Light shone down at the icy sand dunes surrounding a boy in a brown overcoat. Daylight glistened and evaporated the ice layered over the sand, all originated from one broken glass bottle.
"Ahh! Huhh…," his voice quaked under the pressure he had pent up for long. His arms raised to touch the sky, but they felt short of the descent they were witness of. Every muscle and bone creaked to let go his hidden freedom from under his skin.
"I! Am! Free!" He shouted over the dunes. Feeling every syllable and breath that he took and let go since the descent.
He shook his crystal boots free of the sand it had stuck into. His eyes glanced around. No beasts or animals in sight, no signs of any life or civilization. A pure sand desert, this was his chosen start after his revenge of Beret.
Rather than bringing his arms down after reaching for the sky once again with them, he whisked them about, rotating them. He felt for how much energy he has. Calculating his odds of survival against the desert he has no knowledge of more than what he learned from the scriptures.
"I guess the scriptures will be of some use here, unlike the grassland of the south." He grabbed on the back of his neck with his right, and spun his head around slowly. 'I need to get something that I could eat.' A thought ran in his mind, as he went about twisting his waist too to feel his muscles.
And thus at last he began a walk. The direction was chosen randomly, for his current goal he set to find either a shade or some beast.
"Shade is easy to find. Any high enough sand dune will be enough." The wanderer began voicing his thoughts. 'Can't allow myself become mute once more.' Many thoughts were in his mind before his advance on Rigac's castle, but here in the desert he chose to hear them as they come.
Valuing his sanity over someone listening in, he mellowed out a tune from Beret. A slow rising song, one for all who ever walked in the streets of Beret.
"Hmm. Mmm. Hmm. Na. Na, na. Na."
A step followed a step.
"Hmm. Mmm. Hmm. Ta. Ta,ta. Ta."
His left arm paralleled in advancing to his right leg.
"Oh. Ho. Oh. Ho. Ra. Ra, ra. Ra."
And a clap pepped in. The wanderer's mood felt uplifting. His mind had attempted to remind him of every knight he took the life of. The song cut that thought through.
"Oh. Ho. Oh. Ho. Ma. Ma, ma. Ma."
The tune was a slow one. It slightly caught the wind's attention. For the wind flowed differently, from its dance to drag the wanderer back to the mountains he skipped over to start flowing along him unknown of its destination. Same as the boy who sang a tune.
"Hmm. Mmm. Hmm. Ka. Ka, ka. Ka."
His day had begun in an explosion and followed a tune of deaths and screams, to now be a filled with hollows of desert winds and his tune of an ancient melody.
His crystal boots scraped the grainy sand for its every surface that touched it. A shade fell over him from behind. The boy glanced back at the source of the shade.
"Not high enough," he quoted to the dune that casted it.
His search stayed as he kept singing the same tune, changing the last syllable with the next symbol in the writing script. The song's maker made its starting stanza long enough that everyone who sang it and knew it could speak the language it was made in. Thereby the song's only requirement was listening to it enough times that you could replicate it.
Turning around, he continued walking away from the spot he landed upon. The ice melted away vaporizing there. His footprints wiped clean off the surface by the winds.
The night fell soon after in a blink. His song had ended and started again thrice in the meanwhile.
Boy still didn't stop for the night was the important time to mark where he would head. He gazed up at the stars to know of his direction better in an unmarked place as the desert.
Every star was a wonder in the empty sky of the desert. He had been close to them half a day ago, yet they were as marvelous whether closer or afar.
"So, I have been heading south-east." He deduced from the positions of the constellations he had read up on. "That way I'll end up having to face the entire desert. Nope, turning back."
And thus the boy turned back. He had chosen a few directions as his answer. He knew that east of the desert only lies the ocean but so does most of the desert. It was clear to him since during descent he had tried to land as close to the greener patches than the center of the desert. Yet, here he was. Wind had played with him in the sky, and thus he had followed against its hints in the start.
Remembering the shape and colors of each area of Ashtrim the continent, he recalled that he had may have landed west of the centre of the desert. Yet, when he looked around none of the brown, black or white tops of any mountain chains were visible.
It proved how big the desert was. 'A wonder of sand and vastness indeed.' A thought made its space in between his song rallying thoughts.
As he did turn, a sliver of dark moved against the backdrop of the night sky. Catching it against the stars and the dark is near impossibility, but so was his journey over the mountain chain. The boy did not glance again in the direction where the sliver of dark went to, but he took notice.
Clamping on his overcoat with his left hand, he shook it free. His right went under its fold to bring out his custom made rope, the same one he uses as a sling. The rope's recent victims did not die from its use as a sling as much as its use to make it into a rope mace or a whip.
He drew a small vial along with it. Drinking it down, he tucked it under one of his sleeves nesting it securely.
The boy kept his pace straight. He crossed the entire length of his recent journey again.
"Huh, no harm yet." Quoting it out, the boy hoped whomsoever was trailing him would choose to attack him soon. He wanted his hunger to be satiated early on.
Sand dunes went past while the boy travelled following the directions of the stars. He knew many, so he started reciting them one by one.
"That cluster with three shinier dots is Ronet Constellation." He pointed with his right to the top left patch in his eyesight.
Pointing next down by a hand's length, "that right there is Ghrin. A star of the west, and name to be remembered by all."
His words held gravel of its own, while the wind whistled the sand to its new location. Nothing much moved other than the boy and the wind.
Another sliver of dark drifted in his peripheral. "A game, huh?" The boy quipped to his suspected listeners.
His finger moved sideways pointing to a different cluster of stars, "that cluster of stars is also known as game of lights, or better called as Yezit of Rhikna constellation."
Shrieking wind huddled him. He liked the wind picking its speed, but once again the wind couldn't move the flaps of the brown overcoat.
"Ah. Come on, wind! You can do it!" He felt light against the brush of wind.
In his left he clutched tightly on the rope. His eyes trained time to time to the borders of his vision. Every single time no sliver of dark suddenly moved, every patch of the night sky or the shade of the dunes stayed as it did ever before.
His crystal boots landed with quick steps.
Anxious.
The boy gained his speed. A thought ran in his mind, 'if something is trailing me and haven't attacked yet. So it either wants me to rest to attack or exhaust myself.'
This conclusion based in deep experience he knew and had delivered to others. 'I need to stay awake till dayrise happens. And then, its bait time.' He came up with a simple plan.
He submerged the plan in several more thoughts on the names of the constellations as he at odd intervals voiced them out. Always making sure he wasn't in total silence for a long while.
Any shrieks he heard always turned out to be one made by wind and sand. He had glanced to one of such a few minutes ago.
Yet, no sliver of dark moved in any direction.
'What was it?' His mind wandered ever more to the implications of those movements he had seen earlier.