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Sahraet felt his body press against her again, a gesture that might have once belonged to a prince, but now bore the weight of a creature near collapse. The heat had humbled him, the thirst had stripped him, and still, he thought to guide her. Amusing; endearing, even, a child playing king in a kingdom of dust. The wind caught the edges of her sun-draped form, scattering golden grains from her pelt like threads of woven firelight. Golden gaze, lined in ancient knowing, flicked down toward him, then out toward the dunes. Always shifting, always misleading. And yet… he had chosen her as his constant.
„Careful, little mountain. Push too hard, and the desert might think you forgot who leads.” With a languid flick of her tail across his muzzle, she turned, swift and elegant, as though the sands themselves awaited her steps before shifting. But as she crested the next dune, the mirage of smooth passage dissolved.
A gust of wind, sharp as a knife’s whisper, peeled through the valley ahead. The dunes below trembled, and then, as if struck by some unseen will, began to collapse inward, a great, sloping swell of sand tumbling down like a dying wave. A sinkhole, wide and sudden, opening its hungry mouth where once had been a promising route.
Sahraet stopped at the ridge’s edge, eyes narrowing. Her muscles tensed beneath her sun-draped coat, alert and poised, a predator weighing paths through danger. She did not flinch at the void that opened before them; she only watched it form, with the cool interest of one long acquainted with the desert’s cruelty. „Hm,” she hummed, almost to herself, „Seems even the sand wants to keep you for itself.” The siren cast a glance back over her shoulder; not out of concern, but to study the northman’s face. To see if he still followed, now that the path forward had teeth. Let’s see if you can do so without being swallowed.