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Travelling the desert was hunger inducing and boring, and Red was looking for anything – anything at all – to relieve the boredom. So far, no towns yet: just endless sand. She knew that if she kept going, she'd find something, some clue as to her brother's whereabouts – it was that hope that had brought her this far, all the way from Ayr and the lands of the Orderites. She knew she would find something of him here in the desert land.

But so far... nothing. Nothing at all. He hadn't died to the Mara attacks all those years ago, but it was as if he had vanished instead, leaving only the slightest traces of himself behind. Red did not deal in slight traces and subtlety – she needed big things, blatant trails, obvious proof. It was hard to bend her mind around these mere traces... hard, exhausting, but she would do it. She would do it for Vetty. She would see him again.

For now, though, she was just seeing desert - desert, desert, and more desert. She was too bored even to grumble about it – after the hundredth moan of exasperation, even she had realized that complaining wasn't going to make it end any sooner. So, to her companion's probable relief, she had been quiet for the last few blazing, sun-bright miles of desert. Then again, Yirho had probably just been ignoring her all this time – he was good at that.

Suddenly, something moved – something that wasn't sand. “Yirho! Yirho, look!” She said, pointing with far more excitement than she should have. It was something in the expanse of nothing – of course she was excited. Gamely, her companion looked, his ears perking up as he spotted the moving object.

“Is phrey.” he said, touching the spear at his back lightly. He was very thin – whether he was bored or not, it was clear that he was hungry, too. They had plenty of water, thankfully, for the desert, but though the two wild creatures had planned for water, they hadn't realized that the stomach could become equally dry here... or that there would be so few ways to fill it.

“Sure!” Red had no idea what it was, but at this point, she would eat it – to fill her stomach and break her boredom. “Lets go look!” They stalked closer, creeping along in a crouch like the predatory hunter beasts that they were. Suddenly, Yirho pounced, throwing his spear. It stuck in the sand, quivering, a small body skewered on the edge of the blade.

“Whoa, nice!” Red commented, scuttling forward to investigate, “Hey, it's a magbit!” She took out the spear and handed it back to Yirho, investigating the carcass, “These things have good meat on 'em!” she slung it over her shoulder, looking around her with renewed interest in her surroundings. “I think their fur's got magical properties? I dunno. They have nice pelts, don't they?” she stroked the beast's fur, “Here.” she held it out to Yirho, “Feel it.”

He did so and nodded. “Ikun nhai.” he said. Red took that as agreement.

“Bet there's more around – we'll eat well for days, right? And we'll have stuff to trade in the next town for, uh, stuff.” That was about as far as Red planned ahead, honestly – she had no idea what she would get if they found traders or (bleh) civilization but the people here would have something she needed, and she would have something she wanted. That was enough plan for her. “Lets set some traps...”

They had the basic materials for a snare or two, and could innovate the rest from the plant and animal refuse hidden in the sands. Dry branches and barren bones made for good anchors, and some quiet scouting let her know that there were burrows around. Red and Yirho set their traps and then hid, waiting eagerly for dinner to approach.

The waiting was different, of course, from the long walk through the desert – it was the stalking of prey, an exercise in patience that would, if all went well, be rewarded. A blanket shaded them from the sun and hid their scent from their prey. And they waited.

Red knew the burrows were inhabited – Magbit lived in groups, so where there was one there would be more. But when nothing stirred for what felt like forever, she started to wonder. A few more interminably hot moments, and she started to give up. She was about to suggest to Yirho that they cut their losses and move on, when, suddenly, there was movement.

“Hoo – look at that one, Yirho!” Red whispered, pointing at the magbit as they made themselves visible in the blistering daylight. “It's a big one!” it certainly was – it almost dwarfed the one they had caught. More meat was a good thing, and Red wanted to catch it... oh did she. “Ya think it will end up in one of the traps...?” she said. Yirho put a finger to his bucktoothed lips – the universal sign of silence. Red nodded – right. Hunting required silence. They would see soon enough, right? She practically held her breath as it hopped out of it's burrow with aggravating slowness. Couldn't it go faster? Couldn't it entrap itself now? But these things couldn't be rushed, no matter how much she wanted to do so.

