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The sun crawls slowly here, Mantis notices.
No matter where you go, it always seems to burn bright above you, sweltering flares making your head throb and skin warm. So when it finally turns dark and the sun dips the dunes at the horizon in a beautiful orange, Mantis is relieved. Her muscles are stiff from the day she spent traveling and she's glad to catch her breath for a while, staring at the sunset. She stretches her neck. A bone pops and blood rushes to her poll. It thankfully doesn't start pounding.
She hadn't anticipated this long of a journey. When she left Aed, she was hoping for shelter at Maxir maybe, but working as Envoy had made her realize how easy the people of Aed were to manipulate. Other folks listened between the lines more, watched more closely, caught onto things quicker. It had made her a little uncomfortable, back then, not being able to sit straight and stare, but she's adaptable and makes herself fit in. Sometimes it makes her question if it was her own personality, the mind in her that controlled her doings.
She shakes her head. No time for such thoughts.
She turns to look at the building in front of her. It's built out of yellow stone, worn with age and wind, and Mantis is a little surprised it's still standing with how the walls are cracked in some places. Back home, if a palace started cracking, they'd just tear it down and build a new one. Mantis decides she shouldn't think about Aed that much. This place was different. Maybe a bad kind of different, but at least something new. She'd give it a try.
With evening falling upon the desert, she notices shadows starting to creep out of their holes, their bowed low silhouettes scurrying around the horizon. Mantis despises the scoundrels and thieves that come out at night. She should probably find shelter. She just doesn't know who this building belongs to and isn't to keen on finding out, either.
So she stands. Waits for opportunities to come. It usually never takes too long.
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