Renna.

Green City of Water.

City of fire.

City of Five Winds.

Renna, the city where Fiira lay dying on a bed of fine camel hair.

The city that knew no winter, though Fiira shivered beneath the warmest blankets that could be found. She was always cold. Far from home and left behind, she was dying. Her death was inevitable. She had lived a long life. Now, she slipped away unnoticed by the man who sat quietly beside the bed, long beard tucked against his chest. He was worn out from waiting. For full sixty years and more, he had lived and breathed solely for her. Not from love or loyalty, but for want of the strength to break his word. A simple contract, etched into his blood while he’d had no choice in the matter: serve, guard, keep. And so he had. He’d watched a sullen girl blossom into a determined woman, become a wife and mother and widow. Now, she sunk into decay.

His own, aged, countenance was as nothing next to her sunken cheeks and risen bones. Her sallow skin sagged under its own weight. Spit crept through the wrinkles on her chin and stretched in a string towards the pillow. Her hair was thinned to wisps. Greyed before its time, it had then proceeded to abandon her. She’d found dignity elsewhere, but death did not care for reputation. When he woke with a start, jerked out of his doze by gravity, the man stared tiredly before he broke the stillness with a creak of old joints to lean forward and wipe the spit away. Her last breath, he realised belatedly, had come and gone while he was sleeping.

He sighed, finding it difficult, after so long a wait, to stand and set the wheels in motion. Promised to a stranger in a strange city, she’d died as she’d lived, yearning for her home, alone but for the Jinni coerced to care. He had never quite learned how to make that care real, but Curdle had found empathy in her lonely existence. They had reached an understanding in these later years and he’d honour her final request. She’d known what she was asking. She’d given no order, but he’d promised, and was as bound by his word now as he’d been when they were both young. Renna tradition called for her body to be cleaned and prepared by a woman, then taken to the catacombs dug into the rock beneath the city. But she had not wanted to be locked away from the light, so when the maid knocked on the door, he wouldn’t let her in and asked only for some water for their mistress.

He cleaned her body himself, straightening her limbs and brushing her hair, dressing her in her family colours, remembering the young lady she’d been as he did. His hands were gentle, sometimes steady, sometimes not. But though emotion tugged at his mind, he had no tears for her. She had become the daughter he’d learned to forget, the wife he’d lost, the mother he’d been unable to care for. Through her, he was saying goodbye to them all. She had asked for an honour he was not sure she deserved, but he would give it to her, if only because she had asked.

It took him the day to restore to her some semblance of her old self, before age and disease had taken their toll. When he stepped back, her eyes, left open by his own tradition, stared back at him, filmed over and dark. There should have been a line of family and friends waiting to follow him into her gaze before they let her leave this world, but her only son had not come to visit in years. Her relatives were far away, and every one of them would have objected to this charade. So, Curdle took his time settling her image into his mind, and, when he was finished, he brushed his knuckles against her cooled cheek.

One last breath before he gathered his strength and let his hand drift above her body. Beneath the skin, traceries of veins began to glow, faint then sharp, rushing deeper and spreading from her breast through her limbs until her chest collapsed and the rest followed suit. The rustle of settling cloth seemed to him like a sigh as she left her body behind, and he carefully gathered the edges of her bed sheet to collect the finer than ash left over residue in a small urn. Nondescript, it would give nothing away if someone saw him with it, which was good, the longer he could escape notice, the farther he could walk before someone realised he was missing.

A glance out the window told him it was too late to leave now, so he called for Fiira’s dinner and ate the watered down soup himself when it arrived. Not much of a meal, but better than nothing, and all she’d had appetite for during the past few months. His cot was in an adjacent room, much less grand, though comfortable enough, but he settled back in his chair instead, in case any enterprising servants grew curious or wanted to offer some help and slept there, chin against chest, wheezing when he finally drifted off.

It was late morning when he woke with a start to a knock at the door. This once, as he hauled himself up, he thanked Fiira’s love of privacy that meant they wouldn’t open the door unless it was an emergency. It was only her breakfast though, and he thanked the woman who’d brought it while she tutted at his sleepy befuddlement of the time. Well, he’d meant to be away earlier, but at least the market would be busy now, full of other distractions. He took the food and replaced it with the empty dinner tray before closing the door on her. He ate quickly and was still wiping at his beard to get rid of the crumbs when he left.

No one questioned his leaving, he’d been going to the market every day for a month, but the guards around the square did ask after the lady. With the urn weighing down his bag, Curdle answered somewhat truthfully that she had grown worse and accepted their well wishes, genuine or not, with as much patience as he could muster before breaking away to wander between the stalls. In the crowds, even his horned head wasn’t worth much notice, though Jinn were not as plentiful here as in other cities, he was far from the only one. Unfortunately, that alone could not make him anonymous. He had served Fiira too long to be just another face. So now, though he was not looking to buy any of the produce being sold, he *was* looking for something specific. And beneath an awning set up to protect customers from the bright sun, he thought he might have found it.

He needed a stranger. Someone who would not wonder why the Lady Gerun’s personal Jinni wanted to leave the city. Better yet would have been a foreigner who would not think it strange that he had no wooden card giving him permission to leave. But it was expecting too much to ask for such a miracle. So he settled for watching the woman haggling prices with sellswords and tried to slip closer unobtrusively to hear if she was asking for caravan guards or for someone to watch her goods here. If she wanted them for a caravan, chances were good she would be leaving today or tomorrow. Tomorrow was no good to him. It would mean another night of risking being caught. So, he listened and he watched, trying not to make his interest too obvious.