Finally, it's foot caught in the noose of their snare. “Woo!” she said, a cheer exploding from her. It earned her an annoyed look from her companion. “Sorry, Yirho!” she said, standing and running forward, axe ready, “That took forever!” The Darvithri shook his head as he watched her. The beast put up a fight, summoning searing magic to it's aid, but Red managed to finish it off, burns and all. “Woo – that was fun!” she said, wiping a blood smear along her face. She held up the carcass and turned to Yirho happily... and then stopped.

“Hey, Yir...” she said slowly, an odd look coming over her face. “Turn around... real slow.”

Yirho blinked. “Ner'vah?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Turn around.” she gestured, twirling her free hand, “Slowly.”

Yirho did so, giving her an odd look... and then a squeak of understanding. A small group of Magbits faced them, sparking and flaring with angry magic. They had seen what these predators had done, and they would drive them off or destroy them.

“Oops.” Red said, reaching for her throwing axe, “Guess we were trapped in the end, huh!” her grin was very, very wide.

~~~~~

Fighting the magbits had been exhausting, and by the end of it, the relief of twilight was falling over the land. Cool night air – brushed over scorched and sweating skin. Red gasped in pleasure at the sensation. “Well there, we've got ourselves dinner, huh.” she said, sitting back to back with Yirho. And so they did – quite a bit worth, exactly what she had hoped for. And she was hungry... but she was too exhausted to make a fire, and too tired to try to tear into the raw, still warm meat. She took a long swig from her canteen, the water quenching her parched throat. It tasted salty and bitter, greasy with her saliva and grainy with sand particles that had somehow made their mealy way into her mouth, as they did everywhere. But it was good. “Ahh...” she said, leaning back. She heard Yirho swallow his own water. “Not that we gotta have dinner right now, right?” she said, closing her eyes in the inky darkness, “We can have it later.”

They, essentially, camped there, though neither one bothered to make a tent or anything like a camp. By the time they had the strength to feed, it was near dawn. In the blossoming light, she could see a silhouette up ahead – a settlement or town. They could make it there within the day, and they could make themselves a better meal than what they could have camping in the rough desert. So, after devouring a good portion of their trail rations, the two continued onwards into the desert.

Red almost expected the shape in the distance to be a mirage, but she soon found otherwise – there, before her, was a town. A dusty town, to be sure, but a fragment of rough civilization in the unforgiving waste, and it was just rough enough for her to appreciate it. “C'mon Yir.” she said, moving faster as they approached.

There were warriors patrolling the town, and they gave the dovaa and the darv odd looks, but Red's wild tribe insignia – and promise of trade – bought them passage. Red had learned the ways of civilization in her travels, enough to have a plan for how to get what she wanted out of it. Magbit meat was butchered, cooked, and traded for a meal, supplies, boarding, and other goods she wanted. She also traded the pelts, keeping for herself a few tufts of the fur, as she had heard that it could be useful in an enchantment. Lightning, she thought. She would, she knew, definitely be interested in such an enchantment at some point – she could just imagine, her axes glowing with lightning, striking an enemy with the force of a storm... it sounded really neat.

In Tukyere, she was told when she asked around, there was someone who could make such enchantments – she resolved to check that out when she got there. After all, it was her destination...


~~~~

“I hope we find him there.” she said to Yirho in the weatherworn old building that the dusty little town called an inn. She lay on a bed – a bed of all things – staring at the candlelight that lit the room. “Tukyere... thats where Jonik said she saw him.” Yirho twitched an ear, listening vaguely as he rested on a blanket on the floor. In Taliuma, they had spoken to a wild tribesman named Jonik, a once-friend of Vetertov's, and perhaps current friend. Though, Jonik thought he was dead, just like the rest of them. Red had been looking for a lead, any lead, and that had been the only one she had managed to catch in all her searching: Jonik had seen someone like him in Tukyere. There was no guarantee that it was her brother, but Red knew, in her heart, that he was alive. And someone 'like' him was a start. “If not... I guess... the expanse?” They had come from the terra expanse, had wandered Eowyn searching for Vetertov, but there was still that forested land on the other side of the mountains, a place home to wild tribemen and beasts – the kind of place her brother would be. “We'll find him.” she said, “We will.” she said.