This is a story about the sand. This is a story about a person who was born as a girl in a village near a far-off desert.
The girl’s father ripped her away from her mother on the very night she was born, left the torn-off vessels of her mother’s heart to drain away to nothing but shrieking sorrow. In the night, the father took his daughter and he rode with her away from the village, out into the desert, out and out and out, as far as the horizon and a good ways beyond, until at last it was the afternoon of the next day and he decided that he’d taken her far enough. He got down from his horse and he placed the girl in the sand, in the shadow of a tall dune— he had just this much mercy in him, at least, and enough mercy too to have wrapped her in a blanket as well, in case she somehow managed to survive into the next freezing night. She was here to die where no one would see her, not to suffer.
The man got back onto his horse, and rode back to his village, and the girl sat alone in the sand.
The Sun burned harsh above, and while His rays did not burn the girl who had been left below Him, His divine eyes could see her well enough in that shadow. He gave a half-minded huff, and paid her no further mind. Her fate was her own. He would have nothing to do with it. He didn’t want a daughter any more than that man had. He had no use for a daughter. So even as the day went on and He shifted across the sky, even as the shadow of the dune trickled away and the newborn girl was left directly in His light, He did not lessen His shine upon her. He did not take mercy. It was enough for Him that He had not brightened, either. He would have nothing to do with this.
As it happened, though, even as He finally set below the horizon, the girl had not been abandoned by Fate. The Sun had forsaken her, surely enough, but there had been other eyes upon her during the day, and they had been kinder. In the afternoon, a small scorpion had been coming along the dune when it had spotted her, and it had come to examine her, and found her to be charming. It had been delighted by her big round eyes, brown like the richest soil. It had admired the softness of the skin compared to its own rough shell and chitinous legs, and had laughed along with her as those legs had tickled that skin, sent her giggling and giggling as it had scurried back and forth across her arms and face. It hadn’t minded at all when she had grabbed at it, pinching its body between her grubby little fingers, or knocking on its head with her palm. It was a sturdy thing, and it had only been extra careful with itself, to make sure that the girl would not be accidentally stung.
Soon enough, though, it had gone scurrying off again, and again, the girl had been left all alone on the sand, except this time she was crying. Being taken from her mother had confused her. Being left by her father had disappointed her. But watching the tiny scorpion scuttling away over the top of the dune, out of sight, without so much as a glance back at her, that had well and truly broken her heart. She cried and she cried and she cried, even as the Sun’s harsh fury dried away her tears the moment they met the air, even as she ran out of tears inside of herself to cry— even as she began to run out of any sort of water inside of herself. Her mouth became dry, and so did her nostrils. Even her eyes began to dry, and her throat— before too long, not only couldn’t she cry, she couldn’t make any sort of noise at all more than just a cough, or a weak, dusty gurgle.
Her skin was burned red and peeling, flaking, bleeding with terrible sunsores. She was in misery, in agony. The baby was going to die, and she knew that. She had never learned of death, she had never been told of it, she had never even learned any words to be told of it in, but she was going to learn death in the only way anyone can ever really know it. There are no other ways, there are only puzzles and outlines. She could feel herself dying.
She was burned and dry, but it was going to be the cold of the coming night that would kill her. The blanket her father had left her was a gesture, nothing more— it was as good as a puzzle or an outline for such a tiny body against the sheer cold of the desert night. An abysmal end to things.
But as the Sun finally sank away, and the New Moon rose that night over the sand, the chthonic Void-Light Goddess of so far below who would surely take the girl away forever into Her embrace before the Sun returned again, there was a chittering sound. A clicking and a clacking and a scurrying, across the dunes. Something was coming. Hundreds of somethings were coming towards the girl. Thousands. Her young eyes could only barely make them out in the darkness. There was nothing but a few dozen stars worth of light to see them by— but even so, she was able to immediately realize what they were, and she clapped her tiny sun-chapped hands with glee, despite the pain of it. Scorpions. Hundreds, thousands of scorpions all coming together towards her, feet shuffling along the near-black crests of the dunes, stinger-tipped tails bobbing through the air. They swarmed to her, around her— they swarmed atop her, and as well they swarmed beneath her, cautiously burrowing under her body, taking special care not to sting her— and when enough of them had come beneath her, they all lifted together, and all together they went scurrying back the way they’d come, carrying the girl along with them.