Miria Sedina awoke before the crack of dawn. She was not a citizen of Renna, so she did not rise to four walls and a roof of a sturdy, permanent home. Though she had the money to afford it, she did not awake in the impersonal space of one of the city's many inns. Instead, she rose from a small cart, pulling back a thick blanket that smelled strongly of donkey. Large canvas bags surrounded her; these, along with the blanket, had kept her warm during the chilly desert nights. Groggily, she pushed back some of the thick, dark hair that had fallen over her face in silken tangles, assessed that all of her possessions were there and accounted for, and scooted out of the cart. Not a morning went by when she did not recall how she used to greet the days. As a little girl, she had risen after the sun from a clean, sturdy mattress under a mass of her favorite blankets hand-woven by her mother. She had her own room full of personal, impractical things, and never smelled like a donkey. Years later, as a woman, she would wake in a modest tent or in one of those impersonal inn beds, but the stark lack of lavishness compared to her comfortable childhood never mattered to her as long as the first thing she saw was the man laying beside her, a lean figure with hair the color of ivory, smiling eyes the color of amber, ears shaped like a jackal's, and a smile that always rivaled the brilliance of the morning sunrise. Miria was alone now. She had been alone for almost ten years, enough time to regard those memories with a forced indifference. She had no time to dwell on the past. Her cart was leaned against a haystack beside the stables of an inn. Her donkey stood by the cart, unbound, but Raha had been her traveling companion for many years and she trusted him explicitly not to wander off. She greeted him warmly with a stroke of his snout and a few affectionate scratches behind his ears as he nibbled idly on some hay and regarded her with gentle eyes. She then hurried to the nearby well to fetch some cold water to wash from her skin the smell of Raha and the previous day's work. At one time, Miria would be considered beautiful. She was still lean, a product of frequent, hard travel and never bearing children, but her once soft, shining hair had become brittle from years of exposure to the sun. She brushed some of the shine back into her hair then tied it back in a loose, tidy bun. Her creamy skin had darkened considerably from her years in the desert climate, her once soft hands and dainty feet now calloused. Stress lines edged her dark eyes and full lips; she had a narrow face and a narrow, prominent nose. She was approaching middle age, too old to marry in society's terms, but she had no intentions of marrying anyone. She wore a sensible, yet handsome salwar kameez, loose-fitting trousers and a long tunic, black trimmed in gold and red. Her sandals were dusty and a bit worn, but they were the only pair she owned. She finished the look with a few bangles on her wrists and feet and small, hooped earrings -- what was left of the jewelry she had once inherited. She found that she gained more customers if she gave off the appearance of having a bit of wealth herself. Wealth meant success, and success was generally trusted in the marketplace. Dressed, Miria took a quick bite to eat at the inn in front of the stables, then gathered the five canvas bags from her cart. Somehow balancing these off her tiny frame, she hurried off into the market square. She breathed a sigh of relief moments later as she set her bags down; she had managed to grab the last spot under the awning. Merchant spots were determined on a first-come-first-serve basis, and there were so few shaded spots. Miria had woken just early enough. A stout man with a thick beard glared and huffed his disgruntlement, having lost this coveted spot to Miria. Miria only smirked smugly at him, her gaze direct, challenging, then got to work setting up her wares. Miria sold hand-woven tapestries and blankets of many sizes, colors, and uses. Most were simple -- a few colors, a simple pattern, smaller, made in only a span of days during the evenings when Miria traveled. Some, however, had taken her several weeks or months to complete, a few even in years, the price reflecting her greater efforts. Most of her work she laid out over a large tarp spread on the ground; she had no table. Others she hung on collapsible easels to showcase her artistic eye for detail. She took great care with every piece, regardless of how small or inexpensive. Any contribution to her livelihood was made with pride and deserved her respect. Tapestry making was a family business. Miria's father had owned several small shops scattered throughout several towns and had hired shopkeepers and weavers to run these places and produce product. Though he never obtained the wealth of a nobleman, the family was fortunate to live in a modest yet cozy home, to eat comfortably and enjoy a few of the simple pleasures in life; all of these things were considered very well-to-do. Miria's mother, a weaver herself, had taught her how to weave when she was very young. Being the only child, Miria was expected to inherit the family business someday, and she was more than eager and prepared to do so. Now she was, though it was a far cry from her comfortable expectations. She owned no shops, she had no one working under her. She was the weaver, the shop keep, the bookkeeper, the valet, all in a tiny cart pulled by a humble donkey, what she called home. Wealth and stability weren't the biggest things she had lost, however. Miria had long ago stopped crying over what she truly missed in her life. Business began as the first rays of light peaked over the desert horizon. Miria greeted her customers with a wide smile and generous greetings, though the warmth was missing from her eyes and happiness did not strengthen her smile. She knew she had to work harder than many other merchants to sell her wares -- her tapestries weren't a necessity like food was. Because of this, she was a traveling merchant -- demand for her stock was greater when customers didn't grow used to seeing the same items day after day. Her entire route, which spanned most of the desert and some of the surrounding country, took four months to cycle, typically by caravan as it was far too dangerous to travel alone, and Miria would stay in a village for a week at a time, sometimes two. Today marked her last day in Renna. It was a busy last day; Miria loved such days not just because of the potential profits but because it also kept her busy and made the long days feel shorter. Perhaps, if business went well, she could treat herself to staying at an inn on the first night of her next destination. Miria had a sharp eye for consistency and typically had an easy time remembering faces, so it did not take her long to notice a lingering figure in the growing crowd. He was a jinni, made obvious by the horns on his head, older, or so the beard made him seem, and eyeing her stock. This annoyed her; though she understood the need for some customers to study her work before making a decision to purchase, loiterers made her nervous. She pretended not to notice him, however, keeping her focus trained on her customers, her smile never faltering, though he remained in her peripheral vision. Finally, when the crowd had thinned enough, Miria turned her attention to the nearby jinni, pinning him directly with expectation and curiosity, her smile a little strained. "See anything you like?" It was strange for a jinni to be so interested in her wares. Typically, their owners were the buyers. Maybe he had a sweetheart he wanted to impress or needed a gift for a special occasion. Miria knew that jinn weren't supposed to buy items alone without a wooden card, but business was business and she wasn't going to destroy a potential sale with such details. Casually, she fiddled with a few of her much smaller, less expensive pieces, smoothing each one out, folding them back, and returning them to the top of her selection, hoping one would catch the jinni's eye. Normally, she would draw attention to one of her more expensive pieces, but she didn't expect a jinni to be able to afford her price; a judgment made more from unfortunate fact and less on prejudice.

She hadn’t been leaving. And he’d been caught flatfooted when the trader stormed away from the haggling guards in a huff. He didn’t have a plan for how to leave the city. He either would or he wouldn’t. With only two options, it had seemed like too much effort to believe he’d be successful, so when the woman and the guards left, he stood for a time, mulling over what to do next. He might buy some provisions, he supposed. Or the usual sweet dates Lady Gerun often wanted. An alibi no one would ask for. He didn’t really know what he was doing, yet he continued regardless. What else was he to do? One last desire to fulfill for his lady and then he would be free to go back to his home, as she hadn’t been. His home, maybe his family, and another contract, he supposed. He was too old for another life service, probably too old to be a guard again, too. Useless either way, but a moot point if he couldn’t even make it through Renna’s gates. It was as he turned away that a different stall caught his attention and dragged him back to a standstill. So far, he had followed tradition with a half-hearted care, favouring secrecy over exact rites. Preferring some chance at success over making everything just right. The dead would understand, and Fiira had never been witness to jinn death rituals before she died, even should she be watching now she wouldn’t know he did differently. And if she ever found out, he believed she might forgive him. But those woven cloths stood out as a point of reproach against his justifications. So bold as to make him wince. Very well, if fate set tradition in his path, he would not argue. He could, however, hesitate awhile. Unlike most jinn, he likely had money enough to pay for what he wanted without needing donations or loans. Fiira had always given him a little extra when she sent him to the market, with the expressed wish that he treat himself if he found something. Sometimes, he had returned the extra, other times, he had kept a little of it set aside. Enough that she would not think her generosity wasted, but not so much that the rest of her staff would be upset that she gave money to a Jinni already fed, clothed and housed at her expense. It was, however, his money, even if she had given it to him, and even from a distance he could see that the weavings were not incompetent, and the woman struck a hard bargain. He didn’t see what he wanted amongst her wares, but there was variety enough within the designs and styles that he thought she might carry something similar to what he wanted… Still, it pained him that he might have to part with his saved coin for an item no one would care about. Curdle was still struggling over this internal debate when he realised she’d noticed him, conspicuous as he’d become in the thinning crowd it would have been remiss of her not to, and he started when he brought his gaze up to see her dark eyes directed right at him. Quickly, he inclined his body in the beginnings of a bow, his stiff spine obvious, though his bones were thankful the old requirement of true bowing had been abolished when he was still young enough to think it meant something. “It is all lovely, messi.” He averted his gaze again, given the excuse of looking where her hands drew it, and decided that it would be her wares that finished the issue. If she had what he needed, he might buy it if he could. If she didn’t, he would not go looking. And he would stop standing about like a statue. “But I am looking only for mourning cloth.” His voice was lighter than might be expected of a man with his shoulder width, hesitant, though there was a faint promise of strength in the harder accent he gave to the words she needed to notice. It also, though he would hope no one realised, did not give away the danger of what he was admitting. He had no one else to mourn but the Lady Gerun, and any guards would know that, along with not a few stall owners. If they overheard the conversation, or noticed what he was trying to buy… Perhaps he could get away with saying it was for a friend, but he knew of no other jinni who’d lost someone recently. Maybe she would forgive his loitering with that answer, or she would send him quickly on his way. Mostly, what jinn needed, jinn made, particularly if it was not a shared commodity. He risked not only eavesdroppers, but insulting her if she took his answer to mean he thought she was likely to have any. Unless she did not mind, and that chance was almost half and half, these days, though he still did not think it likely she would have any. Similar, yes, made for the purpose, unlikely. What he was looking for was a piece of cloth at least large enough to hold the ashes he would pour onto it, but not too large to be carried easily. The design, however, was the challenge, requiring equal amounts of red and blue. Lazy weavers could make it easy on themselves by making two fat stripes. Trusted, and skilled, weavers could do almost anything they liked, including making scenery and adding other colours. Most remained contentedly somewhere in between and general consensus, as far as he had seen, kept to simple representations of wind and sand by curving the stripes in some manner or another. Variety was always acceptable, provided the cloth fell within those limits. He’d seen nothing on display that fit both. “I am sorry to have taken your time, messi.” He gave his partial bow again, meeting her gaze this time on purpose, muddy grey eyes barely focused as he prepared to look somewhere else for a departing merchant. He should have paid more attention to the caravan schedules…

