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For Jajara.It hung as a star did but it was bloated, swollen, wrong. Life moved on as well as it could: what else was there to do? Were they to stop the sands would swallow them whole, and no one would remember a caravan of ghosts. They slept with the sun and lived by the stars, but what could one do when the stars were interrupted?
Jajara tried not to look. The navigators would work it out as they always did with or without her questions. Jajara and the others huddled in their rooms as Great Berimu himself swayed and trudged through the sands, indifferent and strong as stone. Except there was something different, and everyone could tell. They lived their lives upon his broad back, slept and dreamed as the beast bearing the name of an entire legacy of dunesfolk marched on as he had for years (ages?). It was not of their clan to fear anything, but when the stars were interrupted...
Sasasori was the first to stir. The single latern that lit their shared room was not even bright enough to read by but she caught his expression clear as day. His eyes were a deep and rich blue like the sea few ever saw: the first and most prodigious sign that he was unique among his siblings, gifted with the aether that was ever lacking in his line. His eyes, blue and vast, were wide.
"Ja," he said with a clarity and firmness better suited for a boy years beyond his age, "Ja, I don't think papa's alright."
That was when everything trembled. The steady shifts and rumbles of the dunebeast were familiar to them but not the odd, slow keening that started to grow like an alarm from deep within its body. Everything lurched and Jajara could not tell which way things were moving. The lantern shook and tumbled from its hook and shattered in a flare of candlelight and one of the last things she could see was Sasasori reaching for the thick curtain that hid the sky from view, indifferent to the small cuts on his face that had already begun to bleed.
The sky was torn open for them to see but she could see no stars for the clouds blossoming from the north like great, long hands. That's odd, she thought as she tumbled across the floor and struck one of the supports smartly, Those don't look like clouds, not no clouds I ever seen before.Â
Then, That's odd. Are they comin' this way?
Jajara tried not to look. The navigators would work it out as they always did with or without her questions. Jajara and the others huddled in their rooms as Great Berimu himself swayed and trudged through the sands, indifferent and strong as stone. Except there was something different, and everyone could tell. They lived their lives upon his broad back, slept and dreamed as the beast bearing the name of an entire legacy of dunesfolk marched on as he had for years (ages?). It was not of their clan to fear anything, but when the stars were interrupted...
Sasasori was the first to stir. The single latern that lit their shared room was not even bright enough to read by but she caught his expression clear as day. His eyes were a deep and rich blue like the sea few ever saw: the first and most prodigious sign that he was unique among his siblings, gifted with the aether that was ever lacking in his line. His eyes, blue and vast, were wide.
"Ja," he said with a clarity and firmness better suited for a boy years beyond his age, "Ja, I don't think papa's alright."
That was when everything trembled. The steady shifts and rumbles of the dunebeast were familiar to them but not the odd, slow keening that started to grow like an alarm from deep within its body. Everything lurched and Jajara could not tell which way things were moving. The lantern shook and tumbled from its hook and shattered in a flare of candlelight and one of the last things she could see was Sasasori reaching for the thick curtain that hid the sky from view, indifferent to the small cuts on his face that had already begun to bleed.
The sky was torn open for them to see but she could see no stars for the clouds blossoming from the north like great, long hands. That's odd, she thought as she tumbled across the floor and struck one of the supports smartly, Those don't look like clouds, not no clouds I ever seen before.Â
Then, That's odd. Are they comin' this way?