Noon. The city hot and crowded, stinking of sweat and shit and hot flesh. He huffs, sides heaving, eyes rolling at the thought:
There’s no place like home.
Dune was hauling goods from the docks to some noble’s house. His shoulders sweaty beneath the yoke. Flecked with white salt like seaside cliffs. It was good money. Hard money. Tough & dumb money too. Naturally, his mind began to wander.
Dune always liked to imagine Solterra from above. Take the oasis, the way a bird would see it; pale blue seed with a halo of green, bobbing in a golden sea. The sunlight today would be slick and opalescent, like seen from underwater or through a haze.
Even in hindsight, it isn’t clear when the daydreaming begins. Dreams are like that, fuzzy at the edges. Slippery. In the moment itself, he is oblivious to the shift in reality: one minute he’s thinking of the oasis, plodding along on solid ground, picturing palms swaying in the warm breeze; the next he’s flying over the on massive black wings that gleam emerald-blue in the sun.
He lands on a rocky outcrop and fluffs his feathers. It does not occur to him that he doesn’t have feathers, he’s not a bird, the sun doesn’t really have that grainy, shifting quality. He tilts his head, narrows his sharp vision on the shifting creature in the water. He can’t tell what exactly it is. Sometimes it looks equine, sometimes feline, sometimes just a chaotic, pulsing blur of light, brighter than the sun.
He thinks it might be a woman.
Dune lifts those large black wings, shakes them, makes himself look as big and imposing as he can. “This place is mine.” Oh but it wasn’t, and he didn’t have the slightest idea! This was hers, all hers, and he was just passing through. At least he was not feeling particularly threatened, not yet.
The bird taps his beak on the rocks. One-- two-- three times. Sharp eyes inquisitive but wary. He does not blink. He does not need to blink, here.
The question in the tilt of his head is clear: “Who are you?”
There’s no place like home.
Dune was hauling goods from the docks to some noble’s house. His shoulders sweaty beneath the yoke. Flecked with white salt like seaside cliffs. It was good money. Hard money. Tough & dumb money too. Naturally, his mind began to wander.
Dune always liked to imagine Solterra from above. Take the oasis, the way a bird would see it; pale blue seed with a halo of green, bobbing in a golden sea. The sunlight today would be slick and opalescent, like seen from underwater or through a haze.
Even in hindsight, it isn’t clear when the daydreaming begins. Dreams are like that, fuzzy at the edges. Slippery. In the moment itself, he is oblivious to the shift in reality: one minute he’s thinking of the oasis, plodding along on solid ground, picturing palms swaying in the warm breeze; the next he’s flying over the on massive black wings that gleam emerald-blue in the sun.
He lands on a rocky outcrop and fluffs his feathers. It does not occur to him that he doesn’t have feathers, he’s not a bird, the sun doesn’t really have that grainy, shifting quality. He tilts his head, narrows his sharp vision on the shifting creature in the water. He can’t tell what exactly it is. Sometimes it looks equine, sometimes feline, sometimes just a chaotic, pulsing blur of light, brighter than the sun.
He thinks it might be a woman.
Dune lifts those large black wings, shakes them, makes himself look as big and imposing as he can. “This place is mine.” Oh but it wasn’t, and he didn’t have the slightest idea! This was hers, all hers, and he was just passing through. At least he was not feeling particularly threatened, not yet.
The bird taps his beak on the rocks. One-- two-- three times. Sharp eyes inquisitive but wary. He does not blink. He does not need to blink, here.
The question in the tilt of his head is clear: “Who are you?”
@Warset <3