As Miria fiddled with her wares and waited for the jinni to respond, she took a discrete glance around the market square. There was no one near the jinni, and no one nearby gave the impression that they were watching his movements. How strange it was for a jinni to be shopping for tapestries unsupervised! Wouldn't the owner need to be present to select just the right look? Couldn't the jinni make any of this himself or rely on the network of other jinn to make something for him? It didn't make sense. That was when he mentioned mourning. Miria looked up at him then, feeling as though the air around her had suddenly dropped ten degrees. A memory flashed across her mind, of her family slaughtered. She remembered blood splattered everywhere -- on the walls, the furniture, the unfinished tapestries, the faces of her mother and father frozen in silent horror. He had been there, crouched next to her father, stroking his hair, taken by sobbing. Burglars had come, he had said, and he tried to stop them, but too late... Miria had cried with her jinni that day, the jinni she suddenly inherited, and believed his story for years. She had been young, inexperienced in the world, so her jinni had also become her crutch.... Miria's gaze hardened when this older jinni declined her gestures and looked steadily at her. Why was he here if not to buy one of her tapestries? This was all the more suspicious to her. "Is it your master you mourn for?" she snapped, and without giving him a chance to answer, she pressed on. "Have you a new master? Where is your master now? Perhaps you have--" She caught herself just in time, literally biting her tongue until she could feel the metallic sweetness of blood in her mouth to keep herself from finishing her inquiry. She had almost accused this jinni of murder, and for what? For all she knew, he could be mourning the death of a relative or friend. This, however, didn't explain why he needed to buy one of her tapestries. Or perhaps his master was in mourning, which meant he must be by default. She was allowing her own circumstances to get the best of her again. Miria gave the jinni an apologetic smile and parted her lips to apologize, but movement over the jinni's shoulder caught her eye and stayed her speech. On the other side of the square, two guards were drifting about, stopping at each stall, observing the wares with disinterest, craning their necks as though looking for something specific... or someone. With them was a middle-aged woman, one of Fiira's neighbors. She was the nosy sort that liked to occupy her time with the affairs of others. She had been on holiday for several days, but she had come back early. Of course, Miria didn't know the woman at all to know these details, but she did note that the woman looked distraught, flinging comments to the guards, wringing the corners of her shawl with both hands, glancing about nervously. They weren't close enough to hear or to make out details of their faces, but Miria had been a part of this lifestyle long enough to know that something was amiss. It could be a number of things.

Time was not in his favour. Neither was luck, it seemed. Circumstance had somehow conspired to win him a moment of conversation with the one woman at the market who would ask the questions he wasn’t prepared for. Or maybe it was his fault for pausing here. There was no true rush for the cloth. No real need for it either. It was meant as a memento, but there would be no one to claim it when the rite was done. But stop he had. Now, Curdle blanched at her short barrage of questions. He didn’t know how she knew, he didn’t even know what she knew. All he understood was that she was asking what he couldn’t answer. He was mourning his master, but he couldn’t say it out loud. Not least of which was the little matter of secrecy. He had to be outside the city gates before they found out. Otherwise… He wouldn’t be going anywhere. Yet, just as suddenly as she started, she stopped, midsentence, and he was left staring at her, rather lost. But while she’d managed to strike him speechless, he hadn’t lost all his faculties. He knew how to read expressions, and he saw her softening demeanour tighten again as she noticed something behind him. Who was she? What had made her lash out in so particular a way? He didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to ask. Instinct, or perhaps simple pessimism, told him that if he turned around, he wouldn’t have the chance to do anything else either. But he shut his eyes, took a deep breath and turned around anyway. Her mysteries she could keep. If she was looking at something bad, however, he’d like to know. He should have trusted his instinct. His movement caught the woman’s attention, and they recognised each other at the same time. She raised her hand to point, and he flinched back from that well-manicured nail. ”There he is!” For so small a lady, she had powerful lungs. The guards raised their weapons, but he didn’t stay to hear them command him to do anything. He blocked his ears, turned, and ran. Curdle cursed as he went, wasting precious breath on imprecations. He should have done it last night. Just walked out the gate, dumped Fiira’s ashes in a pile somewhere and walked away. He could have been sleeping comfortably in his cot then, instead of that spine stiffening chair! And his duty to his master would have been completed. Done with. Finished! But he hadn’t. He’d hesitated. So, now he was going to be caught, and probably tried for escape if not for murder. There were enough witnesses to know that Fiira had been sick for a while, dying slowly. But humans seemed to like a good story. Simple truth might not satisfy them. And why hadn’t that girl just told him no and been done with it? No use wasting her breath on a jinni, he usually wasn’t worth the trouble. Bah! He turned down a side street and held his breath as his pursuers, the two guards minus the woman of course, ran past, then bent double coughing as the air burned his throat. Too old for this, he’d told himself that a hundred times. Here was proof. A little illusion magic was too much effort. As quickly as he could, hoping they hadn’t heard his outburst, Curdle put more distance between himself and the guards, using the winding streets to his advantage, though it would have gone better if he’d known them more. Fiira hadn’t been one for wandering through back alleys… More than once an outburst sent him doubling back, whether or not he knew it was guards or just someone else having a bad day, caution might at least win him some time to think, if nothing else. Eventually, he found himself near the square again, and damned the routine his feet had decided to follow. Always visit the market. He’d done that! Look what it had got him. No more, he needed somewhere to hide, and never mind trying to get out. If he just waited until things calmed down again, maybe he could go back to the Lady’s house and explain things. He’d still be in trouble, but less than if they caught him trying to get out of the city without knowing why. Though… That still left him with an incomplete promise. Cursed no matter what he did, but a promise he’d meant was worth more than one he’d been forced to make. That decided it. Though it was helped in part by the winding of a horn that seemed to echo off even the clouds. They weren’t calming down, things were escalating instead… A full turning out of the guards meant that walking on the streets wasn’t a good idea. Continuing with his harebrained attempt to get out of the city was an even worse idea. But while he did stop wandering around, climbing into a mostly empty cart while a donkey eyed him suspiciously, he didn’t change his mind about getting out of Renna. If he let himself be caught, they’d take her ashes and put them in the catacombs. Hiding the urn wouldn’t work, they’d only bind him to the truth. And even if they didn’t, it would be the same as being buried in the catacombs. The urn was only meant to be a temporary container. He’d wait until dark, try to get some rest, maybe have an epiphany, maybe he’d befriend the donkey, maybe he’d be found out. But until then, he pulled a heavy canvas over him, checking to be sure there were no bits of him poking out, and took the urn out of his bag, running knowing fingers over its smoothed edge in the dark. If they did find him, he’d leave it behind. Whoever owned the cart would find it then, and maybe dump it out so they could use it for something else. An undignified method of achieving his goal, but so long as it worked…

Miria was shocked, but not surprised, when the jinni burst into a run. It was not the first time she had seen jinn run from guards, jinn captured by guards, jinn beaten by guards in front of villagers due to their indiscretions. Besides, this jinni's presence had been suspicious from the start. Despite this common occurrence, other merchants still yelled and shook their fists at the guards as they streaked by, irritated about having their customers spooked or protesting just because they could get away with it. Mothers hugged their children to their legs to give the guards more room to move without mowing their children over. Market browsers staggered out of the way and many craned their necks to see what all the fuss was about. Miria watched the jinni run down an alley, out of sight, surprised that he could still move that fast at such an old age. She grumbled like the rest of them, not wanting to seem out of place, then carried on with her day, all the while wondering what that jinni was being chased for. Within the hour, the market operated as though nothing had happened. Guards would pass by every so often, their eyes scanning every crevice, corner, and dark space in the square, but no one, including Miria, paid any mind. She had wares to sell; she could not afford to waste her time gossiping about the latest runaway. The day was long and predictably slow; the last day at a village or town often was. Miria smiled at customers through her growling belly, conversed warmly with passerby through a parched mouth, distracting herself with thoughts of what she would weave while on her way to the next town and how many tapestries she could sell at her next destination. She had no one to relieve her to take a brief break or grab a bite to eat, and the last time she left her stall alone, even for a moment, some of her tapestries had been stolen. Finally, when the setting sun melted into the horizon line of the western hills and the sky began to darken, Miria began to pack up her things. Her typical routine was to secure her things in her cart, tend to Raha, then eat at the inn. If she was feeling particularly energetic, she would do a little weaving at her cart. Today was not one of those days. With a yawn, she approached her cart, the many bags slung across her shoulders feeling much heavier than they did that morning even though she carried less. Her mind mulled over lost comforts such as a warm bath, preparing her own meal in her own kitchen, and lounging on a chair to listen to the music of traveling musicians. She lifted her gaze to the cart as she prepared to sling her bags inside, pausing with a startling realization that something, or someone, was in it. Shock and fear gripped Miria first, though she held the urge to run or scream in check with rigid silence. Her gaze locked onto the bulk beneath her canvas, then flickered over to Raha. He glanced over his shoulder at her, casually munching on some hay, not the slightest bit of apprehension in his brown eyes. Raha typically was not so relaxed around strangers. This did not convince Miria. She shifted her gaze back to the bulk in her cart with a narrowed gaze, crouching slowly to set her bags down as quietly as she could. Then she straightened, slowly lifting one side of her trousers to grab the small dagger strapped to her calf as she did so. Miria did not go anywhere unarmed, though this dagger was her only weapon. She made a point to keep it hidden; potential female customers found a visible weapon intimidating, and male customers saw it as a threat to their masculinity simply because she was a woman. Therefore, she always kept it hidden beneath her clothes, but always within reach. She wasn't an expert wielder -- before tragedy befell her family, she never had reason to learn how to use one, but she had learned the life-saving fundamentals of its use with at least some confidence after years of being a traveling merchant on her own. Now she held the dagger tight in her grip but kept her hands down at her sides. She would rather not use the dagger if she didn't need to, and holding it forward without knowing the situation typically created more tension than necessary. "Whoever you are, if you leave right now without incident, I will not chase you or send guards after you," Miria announced in a low, firm voice. She assumed another beggar or some kid had taken refuge in her cart. "Make any trouble, and you will find trouble."

