He is a mirage in the heat, a flame flickering on the horizon. The wind scrapes across his skin like sandpaper and stings his eyes. He stumbles across something in the sand--a skull long since devoured by beetles and bleached by the sun. Even the smell of death is gone.
Poor bastard.
Probably got caught trying to steal water from the Oasis. He wishes it wasn't a common sight these days but wishing couldn't change the reality they had been living--no--surviving in during the regime of Raum. He gives the skull little more than a tired, grim glance and continues down the beaten path to the pool of water.
Avdotya lingers at the water's rippling edge, her form shimmering like obsidian in the hot noon sun.
"Thought I'd find you here," he says as he joins her. He drinks deeply, enjoying the silence and the peaceful serenity that the Oasis now offers. No guards. No clamoring, rioting exiles (well, little more than bags of skin and bone) begging and pleading for a drop of water, only to be turned roughly away or worse should they have chosen to ignore the first warning.
He stares at his own reflection as water beads and moistens his cracked lips. He counts every droplet. More precious than pearls in the past days. He peers closer and frowns. His own hips jut sharply beneath his scarred hide, like ridges of a canyon rather than the strong, smooth slope they should be and the plains of his face hold a certain gauntness and his eyes sit hollowly and dully. And we were the lucky ones, he thinks. He had not been so lucky when Zolin reigned. The scars that lace his ankles tingle.
It's over now. But how long will it take for these new and recent scars on Solterran hisotry to fade? He thinks of the skull half-buried where already the sand and sun and wind are erasing the last physical remnants of Solterra's latest chapter. He glances at Avdotya. "Long live the king."
Poor bastard.
Probably got caught trying to steal water from the Oasis. He wishes it wasn't a common sight these days but wishing couldn't change the reality they had been living--no--surviving in during the regime of Raum. He gives the skull little more than a tired, grim glance and continues down the beaten path to the pool of water.
Avdotya lingers at the water's rippling edge, her form shimmering like obsidian in the hot noon sun.
"Thought I'd find you here," he says as he joins her. He drinks deeply, enjoying the silence and the peaceful serenity that the Oasis now offers. No guards. No clamoring, rioting exiles (well, little more than bags of skin and bone) begging and pleading for a drop of water, only to be turned roughly away or worse should they have chosen to ignore the first warning.
He stares at his own reflection as water beads and moistens his cracked lips. He counts every droplet. More precious than pearls in the past days. He peers closer and frowns. His own hips jut sharply beneath his scarred hide, like ridges of a canyon rather than the strong, smooth slope they should be and the plains of his face hold a certain gauntness and his eyes sit hollowly and dully. And we were the lucky ones, he thinks. He had not been so lucky when Zolin reigned. The scars that lace his ankles tingle.
It's over now. But how long will it take for these new and recent scars on Solterran hisotry to fade? He thinks of the skull half-buried where already the sand and sun and wind are erasing the last physical remnants of Solterra's latest chapter. He glances at Avdotya. "Long live the king."
@AVDOTYA
welp this is shite, sry, send help
