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Sandra stirred awake, stretching her wings a bit. ''Is it daylight yet?'' She asked, light blue eyes peering out silently.

"Almost; we should get going though if we don't want to roast under the sun. Actually; we should be travelling at night, but there are too many creatures running around then. Are you awake enough to travel?"

Murat winced as the previous day's fight caught up to him. Striking a sand bird with a lance was not something he would prescribe to anyone. With effort, he managed to mount Jasafar, who then got to his hooves.

Cass stood up carefully. The bruise on her face was worse, blue and blackened from her nose to her ears. She didn't seemed bothered by it, however.

Murat winced at seeing Cassandra's face. "I think we could both use some time to heal up," he murmured, before tapping his heels to Jasafar's sides.

The camel started off, aiming for home. Only three more days...it would feel like an eternity though.

Cass followed with ease, though her left front paw wa injured a bit.

''So how do knights like you survive a desert like this without being slowed by the sand and wildlife?''

Murat quickly tapped the burnoose wrapped around his head. "Burnoose wards off most of the sand and helps keep us cool, and as for wildlife, not much cares to take on a camel trained to fight. Spitting isn't their only weapon; it's just a defense mechanism. Other than that," he shrugged one-sidedly, "it's a matter of knowing and spotting a wild animal before it spots you. It's rather advantageous to be on a camel since we're a bit higher up than if we were on a horse."

He glanced at Cass and noticed her limp. "Did you hurt your leg?"

''The sand bird we killed nipped my paw and broke it clean off.''

"Are you bleeding?" Murat looked down for signs of blood. He'd been so caught up in his own injuries and Cass' bruise, that he hadn't thought to look for more.

He saw that her paw left a constant trail of bloodened sand. ''Just a little bit. Nothing much.''

"That's no good; we'll have every desert predator following us. Come here. Jasafar, tahat."

The camel wanted to balk but grudgingly sank down onto his knees to allow Murat to get off. Murat pulled a length of gauze from his pocket. "At least this way we can keep sand from getting into the wound, and keep predators from following us too easily." He wondered briefly what the sand birds ate...or if blood attracted them.

Cass walked over and sat down, holding up the injured paw.

Murat carefully dampened the gauze with water to get the sand out of Cassandra's paw before binding the gauze around the injury. He finished, securing it in place with a solid knot.

"There, good as new. We have some healers who can fix you up when we get home. You think you can make it that far?" Really, they were a sight, the three of them limping across the desert.

''I think so. I've ran thruogh the sands during those blasted sand storms.''

"You're pretty tough," Murat commented, finally climbing back onto Jas and continuing the trek. "I daresay any of our kind gets wounded and they're down for a week. Camels especially; except for the select few like Jas who carry on regardless of how they might feel."

''Tough, but fragile. Like the desert.''

"Mm, I can understand that." Murat fell silent for a while, when he caught something circling overhead in the sky.

He squinted as he looked up. It was either a sand bird very high up, or it was a hawk. He wasn't sure which and Jas didn't seem to notice.

Cass looked too. ''I think it's a stormbird.''

Murat sighed. "Thank the gods it's not another sand bird. I've had more than my share of those." Not that a stormbird would be much better, but so long as it stayed its course, all would be well.

Suddenly Jasafar flared his nostrils and flicked his ears forward. His gait remained the same, but he had caught wind of something. Something familiar and not entirely a threat.

"What is it Jasafar?" Murat asked, debating whether or not to shade his eyes with his good hand so he could peer into the distance.

''What is it now?''

Jasafar bellowed something into the heat waves before them, making Murat wince at the noise. What he didn't expect was an answering reply from another camel.

He grinned in spite of himself as Jasafar adjusted his course to angle toward the approaching camel and rider.

"I think we just came across a friend," he said to Cassandra.