The Silent Desert

Characters:

Saithsarda
Hachen


In the desert pavements, during the day it was too dangerous to travel, from the heat and from the local predators. Most of the animals that were hunted were out at night, and they were peaceful. However, it was in a large crack in the earth where there was least amount of life. Ruins of an ancient race lay hidden in the crevice. It was here that the largest creature of the desert made her home, asleep in one of the main halls.

There it was, the smell of bacon again. He had spent too much time with pig and the smell rubbed off on his jacket. He always carried the jacket with him, although in this heat he thought it would be better to carry it over his shoulder. Even his shirt was off and wrapped around his head to keep the sun off. Hachen had let pig take a ferry around the desert but he needed to go through, he was looking for the ruins of a past civilization. The people were said to have the same enlightenment magic as he had, that piqued his interest more than anything. He had already passed the entrance though and he was above the main hall by time night fell. He sighed and fished out his wand. He had learned how to survive during night, and one part of that was to burrow underground so he pointed his wand down and a tunnel was burrowed diagonally down. 

Hachen only went a foot though before the sand changed into stone. He felt the stone ceiling and wondered if it was what he was looking for. He shrugged and pointed his wand at the ceiling, now using stone cutter magic, and a circular part ceiling fell in. The room was massive, and the ceiling was so high that Hachen cast a barrier before jumping in. The barrier shattered when it hit, but it took all of the impact so he was unharmed. There was no light at all in the room so Hachen tried to make a light come from the tip of his wand. He smacked the wand against his other hand, he always had trouble with the light from his wand, and eventually the light shone from the tip of his wand and lit up the room quite nicely. 

It was a massive hall, completely empty, but there were passage ways to other parts of the ruins. He shrugged and picked the closest passage. While going down the path he heard a strange noise. The noise got louder as he went and he stopped to think... breathing? He made the light dim a bit so it wouldn't wake up whatever it was and he kept going forward. When he entered the only thing he could focus on was the creature sleeping in the middle of the room. He was frozen in place just staring at the unknown creature laying in front of him, hoping that it wouldn't wake up anytime soon.

In the shadow of the hall the creatures colors were quite dim, but one could tell that its hide was quite bright and made a difference against the rock and stone the building was made out of. Its coils were wrapped in an S shape as it slept, and the large ears were laid against its long neck. Saithsarda adjusted her back legs and turned her hips to the side when it was then that she realized something was casting curiousity towards her. Having not needed her empathy in many years, the Himmel opened her eyes, but otherwise didn't move.

Hachen had never seen a creature like this before. He was a bit scared at first, but as he took some deep breathes he calmed down. He looked around the now dimly lit room and saw no passage ways other than to one leaving the entire building, this room must be the foyer. There were also torches on the walls but he didn't quite have to use of his legs back yet. He looked over the creature, trying to pin what it was, but nothing came to mind. He thought that maybe it was some evolutionary branch of dragon but he wouldn't know unless he got closer. He felt his legs coming back to him so he took a few cautionary steps forward, watching the creature in case it lashed out at him. He held his wand up so that neither of them were blinded but they would both still be able see each other well.

Raising her head, Saithsarda ignored the wand, though the light glinted brightly off her pupils. She had only seen creatures like this one from far away, their pink skin normally covered and wearing large drapes of some sort of plant, or animal skin. This one was the first she had seen here. As far as she knew, the pavements were too dangerous for them. Flicking her ears up, the Himmel shook her head and ruffled the fur of her cheeks before she then began to lick at her arm. He wouldn't attempt to hurt her, she could tell by his feelings, and this might prove an interesting turn of events should he decide to stick around.

Hachen stopped immediately when Saithsarda ruffled her fur. He wasn't as frozen in fear as before though. When she licked her fur he held back a little laugh, it reminded him of a cat. He took a few more steps, each step made him more scared, excited, and interested all at the same time. When he was close he didn't know what to do so he treated it like a cat and held out his hand for her to sniff, although he was ready in case her mouth opened to eat his hand.

Sai stretched out her neck and sniffed delicatly, strange that these Pinkies smelled so distinctly different from other animals. Pulling back, she yawned, displaying numerous pointed teeth before she closed her maw with a wet snap, then proceeded to stretch and get up. The Himmel kept an ear turned towards the intruder while she did this, but also puffed up her chest as she... Saithsarda laughed silently to herself. Yes, she was showing off. Why not? This Pinkie was so curious of her, she thought she might as well sate it.

Hachen felt his speech coming back to him so he said to it, "My my my, such a big strong creature." He said with a nervous smile. The choice not to snatch off his hand helped him relax a bit. At 6 feet at the shoulder she was taller than him but not too much taller, however her body was long, extremely long. "So, I wonder what you are." He said to both Saithsarda and himself. He didn't expect the creature to talk back, it was like talking to a dog or cat but without the baby voice.

Her ears perked at him when he spoke, however, she was content to listen for now. Her tail flicked back and forth as she sat on her hindquarters and lifted up her torso into a resting position one might compare to a ferret. Saithsarda cocked her head, a slight murr echoing from her throat as she watched him.