It was the drop in temperature that woke him, slight, but starting to fall towards night. He couldn’t see if the sun was gone completely or not, so he remained under the canvas, struggling anew with his options. Give himself up, or continue to try. What would they take from him if he did? What had he to lose? He didn’t know. Probably nothing. Nothing except the sun and sand that he was trying to save for his master. His dead master.

He should have never agreed to what she asked. Never. He should have known that only grief would come of it.

Too late by far.

And too late to find anyone leaving now. No point in walking away from shelter when you’d be stopping within the hour. Desert nights were dark.

Curdle let the ache of lying on hard wood half the day get to him then, it would be the last time he told himself he was too old for anything. Too much trouble, trying to prove otherwise. No, he’d just walk away, give up without any more hiding, without any defense. He was done.

Carefully, he began pushing the urn towards a corner, to tuck it in under another bag, apologising silently that it was the best he could do. If only he could believe that himself.

He was not a man who let things go easily, but this time, Renna’s walls were too high. This was, he felt, his only chance. He would need to hide it well, so it would not be found before they left the gate. And then, he would need to find somewhere else to be found, so that this cart would not be searched. No, maybe he could go back to Fiira’s house. They would be waiting for him there. That woman Ynip, always stopping by in the morning that she might be the first to know if the Lady’s spirit had taken flight during the night. He scowled and cursed her under his breath as he rearranged items to more cleverly disguise the urn’s placement, an awkward maneuver while lying on his side and trying to keep himself under the canvas. She should have been in Assryn still for three days. She should have caused no problems. Her return had surely been aided by the South Wind’s malice.

If it had not been for her!

….

If it had not been for her, some other obstacle would surely have risen to trip him. With no plan and no idea where to start, what could have possibly gone right? It was over top of his renewed grumbling that a stranger’s voice interjected, reminding the jinni that canvas did not make him invisible, and certainly not inaudible. A woman’s voice, firm and surprisingly lenient if this was her cart. Yet, somehow familiar… He found the connection when she continued, it was that edge, determined, maybe a little angry, that gave her away. The woman from the market, selling tapestries. West Wind’s bitter laughter rolled through his mind as he shut his eyes regretfully. She was being kind to a stranger threatening her very livelihood, and for that kindness, he might well betray her.

Curdle stayed hidden as he answered her, keeping his voice low, beneath hers, hoping there was no one else nearby. “Unfortunate, messi. I am sorry, but trouble I have already found.”

The apology was genuine. For all he’d earlier been looking for someone to help him, he’d had no desire to involve anyone else in his problems. Now, especially, when there was nothing to gain and he had decided to leave off trying. “If there are guards nearby, messi, best it be that they not see you sharing words with me.” Even better that they not connect him with this cart. The urn needed to be outside the city, within reach of the winds when it was overturned. Not dumped in a street where countless feet would smudge through Fiira’s ashes. “I will leave if there are none to see.”

He would. Of course, she might think it dangerous to admit to a lack of protection on her part. She might lie. There was no way for him to find out without risk. Tradition, again, might save him.

“Against the storm’s rage, messi, I set my word.” And the word of any jinni could not be broken once said aloud. Some did not believe such stories; even some jinn scorned the old tales. Curdle did not care. For him, his word was all he had. Even were it possible, and he doubted any rumours that excited more hopeful, or fearful, hearts, he would not have tainted it. “I will leave, and do nothing more.”

If he broke her trust now, he was sure, a sandstorm would swallow him whole. The flesh would be flayed from his bones. His blood would be drained from his body. His spirit trapped forever behind that leading edge of fury. To be torn apart. Literally or figuratively, it seemed an unappetising prospect. He had no desire to test the oath's bounds. What mattered now was whether or not she believed him.

Miria recognized the voice at once; the jinni at the market that morning had been very well-spoken. Of all the coincidences to occur, he had to be the one to choose to take refuge in her cart of all places. Anger spiked through her. Miria took a step forward, seething, gripping the dagger's hilt so tightly that the leather groaned a little beneath her grip. "I know exactly who you are!" she hissed in a low voice, taking a quick glance around to ensure she was not within earshot of anyone. "How dare you choose to hide here after the commotion you caused! I ought to raise my voice right now and let the guards find you!" So, why didn't she? Miria could see a guard pace down a nearby alleyway, well out of ear shot, and there were several in the inn. She knew they were still looking for this jinni, and it was a wonder that the guards hadn't found him here yet, but it would only be a matter of time. If they found him in her cart, they could arrest her and accuse her of aiding a fugitive. She needed to get him out of her cart as quickly as possible and ensure his arrest if she wanted to catch the caravan out of this place in the morning, yet experience taught her that the authorities were as mistrustful as the jinni. Social protection thrived on bribes, and her family had not thought to buy it. The authorities had done little in wake of the tragedy that left Miria the only survivor, and there had been several times throughout her travels alone when she had been forced, or nearly forced, to pay them to ensure tragedy did not also befall her. Miria knew that not every guard was so corrupted, but enough of them were that it was simply easier to to mistrust the authorities and be proven wrong than to give them the benefit of the doubt and be betrayed. She had no intentions on paying these guards, one way or another, to ensure that they tell the truth about her not harboring a fugitive. Was the risk of rape or financial ruin worse than a possible death sentence? If she didn't play her cards right, all three of these things could happen to her. Then again, she did not know this jinni at all or what he was capable of. The only thing she knew for certain was that he absolutely was not leaving this city with her under any circumstance. Miria licked her lips, glancing about her anxiously as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The guard at the alley was still preoccupied and none of the others had shown up yet. The jinni was right that she shouldn't be seen talking to her cart, but she did not trust her stowaway enough to come closer. Quietly, she hooked her arms through the straps of her bags and moved around the cart, her grip on her dagger relentless, and set them down by Raha's side. Eyeing the large lump beneath her canvas, she stroked the creature's fur. She hoped that if any guards did look her way, they would see a weary woman comforting her donkey and nothing more. "What trouble have you gotten yourself into?" she hissed. "Are you a mere runaway, or is it something worse? Tell me now and tell me quickly." She had no idea how to gauge how truthful his answer would be, if he answered at all, but she felt it foolish to give him the clearance to leave without at least asking the question.

Please do not…

He breathed the words, making them entirely inaudible despite his sudden urge to beg it of her. Desperation, however, would have had him shouting them. And that, very likely, would have defeated his purpose. Best, then, that he forget desperation and remember that begging would win him nothing.

Two breaths later, when she still had not called out, he realised that she was inadvertently giving him the chance he had asked for. That, or she was taking her time to gauge the risk to her wares and herself should she call anyone down on him. She had little to worry about; Renna’s guards were mostly well-aligned with their duties. He was, admittedly, surprised he had not yet been sniffed out. Maybe they were keeping the jinn among their ranks at the gates to be sure he did not try to magic his way out. He could not be certain, which meant the longer he remained, the greater his likelihood of being found where he did not want to be found. They must not search this cart.

He waited one more breath, holding it tightly before letting it go to wrap around the urn now beyond his reach, hoping it would be enough to keep it safe until this cart was beyond any walls.