Where they took her was a great cave in some rocks less than half a mile away, and by the time they arrived there, there was already a warm orange light glowing within. The scorpions gently placed down the girl beside the fire that their father had made with his strange magic— close enough to be saved from freezing, but far enough that the heat would not cause her Sunburnt body any further pain.
Immediately, all the scorpions dispersed again to fetch more things— some went to gather water upon dry leaves from the oasis and bring it back to the girl so that she could drink, while others went to sting larger animals and bring back their bodies to the cave for their father to carve with his pincers and cook over his fire and feed to his new daughter. She would not like it at first. But she would come to love it. As the days and nights went on and her skin healed, and the rest of her body as well, she would roll herself over and crawl closer to the fire, closer to her father, and she would study them with those big, round, brown eyes of hers.
She would not remember any of this. She was far too young to remember. She would not remember him teaching her to walk on all fours across the cave, she would not remember him teaching her how to hide or pounce or strike or flee into the cracks and crevices. She would not remember him teaching her how to dig beneath the sand for water, or which berries in the oasis were safe to eat. By the time the girl was old enough to start really remembering things, she had already learned all this, well down into the very depths of herself. She could not remember learning these things any more than she could remember learning how to breathe. But she loved her father, and she loved all her brothers and sisters, and she always did everything she could for them. She shielded their bodies from the circling desert birds with her broader back, or she swatted away the beaks and talons with her hands. With those hands, she could build things for them, shelters or walls to keep other animals out. Her father taught her how, even though he had no hands of his own— and she was old enough to remember him teaching her these things, at least. He taught her his magic as well— magic from a life he had once lived long ago, before becoming what he was. He had no mouth to speak, just as he had no hands— and there were no words the girl ever could have understood, she had never learned them, she had never even imagined them, she had never heard any words in all her life— but still, her father taught her. He snapped his great claws open and shut with an urgent rhythm, and he clicked his six slender, hair-tipped feet upon the stone floor of his cave, he danced an intricate dance for her, and he waved his deadly tail back and forth through the air like the wind-swishing grasses of the oasis, and with these things, he made her understand. From her father, the scorpion who was a hundred feet long from the front of his body to the back, who was a hundred feet wide, a hundred feet tall, with bony armor as thick as great plated shields and the most brutal of all poisons lurking within, from him the girl learned odd and terrible magics— and with these powers, too, she worked always to help and protect her brothers and sisters.
The girl had magic for starting fires, and for ending them. She had magic for curing away poisons, and for making anything edible. With the magic her father taught her, she could eat even the rocks and sand, and be properly fed, awful as they tasted. She had the magic that all scorpions know, which let her kill with just a touch. And she had magic to make it so that she would not feel any pain.
On the night of her first mensis, she used this magic, and frightened as she was, as she couldn’t help being, she did not deeply suffer, and she came into the next day feeling stronger than she had been somehow, even as she continued to bleed and bloat. She felt now as though nothing could hurt her, truly.
When she was a little more than sixteen years of age, she met a wounded desert fox in the oasis, which had been bitten by a rattlesnake. It lay there dying, helpless, not even strong enough now that the poison had set in to drag itself with its paws the last few feet towards the sparkling water for a last sip— a final moment of comfort before the end. The girl was hungry when she found the fox, she had not eaten in more than a day, and she had had fox meat before, more than once— plenty of times, when she was young, her brothers and sisters had brought it for her. But today, there was something different in the air— or perhaps there was something different inside her. She could not pinpoint it. But she looked upon the fox and she knew that she could not kill it, not even just to put it out of its misery. And she could not simply stand there and let it die either, or walk away and try to forget about it. There was no choice but one in her heart, so she approached the fox carefully, clearly, so as not to frighten it, and she knelt beside it, and with the magic her father had taught her, she set to work.