"Hmm," Hachen started to stroke his stubbled chin as he thought, "you are like cat licking your paws. Dog like, wagging your tail. You're like a ferret in how your rest, and the ruffled fur thing reminds me of a bird ruffling feathers." He looked at her up and down wondering it that was her puffing our her chest, or if that is what the creature normally looks like. "Either way though you are trully magnificant to behold. I guess you're another one of those undiscovered secrets of the world." He smiled and bowed. "The name is Hachen Raine, traveler of the land, and explorer of the past." He felt that introducing himself would be the polite thing to do.

The Himmel in turn nodded her head slowly, "Saithsarda." She shrugged her shoulders and scratched idily at her long belly, "I am a Himmel, though we are not undiscovered, just, we have long since been close to extinction... but I thank you for your compliments." She raised her fangs at him, the Himmel version of a smirk.

Hachen's jaw almost dropped, although he was physically taken aback. "Wow, you can even talk. Well, you know that... sorry." He didn't like to state the obvious. "Himell," He was practicing saying the word, "Hymmel, Himmel. Right, Himmel? So, Saithsarda, could you tell me a bit about yourself or the Himmel in general?" He walked over to a nearby wall torch and lit it with his spark spell. He started going around the room so that the light was a bit better than his wand's light. "Hope you don't mind. this will just cast the light around better."

Sai snorted, "Not much to tell, Pinkie Hachen, other then the obvious features I have and memories from my mother. I do not know that much about my own race." Tapping the bone tip of her tail against the rock, "I have been here for 13 years, and I have only seen one other Himmel, besides my mother since then." Saithsarda set her front feet down and walked to the passage way that he came. Then, she looked back at him, "You are lucky that I was down here before you, some basilisks had taken refuge in the library and I was forced to drive them out."

"Thank you then. I've seen a basilisk before, thankfully though I was able to escape before it ate me. You see me and basilisks don't get along, we just don't see eye to eye." He laughed a little at his own joke as he looked down the passage. "Anything else I might want to be aware of while I explore these ruins?" He asked with a smile. The temperature in the ruins wasn't as hot so he unwrapped the shirt from his head and shook out his hair before putting his shirt back on his body. His coat he chose to keep slung over his shoulder, it was cooler but not enough for a coat.

Not understanding his humor, "Don't wander along the bottom of the gorge, sometimes we get flash floods from further up north, wouldn't want you to drown." The Himmel scratched at her belly again, this time with a back foot and stretched. "Also, the lions come out at dawn. Watch out."

"Lions, in the desert?" Hachen knew lions liked savanna's but he didn't think lions came to the desert. He shrugged and continued, "So, do you know anything about the ruins themselves? Like what type of civilization lived here?" Now he was trying to make polite conversation with Sai.

Saithsarda shook her head, "They were long gone before I came to wander this place, but you might find more in the library one floor down." Walking past him, she slipped through the corridor, looking back occasionally to make sure he was following her.

Before he followed he looked around the foyer, specifically at the markings on the walls and ceiling. The ceiling depicted some vague reference to man recieving something from a higher being. Probably the story of man recieving magic. "This looks like a temple, at least I think so." He said following her. The main hall ceiling had no such markings, nor did many of the other rooms. Hachen brightened his wand so the light could reach past her to help her see. He wasn't sure if she could see in the dark, but it wouldn't hurt to be safe. The library was a massive room filled with bookshelves. Although some of them were knocked down and broken, probably from the basilisks. Hachen grabbed a book and dusted it off, the title was Demonology for Beginning Warlocks. He bit his lip, probably not the best book to look at first. He wandered over to another bookshelf and picked up something called, Creatures of the Old World. He found an index and looked up Himmel but it wasn't there. He was a bit dissapointed, he wanted to find some information on what his rather large friend was. "This library is huge. Have you read any of these books Sai?"

"Some," She responded, "Some of the bigger ones. I can't seperate the pages of the smaller ones with my paws. My mother had learned to read the Pinkie language sometime in her life, and since she transfered her memories to me, I could read as well." Saithsarda, sniffed around with a behavior that one could compare to dogs. "The basilisks were here recently." Hackles raising on their own, she went for the farther corner.

Hachen looked up at the cieling and nodded to himself. What was pretty much his only offensive spell wouldn't work in here, he needed a connection to the sky for it to work correctly but the stone roof was in the way. If there was a basalisk all he would be able to do, without damaging the temple, is defend. He shined his wand around looking for more interesting books. He even found some scroll shelves as well. "Well if there are basilisks then we need to find out how to defend ourselves." He walked calmly over to the scrolls and started searching for anything that might contain something on basilisks. "Calm down a bit, it will take longer to attack if you act unaware. Besides you might scare it with your hackles up like that and scared snakes bite." He said this all calmly as he pulled out a scroll about large snakes. He unraveled it and started reading it to himself. He put his wand in a knot in the wood so it would stay upright and pour light into the room without blinding either of them.