Now that he was listening, listening so closely his heartbeat echoed off the cart’s walls, he could just barely hear her moving nearby. He hoped she was not being secretive in her alerting of the guards, but he had no more control over this situation. She held all the winning cards. There was nothing else he could do. That, being a situation he was accustomed to, surprisingly comforted Curdle, and he found himself relaxing slightly as he waited for her next move. He had given his word. It was her turn to prove trust or not.

When her answer, such as it was, arrived in the form of angry questions, he hunched his shoulders against the accusations hiding in her words and gasped out his protest before he could think of a better response. “I am no runaway, messi.”

As though that might reassure her. Ha! Well played, fool jinni.

He scrambled to fill in the suddenly weighted silence, not wanting to claim a worse crime as his own, but unable to fully explain what he was doing without risking discovery of the urn before everything was in place. “I did not mean to run.” He amended, hoping it would fix his mistake. “Only, the Lady Gerun has died and there is a task now that weighs on my shoulders. She gave it me knowing those in Renna would not like seeing it done. Yet I must, messi, before they send me back.”

He spoke with great feeling, for all it was a very abridged and undetailed version of the story. There was some possibility that she would not approve of the task either. For all that, and the risk of being overheard, he continued quietly, solemnly. If he could not convince her of his sincerity, it might very well mean that all was lost. He had to do his best. “I was signed in blood to Fiira, messi. No one else. They will stop me only with a forever-cage.” He’d never known any jinn to escape a sentence once it had been passed. Being sent to the gaol was either a long sentence, or a quick death. “I have more fear of my veins boiling dry should I fail, messi. Please do not call the guards.”

That was not, strictly speaking, true. He did not suspect any such thing would happen, save perhaps his conscience flaying him in spiritual equivalent, should he not succeed. It would likely not occupy his mind for long, most especially if he was caught. He was, however, possessed of the knowledge that there were methods, during a contract signing, to ensure a more troublesome jinni suffer consequences should he, or she, require punishment or restraining. Most were aware that it was possible, and there were several theories about the results. Some did not keep the method only for quarrelsome jinn. And one aligned closely with his expressed concern.

He did suspect, however, that he would be far more afraid of his blood boiling, if such were a possibility, than he would be any guards in such a situation. It was a heavily implied lie, but not an outright stated one. May the Five Winds forgive him.

If that did not weigh on her sympathies, perhaps she would feel more inclined to avoid unleashing a desperate jinni near her wares. Or on the guard that would answer her call. Curdle did not like playing with words in this way. But it was his last and only chance. So, he used any card given to him that might sway the moment in his favour. Beneath the canvas, his fingers were twisted in supplication of whatever force or spirit might care to answer.

Miria found it mildly interesting that the jinni clarified so quickly and firmly that he wasn't a runaway. She believed that part of the story only because he said it in such a candid way that she could not believe it acted. This was a slave with pride, someone that couldn't possibly have done something terrible enough to need to run away. If she chose to let him go, she would know that she at least hadn't allowed a thief or murderer to go free.

Until he mentioned that his master died. At once, Miria thought of that gruesome scene: blood everywhere, her family dead, their jinni clearly in shock and mourning their loss, assuring her that he hadn't killed them.... Miria had to breathe, to remind herself that this jinni's master died with a task for him to do. Surely, if he had killed his master, he wouldn't have been so clear about not being a runaway, would he?

Miria wasn't sure about the rest of this jinni's story. If he wasn't a runaway, then what was so important that he needed to do in the wake of his master's death that warranted being hunted by the guards? She racked her mind for anything her former jinni lover had said regarding their customs and culture but could not come up with any reason that would lead to this slave's current situation.

He continued with his story. Miria could understand his fear for being caught and he seemed to hold at least a little respect for his dead master if he wanted to complete her last task for him so adamantly. Still, there were too many holes in the story, too much that didn't make sense. She knew this jinni wasn't telling him everything. Perhaps he had done something horrible and all of these gaps in the story were red flags to that fact. Perhaps she needed to do the right thing and alert the guards. However, there was still that risk that they would associate her with whatever crime he committed anyway, and whatever the gaps in his story were, he did not come across as someone who would kill. This jinni's mannerisms didn't reek of that sort of desperation, she did not feel like she was in any danger, nor did this jinni's behavior mesh with the unsettling calmness of a sociopath.

Miria sighed, feeling drained and exhausted. The only thing she was sure about was that he wasn't a thief. Anything she had of value was currently with her; there was nothing in the cart that was worth stealing or making a fuss over. Frankly, she had a long day, she was hungry and tired, and in no mood to spend hours dealing with the guards' interrogations once they had apprehended the jinni. She had heard enough of this jinni's story to be convinced to let him go. Besides, she had not the energy or the patience to involve herself in his affairs, whatever they would be.

Cautiously, Miria looked around before whispering, "I have no time to deal with you, and frankly I don't care. There is one guard in the alley to your right. If you leave quickly and quietly, he may not notice you. I would rather you not get caught in my vicinity, so go now while you still can. I would like to never see you again."

He heard that sigh.

It was, so he believed, a good sign. It surely meant a decision had been made and, regardless of what came next, he would be happy that the wait was over. The woman hadn’t taken long to reach her conclusion, but when it made the difference between success and failure, even a single breath seemed an eternity.

Her voice came again, just as quiet as before, but with far less anger it in. And no shouting, a very good sign, indeed. Beneath the canvas, Curdle’s whole body felt suddenly limp and shaky, the relief was tangibly heavy and weighed down every muscle. He did not mind that her reasoning was more for herself than to help him. This was not an instance where charity would be applauded; there was no reason for her to act otherwise. Trembling, he made sure he knew his right from his left, in case his mind had ceased basic function, and took another light breath before trapping the air in his throat and lungs.

The simplest of magic. He’d used it twice already today, and was tired enough that a third might well prove too much. Still, the attempt was worth the effort if it succeeded. So, the aging jinni held his breath and worked to empty his mind. It was the mind that shaped the presence of an individual, after all, without a mind, he might as well be part of a crowd, unremarkable and unimportant. Of course, it would only last for as long as he could hold his breath and avoiding clarity of conscience. He did not dawdle in getting out from under the canvas, though he did try to make the act as normal as possible. A most difficult endeavour, to be sure. And his face was turning red with the effort when he finally stood and glanced towards where she’d claimed the guard would be.

The alley, he saw immediately, and the guard a moment later. He seemed as yet unperturbed. Good.

Despite the risk, and his now rather disheveled mien, Curdle spared a second to face the owner of his safe hiding place and bowed enough to make his gratitude clear. He had no other means with which to thank her, he couldn’t speak, and his lungs were beginning to burn, restraining magic as they were.

Thanks given, he straightened and walked deliberately away from both her and the guard, pace increasing the farther he walked, until he was once again running as he turned a corner out of sight. He didn’t make it much farther before he had to lean against a wall, gasping for breath and desperately swallowing the coughs trying to escape. Too close, too loud. Someone would hear and look and notice. Not that leaning against a wall looking ready to vomit (and that may not have been an exaggeration as his stomach began to twist itself around a lump of hunger and fear-wrought adrenaline) was in any way less out of the ordinary. He could recover his dignity a little faster though, and started walking again without any of the speed he’d achieved earlier.

His throat was dry. His joints were stiff. His chest ached. His mood was unpleasantly hopeful. He had no reason to look forward to what would come next. But now that he did not have the urn weighing at his shoulder, his steps seemed strangely light. And Curdle even smiled at the market guard as they shouted and fussed about his sudden appearance. He made no attempt to fight back when they restrained him, and held his silence when they demanded to know what he’d done with the Lady. It was only as they marched him away that his heart sank yet again.

What if that merchant did not do with the urn as he hoped? Was his final act for Fiira going to be giving away her trust?

As he stumbled and felt his knees hitting the floor of a holding cell, hands tied behind him, Curdle realised he had made the wrong choice. Fiira had not given up on him, believing him capable of this one thing. He had stopped trying too soon.

Miria lifted both eyebrows as she watched the jinni leave. She expected him to bolt out of the cart like a cat sprayed with water, but instead he shuffled out, moving quite strangely, and even paused to give her a bow of respect. She didn't return the bow, far too anxious to do much of anything except tap her foot and wait patiently for him to leave. She kept casting anxious glances at the guard, hoping the jinni would get out of the area before the guard to turned to see. Just go already! she wanted to shout if she didn't worry so much about drawing attention to herself and to the jinni.

At last, he moved out of sight around the corner, and Miria released a sigh of relief. "Hopefully, we never see him again," she murmured to Raha, giving the donkey an affectionate pat on his neck before hoisting her bags up and moving around the cart to dump them inside.