It might have snapped at her with its tiny, pointed teeth, or it may have tried to intimidate her into retreating with a growl— or it might have tried to retreat, itself, wriggling away from her across the grass. But it didn’t do any of those things, wary as it was of this strange hairless creature who had come hands-and-toesing towards it in its final moments. It didn’t have the strength. It simply lay there and watched. It could feel along the taut cords of the Earth’s soul that she did not intend to kill it. But what, then, had she come to do?
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The first thing the girl did with her magic was to remove all of the poison from the fox’s body. Saving its life for now was as simple as that. But her work was not done. Her next task was to use more magic to keep the fox from feeling any more pain; even though the venom had been removed from its body, the wounds of the snake’s fangs still remained, and on top of that the creature’s fear had not faded. Anything the girl could do to help it become more comfortable, she would do. With her hands, she went to the pool of the oasis, and she brought back scoops of water for the fox to drink, and with each sip, with each moment passing, its panic became less and less and less, until finally it was feeling safe enough to get up onto its feet and start following the girl around the grass and the trees and the flowers— and finally, some time later, out onto the sands and back to the cave.
From that moment on, the two of them were inseparable, bound forever by those cords of the planet’s soul. Everywhere the girl went, the fox went as well— and everywhere the fox went, following its nose or its twitching ears, the girl was sure to follow. They had many adventures across the sands beneath the Sun and the Moon and the dead stars, the two of them, and they made many more friends besides just themselves. They befriended the birds of the desert, and the snakes, and the insects.
One night, a shadow came to the desert. On no, it was two shadows that had come to the desert— one greater, larger than anything the girl or anyone else had ever seen, and the other smaller, with two arms and two legs and a head, all wreathed in darkness. The greater shadow left a trail of vile spit as it came, killing even those patches of sand that were already well and truly dead— and the burning intensity of its eyes carved long channels of glass along its path, wherever its gaze happened to fall.
The smaller shadow came because he had reached the point on his list that had meant he had to come here. The next item on the list was here, and there was an order to this, that he was determined to keep. So he came to the desert, and because the shadow-beast he rode upon was larger than anything for a hundred miles in any direction, it could be seen coming easily a hundred miles off. It was the middle of the afternoon when the girl first spotted him coming, and so she and her fox went rushing off to her father to drag him outside his cave, show him what they’d seen. And so they did.
The girl had no clue what this was, the shadow. Her father, he could not be entirely sure, not at such a great distance, and not with such poor eyes as a scorpion has, but he had heard many stories passing through from other parts of the world about this, what might be coming, what it might mean. And if it was true…
He made it clear to his daughter that she was to avoid the shadows at all costs. She was not to go running out to meet them. And if they were to approach one of her friends, another creature of the desert, no matter how dear that friend was to her, she was not to intervene. Her father made her swear it, in that way that things are sworn without words; he made her swear it with the steadiness of her eyes, and he made her swear it with a clap of her hands, and he made her swear it with a stomp of her foot— and then, seeing this, he let himself relax just a little. He trusted his daughter to keep her promises, and he trusted her promises to keep her safe. Every story he had heard of the shadows had agreed on at least one point; there was an order to this. That smaller shadow did not kill anything outside of that order unless it forced him too. So, with only some worry still left in his heart, he let his daughter go out free again onto the sands. And off she went, her and her fox.
The two of them went to the oasis, as they often did in the afternoons to play, and to keep cool near the water, eat the fruits and nuts and anything else they might find there. And as the afternoon turned into late afternoon, the shadows came closer and closer, grew larger and larger from the horizon, though their outlines did not become any clearer— they were murky things, these shadows, by their very nature. One could have their face pressed right up against them and see nothing but haze.
