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The breeze carries dust to get caught in her lashes, making her vision blur as she tries to focus on what's in front of her. Her tongue lays thick and heavy in her mouth and her throat feels like sandpaper and she isn't sure anymore if the sound in her ears is the wind circling through her legs or the blood rushing to her head.
After leaving Aed, she thought it'd be easy for her to find shelter again, but Mantis was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and money in her pocket and while she surely was used to climbing her way to the top, she wasn't used to digging at the bottom. Her hooves dig deeper into the sand underneath them. She did not know a single face she had encountered in the past few days and knew the desert that laid in front of her eyes even less. Was this supposed to be her new home? Rugged land and dry hills of nothing but dirt? Mantis was used to grand palaces, courtrooms and golden thrones. Before regret made itself home in her hallow bones, she swallows the feeling down and clenches her jaw.
Tough luck.
She catches a glimpse of grey behind one of the many dunes that looks exactly like the thousands she saw before this one. She has not seen anything other than the striking blue of the sky and the biting yellow of the desert in what feels like ages, so her vision focuses on the flash of color, heading towards it even when her legs protest.
The change in scenery is sudden. Hills of wilderness turn into lush green of trees and deep blue of water. An Oasis stands before her eyes, water making its way between plateaus of stones, plant life growing in it's cracks - Mantis huffs, maybe out of annoyance that she hadn't turned her head this way sooner, but definitely out of relief. The blood in her veins thrums as she nears the water, her breath creating ripples on it's surface.
She relishes in the way the dread that clawed at her heart loosened it's grip. It was only temporary, so much she knew, but it reminded her that there was more to come. She would not suffer.
She'd make sure.
@Raymond - ohhh boy my first post in like a year im sorry LOL