She saw the urn almost immediately; the cart was simple without cubby holes, drawers, or the like, and the only other thing in it was the canvas tarp. With a frown, she pulled the tarp aside, shoved the bags into the cart, then climbed in, stepping over her belongings to investigate the vase. It certainly looked like an urn, which was what stopped Miria from picking it up right away. Already she could feel her skin crawl; why would the jinni leave the remains of someone in her cart? She had dealt with enough death in her lifetime to be used to things like this, but the manner in which this particular urn was presented to her made her feel uneasy.

Perhaps the jinni was hiding something. Perhaps the contents in the vase weren't at all ashes. Hesitantly, she lifted the lid of the urn to peer inside.

The material certainly looked like ashes, and Miria closed the lid at once, wiping her fingers vigorously on her clothing and wondering why a jinni would leave a person's remains in her cart... unless he was hiding something within the ashes.

Dread followed the thought, Miria not wanting to handle the urn more than she had to. She could always just dump the ashes somewhere, but what if the urn really did contain nothing but ashes? She didn't feel right scattering the remains of someone that she didn't even know, yet she had to be sure of the contents. If her cart was inspected in the morning and the guards found something strange in the urn, she'd be arrested.

Miria hopped out of the cart and wandered around the darkened square until she found a twig suitable enough for her needs. Satisfied, she rubbed it clean the best she could then climbed back into the cart, carefully re-opening the lid to the urn. Cringing and barely able to stand to watch her own progress, she stirred the ashes with the stick, relieved when she felt nothing out of the ordinary. With a grimace, she discarded the stick over the edge of the cart, closed the urn, then gently picked it up. She looked around and spotted a shadowed crevice against the wall of the inn. Glancing about to make sure she wasn't being watched, she placed the urn in this crevice, satisfied with her decision to leave it.

This satisfaction gradually changed as she prepared Raha and herself to rest for the night and for the journey the following morning. Her mind kept drifting to the brief conversation she had with the jinni. His master had died and he was tasked with one final order. What if that task was to scatter or bury the remains of his master somewhere? Perhaps the jinni had somehow forgotten the urn.

