ORIGIN

Warrior was on the move.

It was near night--that pink-flushed hour, still warm, where the light slanted strangely and played tricks on the eyes. He'd found a place with plants, with water, but the plants were still scarce and he was curious, too, about the vast place of sand he'd seen in the distance. It had taken him some time to wind his way down along the Crucible's lip, and now he stood at the edge of the Dunes.

The light, dimming as it was, was not the main problem with vision. The rapidly-cooling air--so searing hot during the day--was forming dust devils and spirals here and there along the towering, shifting banks of sand, tossing enough of it through the air that sight was half-obscured by a glittering haze.

He wondered if anything lay out there: hidden snakes in the sand, or vultures soaring just out of sight in the storm. As he thought it, his magicka reached out, red as sunset, searching.

It was strange; it was as though his sight flickered up, but it wasn't sight at all. It was another sense--magic, though he didn't know it--that gave him strange impressions of red beneath the sand.

Dim red. Quiet red. But large red. They were massive things, some a few feet long but many of them a dozen or more, and broad, lying mostly vertical just beneath the surface.

What are those? he wondered, nervously, staring out at the still and lurking shapes.

As he stood staring out, his previous curiosity gave way to dread. Whatever lay out there, he wanted no part of it.

When the magicka faded, when the shapes vanished, he turned nervously to make his way back--only to find that "back" was very questionable, at best. Everything was stinging sheets of swirling sand, blinding him in the half-light of dusk.

The colt snorted, blinking and squinting against it--and turned, this way and that, searching for a landmark. He found none in the storm, and turned on the spot a few more times before realizing that he could use that magic again. Those long-things were only out in the sand. I just need to go away from them. At least-... I hope they were only out there...

He'd never seen the red of living shapes, before. What if they were everywhere..? Still, he had to try. He shook this thought away with a toss of his head, and stood stock-still, for a moment, focusing.

He felt the magic working, if faintly, and then turned in another circle--and there they were, distant, dim now, but if he concentrated hard enough, he could 'see' them. They lurked ominous and red beneath the sand.

Warrior turned the other way. Sure enough, no strange shapes lingered underground, there--and quickly, worriedly, he hurried back the way he'd come.

The foal wound his way back into the Crucible, but he soon found himself quite lost. Where before, he'd come from the Salt Flats side--where the rivers flowed down into the marsh, bringing with it fresh water and plenty of foliage--this place was high-walled and narrow, a labyrinth of red rock.

He paused, now and then, to rub his face, very lightly, on the stone. The sand grains had stung at his still-healing, scabbed-over wounds, and he felt as though pieces were stuck in them, here and there. His right shoulder, where the Eyehook had raked talons through his flesh just after his hatching, ached from it.

When he'd finished, he lifted his head and looked around, still blinking sand from his eyelashes. Behind him, the storm howled, coarse blasts of sand-filled wind ripping periodically into the mouth of the canyon. But Warrior was hesitant to move on, just yet.

He directed the new magic he'd found toward the ravine ahead, cautious about what might lie beyind the boulders, up along the ledges, in the crevices behind the bushes...

And slowly, like droplets of colored ink blooming in water, he saw.

Tiny creatures--quillmice, he thought, though he'd seen them only two or three times--lay here and there in scrub brush or cracks in the wall.

Two larger creatures--much more distant, but shaped somewhat like him--stalked carefully along a trail. They were out of his physical sight, behind the nearest canyon wall, and he could tell that they were thinner than he, more slender, more lithe.

Things with too many legs--four or five of them, at least--lurked in various crevices, too. He made careful note of their location, having been threatened now by scorpions and a Spire Spider, both.

He didn't have to use his imagination to see one of the silhouettes--what he'd thought was a distant scattering of bones was actually quite alive, and as he blinked and stared in surprise, he realized that it was a hare with markings like those of bones. Before he could admire its camouflage, movement up high caught his attention: myriad Eyehook Vultures, all huddled and still high up on the rims of the canyon above. They were lost to sight beyond the sandstorm, and Warrior felt fright go through him like a dash of icewater. He quickly noted the best direction to take: a path that would avoid the many-legged-things, and give him distance from the flying terrors high above.

With another shake of his head, and with his magicka finally fading, he carefully, quietly, started off.