The girl and the fox were not worried, though. The shadows were still far off, and they were slow-moving. They would be easy enough to avoid as they came, even if their path happened to take them straight through the oasis. All it would need was a little hop-jump a half-mile this way or that way, and a little burrowing down into the sand for an hour or two safely watch them pass, and then it would all be over, everything could go back to normal.
As late afternoon turned into early evening, the shadows came closer, closer. It was clear now that their path really would take them straight through the oasis, so just as they had planned, the girl and her fox did a little hop-jump running a half-mile away from the oasis, towards the West, into the setting Sun, and when they felt like they’d gone far enough, they did a little burrowing down into the sand, a little burrowing and burying of themselves until there was nothing poking out from the tall dune they’d chosen except for their eyes and the tips of their noses, just enough to breathe with.
And for the next hour or so, they stayed buried right where they were, waiting, watching. But as early evening turned into full-on night, they saw that the path of the shadows had shifted; instead of going towards the oasis, the shadows were now coming straight towards the dune where the girl and the fox had buried themselves.
So what did they do? They unburied themselves and quickly scurried another half-mile to the West, to another dune, and in a bit of a rush, they buried themselves again. But again, the path of the shadows had shifted to meet them, again, the shadows, taller and smaller, were coming straight towards the girl and her fox.
Again, they unburied themselves, and this time, instead of moving once more South, once more out of the way, they decided to simply move away from the shadows, as far as they could, so they went hurrying to the South, hurrying, hurrying off into the opposite horizon. They ran, as fast as they could, until they could only jog, and then they jogged for as long as they could, until they could only walk, and then they walked for as far as they could, until the fox couldn’t walk any further; the girl lifted it up and draped it around her shoulders like a cloak, and she carried on walking for the both of them until even she could not continue. As this point, they had gone further South from the oasis than either of them had ever been. The tall rocks with the cave where the girl’s father lived was long since out of sight— but so were the shadows. The girl and the fox rested in the sand until they had just enough energy back in them to carry on for one more half-mile, and now, finally, with those shadows nowhere to be seen, they once again trudged a half-mile to the West and buried themselves in the sand, as thoroughly as they could. If someone had come walking past the spot where the two of them had buried themselves, they wouldn’t have had the first clue that anyone was hiding there. And so there they stayed. And there they waited.
And waited. And waited.
They waited so long, that they fell asleep, exhausted from all of their running and jogging and walking and burying. They slept for hours and hours, until the fox’s sharp ears were startled awake by a distant, rhythmic rumbling. “Thoom-thoom!”
Its little eyes popped open.
“Thoom-thoom!”
What was that? Where was it coming from? Without unburying itself, the fox did as much peering around as it could. The light was plenty— it was the Full Moon tonight, watching over them with the same disinterest as the Sun; the Full Moon cared only for one mortal down upon the Earth, far, far away from this place, but She shed Her light all the same, so it was easy enough to make out, even against the black of the sky. The shadows had followed them, even here. And they’d gotten much, much closer now. Less than a mile away, and towering high and terrible.
“Thoom-thoom!”
The Earth rumbled with every lumbering step, never mind the sand hushing it, cushioning the blows. A terrible stench had filled the air— it was a shock that the smell hadn’t woken the fox’s sharpest nose before the sound did. But the fox was awake now. And the shadow was coming straight towards it. There was no point staying buried. There was no point, clearly, trying to hide. The fox came scampering out of the sand, and immediately, it ran over and gave the girl a little nibble on her nose to wake her up as well— she burst from the dune with a yelp, ready to scold her dearest friend.
But then she saw the shadows coming, so very near to them now. She heard them. She smelled them. And she remembered what she had promised her father. She was to avoid these shadows at all costs.