Thoroughly annoyed by her current situation, Miria trudged back to the spot where she had left the urn, picking it up with care. She ought to be looking for that jinni to return his urn, but she had no idea how to find him, especially if he was still actively trying to make sure he couldn't be found. Frankly, she couldn't stay up all night to look for him. Grumbling under her breath, Miria set the urn at the end of the cart where the jinni could easily grab it if he returned, then she settled in for the night.

~~~

Departure mornings were always very stressful, this morning no exception. Miria rose before dawn, hurrying to wash up and prepare to leave. Despite the early hour, the inn was bustling with other merchants doing the same thing; Miria had to wait in line for food. To make matters worse, Raha decided to be stubborn, refusing to move from his seemingly never-ending supply of hay. After much coaxing, a lot of swearing, and offering Raha a dried date, they were finally on the move, Miria rushing to get to the city's front gate.

Here, too, was a line, and she groaned, worried that she would miss her caravan. Only a caravan leader had the magical connections to get heavy carts across the desert sands. Only caravan leaders knew how to navigate these sands without getting lost, and only caravan leaders had the means to protect the party from bandits. Miria had already paid the caravan leader the night before for her spot in the caravan, but she knew that it would not wait for her. Traveling the desert without a caravan leader was almost a death sentence.

Finally, after what felt like ages, it was her turn at the gate. She waited patiently for the guard to check her things, waiting for the usual, "Nothing strange here, move long," but instead got, "What's this?"

She turned in her seat, surprised, then gaped when she saw the urn in the guard's hands. She had completely forgotten about it! "Those are my uncle's ashes," she blurted out. "He died recently, so--"

"Mmm-hmm," the guard replied absentmindedly, opening the urn. He brandished a small dagger, stirring it inside the urn, squinting at the contents, then taking a sniff. "Where is your uncle from?"

"He died in Hudris a little while ago," Miria rattled, angry with herself for forgetting the urn. "I have not yet arrived at the designated spot to--"

"Mmm-hmm, move along!" The guard set the urn back down, then motioned for the next person in line to step forward.

Miria did not need to be told twice. She nudged Raha forward, the open desert spreading before her. And, with luck, Miria found her caravan group, the leader a little delayed due to a heated verbal dispute with another caravan leader. After an exchange of hearty insults, her group finally began the move, Miria at once more relaxed knowing that she would make the trip safely.

She wondered why the jinni hadn't returned for his urn over night; had he been arrested? Suspecting that she would never see him again, she decided that when the caravan camped for the evening, she would gesture a small token of respect towards the remains of this unknown person she assumed was the jinni's master and leave the urn there.

It did not take long for the night’s cold to sneak through the walls of the cell. They were thin and the wide space and windows did not help in keeping the heat inside. Staying still left it to settle on his skin, but Curdle hadn’t wasted his energy pacing.

He’d slept instead, when the excitement wore away all desire to be awake. Fear was no refuge. Shame was no shield. He'd slept because it was his only escape. The ache in his shoulders was what woke him when they began protesting the position his tied hands forced them into. He shivered then, confused, trying to reach for the light quilt that should have covered him. The movement sent him sliding to the side and he blinked his eyes open in surprise. He was leaning against a wall, alone, no quilt, no mattress, no master.

Fiira was dead.

A poor memory to awaken to.

Curdle grunted as he struggled back upright, concerned by the growing numbness in his fingers, but not at all surprised by the same in his backside. Sitting too long on stone would do that to anyone.

What he liked least was the creeping lassitude of his thoughts. Their sluggish stirring fit well with the shock of everything that had happened over the last two days. How far he had fallen. He had accepted Fiira’s death without truly seeing beyond it. He hadn’t allowed himself the chance to consider the consequences beyond pushing them away. Now, he was living them. They thought he’d killed her. Those that did not believe it were willing to let it be said. Because it forgave the fuss they’d made, and his being held. It explained her disappearance when they could not, and he would not.

In that much, at least, he had held his own. Saying nothing, holding to silence as his final hope. As long as they did not find the urn, as long as they did not know to look for it, there was still a chance.

But below the calm surface, anger had turned his dreams restless. It sat in his chest, to the right of his heart, shortening his breath and echoing each drumming pulse in his ears. His hands were tied, a twist of rope holding him prisoner, a knot he could not reach with fingers that had lost all feeling. There was no one inside to watch his struggles, though he was certain enough that someone would be nearby. Earlier, he had let their confidence lull him. Let it soothe the quiet hurt that had curled itself up inside his bones as though the warmth of living blood was any comfort. They could say what they wanted of him, do what they would, because he’d done his best. The best that any jinn could offer their master.

He’d given her remains away, not even on a promise that they might leave the walls. Then he had walked back not to gratitude for offering himself in service again, but to suspicion.

If that was his best, him, a high noble’s personal jinni! He was not worth even a dog’s notion of faith. It was no wonder he’d thought he heard the West Wind laughing as he gave up. But worse, these people were not worth what he had given them. They were not worth his obedience, his service, his life. He owed them nothing. Fiira, of course, had been owed only what the contract demanded of him. But in the end, it hadn’t been a demand, had it? His one chance to prove he was more than a binding, ruined. By his own hand.

As the sun rose, scraping shadows across the floor with a harsh, unforgiving ease, Curdle watched the flat walls take on the faint texture of any mud-daubed hut. There was nothing special about his prison. Yet it held him still. Because he allowed it. Slowly, for the numbness was working its way up his wrists now, and his shoulders creaked with every movement, the jinni shifted to his feet and slid his way up the wall, grunting at stiffness reawakened. But it was only walls and a bit of rope, nothing more. He might not have fit through the windows, but they were large enough for a cat to slink through, or a bird. His mouth twisted beneath his beard, and a low chuckle grated from his dry throat even as his shape began to blur, shimmering like a mirage. Better to make it a bird then, a little one that would just slip right through the rope. He could feel the feathers, the shift in size, his toes stretching while his feet shrunk in his boots.

And almost, almost he thought it might be that easy. But the rope, twisted and harsh as it had felt when they’d first tied it, suddenly seemed to tighten and he felt the smooth silk of hair. Cutting away contact with his hands, even as his magic flickered and flared, snapping further out of his control the harder he pushed against that resisting circle. It stung, biting away his breath. It burned, searing his skin. His insides were a mess of organs, small and large and disfigured, squeezing. Squeezing until he let go, gasping out a whimper, for he hadn’t the strength to scream.

When he opened his eyes, Curdle was on his knees, forehead against the floor, staring at it. Shaking, shivering, scrambling for what was left of the scattered pieces of himself. Sweat dripped from his nose. It soaked through his shirt. He couldn’t stop the tremors.

This was why they did not set a guard inside the door. Why they didn’t need to find a prison more secure. Human hair, woven with hemp, a rope to steal his magic. His arms felt dead. He wasn’t even certain he still had hands. It was only good against shifting, but that was the strongest magic most jinn had when they were contracted. It could not defeat disbelief. Jinn magic was not a truth so much as a sideways lie, and while humans had ever been good at telling lies, they were just as quick to deny their own, so their bodies held very strictly to their shape. Humans were humans, no matter what others might think they looked like. There was nothing for his magic to work with then. And a bird with human hands was not a bird, no matter what he tried to convince himself.

It had taken him half the morning to stop trying, and half again of what was left to recover from that failure. When the bells rang noon he heard the guards outside being replaced, but they only pulled back a small flap to peer inside and check that he had not escaped and was not trying to. They gave him little chance to try anything with them. A desperate jinni was a dangerous jinni, but what could he do if there was nothing to make use of?

He could find something… Somewhere else…

Curdle’s thoughts were tired. Not really logical, because of course he could not find anything anywhere else when he was tied up and unable to leave. But it was the best choice to make. And it was instinct that set his mind tumbling after the idea. In the oldest stories, jinn were creatures of air and fire, their power was in motion and sleight of hand. Deceit made real. Their realm was outside walls and restraints. They’d grown smaller over the years, solid, close, grounded. There was nothing left of that time other than remnants, ghosts and rumours. But as his mind slipped sideways into a daze, half seeking sleep and half reaching for refuge, the walls around him crumbled to dust, the roof had never been. His arms, disconnected with reality, spread on either side of him, lifted and rushed down, pushing him up away from the earth.

A sharp wind suddenly rattled the roof tiles and spat sand into the guards’ eyes, making them curse and spit before checking both inside and out to be sure this was not some jinn magic at work. They found nothing untoward, no strangers without, and only one man within, sleeping through the heat of the day.

Above them, he circled once in surprise, for the dream felt so real. But the realisation did not send him suddenly plunging towards the ground. He rose higher instead, relishing his newfound freedom before turning and rushing in a rough, headlong tumble towards the caravan routes. He had to find that woman and her cart.

Miria could never really pinpoint why she found travel so exciting. Growing up, she didn't travel and didn't see the need to in her young adult years. It wasn't until after her family had died that she traveled, mainly out of necessity, and she assumed she would hate every mile of it with every passing day. The open horizon, however, with its silent promise of hope and change, was ever-enticing. She distrusted the city walls, unable to anticipate what was around the corner, unable to gauge a person's intentions by the invisible pressures city dwelling held. The dangers in a city were all internal, driven by money, politics, and stature, and no one person reacted to these things quite the same way.

The dangers of the open desert, however, were external. The caravan only survived so long as the jinni that paved their way also survived. Bandits lurked in the rolling shadows of every sand dune, the heat of the merciless sun like a vulture waiting for someone to grow too foolish or too cocky. Even the vastness of the desert was a danger; one could wander aimlessly for days and not find so much as a rock to distinguish one sand dune from another, and natural sustenance was a rare occurrence. These external dangers, however, were what formed truces between enemies, what turned a caravan into a community, what forced people to work together. Without each other, the caravan would erode, and no one wanted to die the slow, suffering way of the desert. Only while traveling did Miria not worry about her wares being stolen; where would the thief go alone without a caravan leader to guide him? She did not worry about being mistreated by the caravan leader; she had paid for his protection, and maintaining a good reputation was his livelihood. A person was not burdened by money or politics or status; the desert made every intention transparent for the sake of survival in this harsh land. Ironically, this was when Miria could truly relax.

Currently, she hummed softly along to a slow, bright tune crooned by two women towards the front of the caravan. Her cart lurched and swayed on the firm yet uneven sand, and her body swayed in contented ease with the motions. Like everyone else, her body was shrouded from head to foot to protect her skin from the blistering sun and to retain her body's moisture, but her face was clearly visible, a soft smile playing on Miria's lips and teasing the corners of her eyes in the form of laugh lines. To her left, a father and son on an ox cart were arguing over some previous bet between battling beetles, and she inwardly chuckled over their light-hearted banter. To her right, a boy no older than 17, from her guess, was talking her ear off while riding on a mule. Raha didn't seem to notice; the donkey liked travel as much as Miria did. She always assumed that Raha thought it a welcomed change of pace from munching on straw in a stable all day in the city.

"It was no contest," the boy boasted, too bashful to look Miria in the eye, but his voice burst with the unrestrained confidence of an adolescent. "The jinni simply couldn't keep up with me. I overpowered him in that fight, and he had magic on his side."

