V S M A wanderer in the sands

Ridley

The Reigning Wyrm
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Sanjit Amari scratched gently at the side of his Chocobo’s head, trying to ignore the desert heat that baked the uncomfortable pair in the exposed desert. He was a scout for the small village of Ramsajan, a patrolman in charge of making sure the borders of the small desert town stayed exactly where they were, and watching for any desert raiders that might find their way to his hidden community.

The young scout jumped from his horse, and adjusted his Shemagh as he slowly knelt down. The smooth surface of the desert sand was marred by a worryingly consistent set of imprints, two by two, creating a line that stretched through the desert.

Sanjit swore and pulled a scavenged SKS Type-56 from his back with shaking hands, instantly pointing it forward as he followed the tracks on foot, his mount silently following behind. The wind was relatively calm in this area, but even so, any tracks that survived the endless sweeping of the winds had to be recent!

It took five minutes to find the source of the tracks, with the young arab pausing at every sound or sign of movement with gun in hand. The tracks only grew more clear, more fresh, as he rushed past making his own trail through the desert wastes.

Sanjit’s shoulders wound themselves more and more taut as he held the rifle with a grip like death. He’d trained with the old weapon, occasionally helping to hunt what little game the desert provided, but he’d never been forced to actually consider using it on a human being before now! The thought seemed to make the carbine so much heavier, and Amari bit his lip as he strode through the desert sands.

“Shoulda missed my damn shift…” the young scout muttered, putting a hand up to shield the sun from his eyes.

His brief lapse in vision cost the scout, though, as his boot fell onto what should have been soft desert grains and instead found only heated air. A string of curses accompanied a fall down a surprisingly old dune as his Chocobo screeched in surprise, stumbling back.

The scout caught himself on one hand, desperately scrambling to get back up for a few moments before he collected his wits enough to stand up straight.

In front of him was the quarry he was looking for.

He was pale, that much was certain, as though he had never been in the sun at all. The only evidence on his body that he’d even been in the desert longer than five minutes were the loose piles of sand that covered his unmoving frame, as Mesa Roja made it’s claim upon the body of the stranger, seeking to add it to it’s arid whole. There was a certain regal air to his countenance, even unconscious, and for some reason, Sanjit found himself oddly… calm, looking over the man.

He wasn’t wearing desert-appropriate clothing in the slightest. A black button-up shirt with matching jeans and belt. How he’d managed to survive this long in the desert heat was a minor miracle unto itself. The fact that his chest still moved in rhythm with his breathing was nothing short of a miracle.

Sanjit adjusted his goggles, shook the sand from his jacket, and placed a shaky hand on the man’s wrist, looking to check his pulse.

As soon as he felt his fingers brush against the man’s pale skin, however, A bone-crushing grip pulled him down. Sanjit cried out in surprise as the Pale man’s eyes opened, now face to face with the young scout.

“You…” The pale man choked out with a rasping voice. “You are… the one.”

Just as the man’s grip grew so strong that Sanjit felt like his arm would break, though, the strength suddenly subsided, and the speaker fell to the ground once more. After a moment of silence, collecting his thoughts, the village scout sighed. The man was strange, and potentially dangerous, going off that last exchange, but leaving him here would be tantamount to dying.

Curiously, his Chocobo hopped over with chirps and tweets of interest, staring at the downed man. “What is it, Adila?” Sanjit asked, with suspicion.


Then, surprisingly, his steadfast mount kneeled down and, in a show of affection only Sanjit had ever gotten from the often grumpy bird, she brushed her face against the Pale man’s, showing affection.

Sanjit shook his head in disbelief. The mysteries around this wanderer seemed to be multiplying by the second, but Sanjit knew his curiosity would forever keep him up if he didn’t do his best to save him.

With a quick check of his compass, and a cursory look around, Sanjit knew his village had to be within 10 miles. If the man hadn’t changed to a corpse by the time Adila hauled him home, with Sanjit in two, then he’d do his best to make sure the man recovered enough to tell him just what his story really was.
 
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