and a few oversized lizards, what Allia called umuni. He knew to stay away from those, for they had the most potent poison in the world. Umuni literally meant "killing lizard." The lack of sleep and that eyeless face dogged him now, made him short-tempered-even for him-but there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. The only thing he could do was wait for the dreams to fade, or make them stop somehow. Ten days had not tempered the abject terror they spawned in him, a nameless dread that couldn't be denied. This dream seemed just as frightening as the first, and it was the same dream, over and over and over again.

He was sleeping in a boulder field, in a tent Sarraya had conjured which was attached to the flat side of one large boulder and staked to the ground everywhere else. The sand between the great rocks was soft and strangely warm, even now, as if there were hot springs beneath the sand to keep the sand comfortable. The irregular outline of the boulders would hide him from the Selani, he knew, and keep the larger reptillian predators from reaching him without giving him enough warning that they were on his scent. It had been ten days since seeing anything large enough to threaten him, but that didn't meant that they weren't out there. If something that weighed more than a riverboat could sneak up on him, he wouldn't assume much of anything about anything.

Laying back down in the warm sand, he put a paw over his face and tried to recover his breath, slow his heart. Why? Why the same dream over and over and over? It just didn't make any sense! And why was he still afraid of it? When it began, he knew absolutely everything that was going to happen next. Why should it still frighten him? And yet it did. Just as strongly now as it had the very first time.

It just didn't make any sense.

Closing his eyes, he tried to think of something else. He remembered Sarraya's lessons from the night before, lessons on how to conjure large things, how to conjure many of one thing. Ten days of lessons also occupied his mind, and they all centered around conjuring. It seemed to be the beginning for Druids, but then again, Sarraya said that she didn't intend to teach him anything else. It certainly seemed to be useful. And it was easy. Like she said, maybe it was too easy. His biggest problem was focusing through the ever-present face, the hauntingly beautiful young girl who had no eyes, whose empty gaze burned him with the searing purity of its accusation. When he could push that memory out of his mind long enough, he could conjure.

It was useless. He was up now, and there would be no going back to sleep. There never was, after the dream. He sat up and sighed, looking over to Sarraya, who slept on a conjured cloth laying on the sand in the corner of the tent. She would be alright for a while. He crawled out of the tent and climbed up onto one of the boulders, looking up into the sky soberly, at the bright stars, the Skybands, at Duva and Kava as they began to set, and Vala as it began to rise. Dommammon had risen before sunset and set about midnight, and by the look of the night sky, it was a few hours until dawn. The gentle wind, carrying its icy bite, was almost devoid of any smell but sand and rock, but there was a hint of salt in the smells reaching him. This wasn't a very populated area. Probably because of a lack of water. The Weave in this region was a bit thicker than it had been in the border of the desert. The strands were larger, more charged, and a minor Conduit existed not far from where he was.