There was nothing left to do but run again. So the girl and her fox started running again across the sand, fleeing the coming doom, and they’d gotten a good amount of energy back during their sleep, they managed to run for a good while, but they hadn’t eaten anything in quite some time, and they hadn’t had any water, and it wasn’t a full night’s rest they’d gotten, really. Soon enough, the fox began to tire again— and soon enough after that, the girl as well. And bit, by bit, the shadows began to catch up, until the footsteps were nearly deafening— “Thoom-thoom!”
And every great slam of those feet into the ground sent the dunes shifting and shuddering beneath the girl’s feet— she could hardly keep her balance, and every time she fell, it cost her a little more energy to get back up again. By the time the shadows had properly caught up with her and the fox, she could hardly move at all. The horrible monster loomed over her— so many heads on so many necks, so many tails, too many to count, too many to want to count. It was grotesque. It was horrible. Large droplets of the creature’s spittle came splashing down onto the sand on either side of her, eating down through the dunes like the acid spit of the rarer desert-lizards. All of the beast’s burning eyes were directed elsewhere, so that it would not incinerate her with its gaze— but even so, she could not shake the feeling that it was staring at her. Out of the corners of all those eyes. Like she was nothing, just a small distraction.
The smaller shadow came leaping down from atop his beast’s back, hitting the sand with a quiet puff. Somehow, somehow… he was even more frightening. On pure love and instinct, the little desert fox came darting out in front of its dear friend, placing itself between the girl and the shadows. It growled, as if to seem fearsome and dangerous.
The taller shadow gave a derisive snort. Perhaps it was amused at what the fox was trying to do with its tiny self. Or perhaps it was offended that anything so puny would even attempt to act a a barrier against such overwhelming power. Perhaps it was just bored and looking for an excuse to act out. It lunged down towards the Earth with one of its limitless heads, and with its jagged fangs it snatched up the little fox and tore it to pieces. Bits of blood and fur came trailing down from its mouth.
The girl howled in anger and sorrow. She had never seen anything so awful in her entire life— she had never so much as imagined anything so awful. She felt sick. She felt ugly, having only just seen that.
“No!” bellowed the shadow, enraged.
This was not how things were supposed to go. This was not how deaths were supposed to happen. This had been a pointless waste. Bad behavior. This would be punished later. This would be punished enough that it would not happen again. Simple as that. But for now, there was another matter.
The shadow took a step towards the girl, but she hardly acknowledged him. She was too choked up on sobs and her own horrified vomit to care about this smaller shadow— at least not until he placed his hand upon her shoulder.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said, and he promised that the monster would be punished for stepping out of line in such a way. “I did not come here for your friend. It would have been my deepest wish to come back someday and add that little fox to my collection, along with all the rest…”— he gestured up at the glittering sky above— “…but there is nothing to be done about it now besides to regret and regret and regret. And, I suppose, to finish what I did come here for.”
He paused.
“Though… there is no need to rush. It is a beautiful night, despite the unpleasantness. And you… you are a beautiful maiden.”
He let his hand slide slowly down the side of her naked body, Sun-bronzed and shimmering in the bright moonlight. She had not understood a single word that the shadow had said. She did not speak his language, or any language. But she understood perfectly well what he was doing, and what he was trying to do. She was no fool in the ways of the world.
But he was a fool if he thought she was going to let him survive this night after what his monster had done— after what he had let his monster do. She had powerful magic on her side, the magic that her father had taught her. The magic to not feel any pain— already, she had cast this upon herself. Whatever the shadow did to her next, whatever weapon he used to harm her, or whatever his monster did, her suffering would not slow her or stop her.
She had other magic, too, the purest magic of the scorpions. The magic to kill with just a touch. Only once before had she ever used it. But it had worked when she did, exactly as promised. And it would work now, as well. She scowled, she snarled.
A little out of the way, a scorpion stood watching, watching until the end of things. And then it scuttled off to tell the girl’s father what it had seen. So much, it had seen.
