Forums » General Roleplay » Sandy travels (open)

''Well, that one looks killer!''

Murat didn't disagree. "Well, either way it's lunch now." He speared it with his scimitar and then dragged it over to the hot sand where he'd been baking the rest of his fish.

Jasafar came over to investigate and Murat was pleased to note that the camel wasn't favoring his hind leg.

"Maybe we should make our way to the tribe we just saved from the sand bird," he murmured.

''But I don't see the tribe, do you?''

He looked around, taking a full circle to make sure, and then groaned. "You've got to be kidding me! All that and the tribe still got buried?"

Jasafar 'braaah'-ed and nudged Murat's injured arm with his oblong head, making the man yelp.

"No, Jasafar, no!" But the camel was crouching down and looking at him expectantly. "Wha--oh. You want me to ride?" He glanced at the bandaging on the camel's hindquarters but it seemed fine. "Alright, fine..." Somehow he managed to get into the saddle and then winced as Jasafar stood up once more.

Sure enough though, even from this vantage point, there was no tribe. "You're right; it's nowhere to be seen."

''I bet they couldn't fight the demon off. The bird musta buried the tribe before help could arrive. I can't see anything for miles aside from that giant hawk made of stormclouds.''

He was silent for a moment, head bowed. "I need to head back to my tribe then. If there are more sand birds, then the entire desert is at risk. And if only we can destroy them..."

He tapped Jasafar's side with his heels. "You're welcome to come with me, Cassandra. You might actually find yourself at home in my tribe. We welcome cats of all sizes."

''Where is your tribe? Are they scared of sand felines?'' She asked curiously.

Murat flashed a smile. "Quite the opposite actually; our patron founder was said to have a sand lioness as her guide. We're several days' ride, as the camel runs, from my home. If we make decent time, we should arrive within four days."

He adjusted a few straps and settled a few things on Jasafar's saddle before tapping his heels once more and then gritting his teeth as Jasafar set off at a trot.

Sandra follows with ease, though her wings were bruisd up from being hit. ''A real sand lioness like me?'' She asked, looking excited.

"Well, I'm not exactly sure. There are some carvings and engravings, but they're a bit, er, sketchy. Many people thought it was just a lion, but after seeing you, I'm thinking it might be a sand lioness. Or a lion."

''Males of my kind have smaller wings and a mane. Females have bigger wings since they have to hunt more.''

Murat grimaced and drew Jasafar back to a walk; he couldn't take the banging of his injured arm against his chest--tied as it was in a sling.

"Is that right?" He murmured. "I wonder then if it wasn't a sand lion. Would there be any reason one of your kind might attach themselves to a human?"

''Well, if my ind got lonely enough they took to being a guardian of the person they met and would risk their life to keep to being a protector.'' She said, smiling lightly.

Murat fell silent. "So if you were in a pride--I guess that's what you'd call it--you wouldn't necessarily seek out humans? Or would you just run or hide?"

''We only took to following humans after the sand storms seperated the groups from their kids. We has little to do to try to find eachother so we had to find someone to lead us home. Though often in that process we ended yp befriending the humans and never finding out family afterwards. Tragic, but it's just our way of life. Even if we died we tried to stay close to our closest persons before becoming a sand statue.''

Murat, had he been walking instead of riding, would have stopped short; as it was, his jaw merely dropped and he gave a start that made Jasafar turn to see what he was looking at.

"A sand statue?" He didn't even have to think about it; for he knew that right outside the walls of his city was a sand statue of a cat--or a lion, the locals called it. "They can do that?"

''Yes. The sand in out bodiesc quickly turns us to a sand statue so we exist, but dead. We might go on the afterlife, but our body stays as a testament of our time and legacy. Sand lions were few to be born in a desert, with bird wings. We were called guardians of the desert, even though we stayed hidden until our ancestors found human life. Able to cross the sands with ease and pretty hardy even without drinking water. Yet our lifespan has shortened, seeing as our kind is slowly vanushing into statues..''

"I'm sorry to hear that," Murat murmured. "If you--no, when you find your kind, you're more than welcome to return here, er, to my city--if you'd like."

He looked past Jasafar's head and sighed. All he saw was sand. They wouldn't see much more for the next three days, and his arm was hurting. To take his mind off it, he asked another question.

"Can you decide when to turn into a statue? Or does it just happen?"

''It just happens.''

"I see." He wondered what the founder of his city would think, when he arrived with a sand lioness trailing behind him. He hoped he arrived anyway; he certainly wasn't doing a very good job at staying in one piece.

"Well at this rate...it might take us a while." He reached for his water skin and sloshed it around. If he was careful, he might be able to ration what he had without needing to hunt. Not that he could with his arm the way it was.