Miria nodded, her smile rehearsed, but said nothing. Between the boy's haggard robes and the stiff, uneasy gate in which his mule moved--the same way Raha would move around a stranger--the kid must be a runaway or the victim of some unfortunate circumstance. No nosy mother or stuffy father came to claim him, and he didn't seem to know how to stop talking as though she was the last person on earth, simply because she smiled at him. She doubted the truth of his story, that he had won a fight against a jinni, but if it was true it would only be due to some hidden fact, such as that he battled a shackled and weakened slave under the watchful eye of a master. Whatever the real story was, Miria paid it no mind. She could put up with the boy's chatter today, though she could see it getting tiring after a while. She hoped that her silence would eventually force him to move on to someone else in the caravan. Right now, she would allow him to try to impress her with his tall tales.

"Do you own a jinni?" the boy asked.

Miria lifted an eyebrow as her humming died away, sending him a sideways glance. "No one is bound to me, and I intend to keep it that way," she said.

"I wouldn't mind owning a jinni someday. It would be nice for me to order someone around for a change."

"Or you could live by your own means, answering to no one, burdened by no one."

"You mean, live on my own? I'm doing it now. It's not impressive. Besides, men with jinni are powerful, and I want to be powerful. Take our caravan leader, for instance; he's got a jinni paving our way for us."

Beyond the line of trodding oxen and mules and bobbing heads, a jinni girl lead the way. She was slight of frame, with long dark hair piled in a messy bun behind her, long deer-like ears bent back along her head. Square-shaped birthmarks of brown, white, and grey dotted her tanned skin around startling blue eyes, along her forehead, and against her cheeks. She was barefoot, on tip-toe, but she moved with the assurance of someone that did not have feet scorched by the sun-baked sand. Her pace was swift enough for the carts to move at a comfortable pace, though she looked not the slightest out of breath. She held her arms out on either side of her, like a bird yearning to take flight, and the sand firmed to a concrete hardness in the wake of her steps. This hardened sand made cart travel easy, and the makeshift road returned to loose sand only after the steps of the last person in the caravan line. Immediately behind the jinni was the caravan leader, comfortable and proud on horseback, fully armed in case bandits decided to show themselves. Attached to the horse was a chain connecting the beast to the metal collar around the jinni girl's neck. Unlike everyone else, the jinni girl wasn't shrouded -- thin, flowing robes framed her body like a toga, baring her arms, shoulders, and parts of her legs. Despite her seeming hardiness to the harsh desert environment, she looked like a creature not quite suited for the desert; her features were too soft, too dark, her movements too delicate, like a doe caught in a barren wasteland. Her entire life would be spent pacing the desert sands in this way, though she was needed too badly for anyone in the caravan to question the quality of her life.

"I would think it more powerful to be able to survive this world alone," Miria murmured quietly, reminded of the urn in her cart and the jinni that had left it there. It would be days before they reached the next town; Miria was anxious to get rid of the thing.

"Nothing good comes of being alone," was the teen boy's reply.

On the first pass, as he followed one of three trails leading away from the city gates, Curdle marvelled less at the speed of his travel – which seemed sometimes to be on wings of wind and sometimes more upon the whims of the wind – than he did at the array that swept across his vision.

The sand and sky were as they always had been. Nothing had displaced them. Yet, for all that it would have been an impossible task, the jinni might have believed it had someone told him then that a spirit or god had reached down while he was sleeping and turned every dune to glass. Not the clear, smooth panes that he had seen only three times in his whole life, no. There was form and shape and colour beneath him. Breath. And it spun together a thousand colours he could not name. He had caught glimpses of the same in the desert glass occasionally found by travellers, sparks trapped in time.

Fire annealed.

The desert had somehow turned to light.

Ahead of him, specks in that brightness, whorls of blues and greens and star-silver resolved themselves into mules and camels and oxen, humans and jinn, making their way across the sand. He could see the red-orange glow of hard light, magic, lingering beneath the sand stretched out behind them. It was the trail he’d followed from the gate, though the nearer he came, the brighter it grew. It formed a strange shell between the travellers and the glittering sand beneath their feet. And as he rushed past, wondering how he might even recognise that woman if he could not make out faces, that light shell flickered, foundering for a moment, and he saw one dark, jadestone silhouette that paused in the middle of a mincing bird step to turn towards him huge, round eyes the same bright light as the sand, looking right through him the way he could through them, and he fled upwards again on another rush of wind. There’d been no donkey in that group.

As he rose, vista spreading once more beneath him, looking for the other three groups to cut across to them rather than go back to the city, he realised he did not know for sure that she had even left. That she would eventually, he’d had no doubt, but that it would be today… How could he know? He’d not bothered to ask. She likely would not even have told him.

Well, two more caravans to search, and then he must go back if she was not in either. He did not know if getting too close to his body would pull him back to it or not, but if he had no other means of becoming himself, once more, it might be his best option. Or he could remain like this forever. It was not, in truth, an unenticing opportunity.

The next caravan, led by a male with a snake’s tongue, had some promise, but there were three in and around the cart pulled by one donkey, and a child in the other. The woman had not been a mother, so far as he’d been able to tell in their brief meeting. Motherly, she might have managed with anyone other than him, younger too, but not a mother.

He flew high to find the last caravan, dazzling himself with the faint spray of clouds turned crystal, and spun in a dizzying spiral back down to the heated brightness of shattered stone when he finally spotted them. He left billowing cloth in his wake, and a briefly motionless jinni, staring like the deer she resembled before a slight rattle of the chain reminded her that the day was not yet done. One donkey, stolidly silver, and a woman of shifting, faceted sapphire in the cart. He passed again, slower, and recognised the broken magic around the urn before he did her, shrouded as she was. He’d not seen enough of her to recognise her shadow. But the urn was there, and he was nearly certain it had not changed hands either, though she must have found it.

He thanked the North Wind that she’d done nothing with it yet, and lifted again to track them as the sun, a strangely dim orb to his eyeless sight, dipped towards the horizon. When they camped for the night, he would try to join them, if he could.

---

He’d watched the night’s shadow steal across the sand, stretching over the light as though devouring it, and, briefly, he’d mourned the loss. But soon enough, the caravan had begun tiny fires that snapped and sparked like golden stars, though they covered only the tiniest fraction of visible desert, it was enough. And gradually, as he looked further, waiting for the travellers to tumble into sleep, he saw other tiny stars, other spots of life, wandering over the shadowed sand. There was life still.

Now, slowly, he drifted lower, and lower still. Until he was floating above Miria’s sleeping form. He reached out to her, but succeeded only in ruffling her covers. He tried to shout, to startle her awake that way, as though her waking up was somehow the key to his existence. But she did not hear him. Nor did anyone else, save, perhaps, the other jinn. Then, he sank too low and her breath caught him, drew him in. Not into her lungs, he was no use there, but into her Self. And he fell sideways through her, brushing past emotion and thought and dreams as they dragged at him in turn. Despite his earlier ease of movement, he learned too late that a lack of form gave him nothing with which to resist that pull.

He was sent headlong into her sleeping mind.

The white-washed adobe home was warm, cozy, fueled by a cheery fire. Low, cushioned lounge chairs surrounded the space, the floors adorned with rugs of warm reds, browns, and golds. The scent of incense filled the air. A middle-aged man with a round face and a kind smile coaxed his violin to sing with the bow, a light, cheery melody. The sweet notes pulled a smile to his lips as he eyed his family -- his wife swaying in place on her seat opposite him while threading a new tapestry as his daughter sang along, her voice low from being out of practice but still melodious.

This was a childhood memory of Miria's manifest into a dream, though she wasn't a child here. Though her parents looked and acted the age she remembered them as a girl, she was a woman, her current self, her dark hair now glinting in the warm firelight, swept back into a loose bun that rested at the nape of her neck. Her russet skin was smooth, unscathed by the unforgiving years of travel in the desert, her brown eyes bright with a light unfazed by sorrow and struggle. She wore a beautiful yellow sari draped over her shoulder with a matching top and petticoats, her sandaled feet smooth and uncalloused, her demeanor cheery and carefree. She could carry on like this forever, spending the night away with her family.

Tamal was with her, sitting behind her, his strong arms wrapped around her waist. She could feel his body against her back, lean and firm, and his chin resting on her shoulder. Such an embraced stirred within her memories of his touch, her body warming in anticipation for later. His breath tickled the nape of her neck, his snow-white hair caressing her cheek, and she could occasionally hear the flicker of one of his long jackal ears. Tamal was the household servant, the jinni slave, not much older than her; he was a boy when he first began to serve. In Miria's real past, she and Tamal hadn't become lovers or even friends until after her family's death. In this dream, however, not only were they lovers, but it was a union accepted by the family without the slightest concern. Tamal kept Miria, this dream version of her with her head in the clouds, grounded and focused, while she hoped to show him how bright life could be beyond the daily toils of jinni life. They were perfect for each other, or so Miria believed at that moment, reliving the blissful, ignorant perspective of a young woman. Oh, if the real world was so accepting, so carefree....

"I'm going to get some water," Miria whispered, reluctantly sliding from Tamal's embrace as she rose to her feet. She glanced behind her, enraptured by his gentle smile and those bright amber eyes gazing up at her with such tenderness.

She disappeared into the kitchen, inwardly giddy of Tamal's smile, eager to return to his arms, the sounds of her father's playing and her mother's laughter soothing to the soul. When she did return, however, her world changed in a blink of an eye.

Suddenly, she was normal, gritty Miria, older Miria, body cloaked for travel, the light in her eyes gone, her hair brittle from the dry air and heat. She stared into her family's main room, her mother and father replaced by two bodies, blood splattered on the walls, along the floor, everywhere. Dread and despair washed over her, for this scene was all too familiar, all too wanted. She did not want to relive the sight of her dead family all over again, a high, long wail escaping her as though seeing it for the very first time. She dropped to her knees, her gaze resting on what she knew she would find -- Tamal hovering over her father's body, blood on his hands, his shirt, his face....

Unlike the first time and unlike the subsequent dreams, Tamal did not raise a mask of sorrow to her with a carefully rehearsed explanation of what happened. No... this time, the truth was written all over his face, a much starker contrast than the fresh blood against his pale features. His eyes were filled with hate, his mouth curved in a sneer of pure malice, and he slowly rose to his feet, a predatory demeanor to his every movement.

Miria caught herself through her renewed despair, remembering that she had been through this already. She knew what Tamal had done, knew that he was dangerous, and knew that her family's ashes had been scattered to the four winds long ago. The dagger she always kept concealed near her body was gone; she glanced around the room for any sort of weapon to use, trying hard not to look at the motionless bodies on the floor.

"He had it coming," Tamal growled, his voice low, throaty, heady with madness. "The things you never knew about... the things he did to me... and the way she just turned the other cheek... your precious father, your loving mother... they had it coming."

As Tamal spat out the words, Miria rose to her feet, willing her body not to tremble, commanding herself to be strong. How could she be strong in the face of such an atrocity, in the wake of such a malicious gaze?

"And you, living your perfect life, ignorant to the darkness, will know what suffering is. You will join them!" With a roar, Tamal rushed forward.

Miria's resolve shattered; where was the strong woman she thought she had become? She screamed in alarm, turned to run away, and bumped into Curdle. The impact sent her stumbling back directly against the charging Tamal...

...who dissipated around her like a broken cloud of smoke, disappearing into thin air like mist chased away by the morning sun. Miria fell back, her gaze widening in surprise when she took on the familiar form. It was the old jinni from Renna, though he wasn't old at all now. She shouldn't be able to recognize him, so altered his visage was by youth, but somehow she knew and remembered.

"Y-you!" She glanced around warily, her heart thudding against her chest as she looked for Tamal. He was nowhere in sight. The bodies, too, had disappeared, along with the blood, but Miria's fear lingered like smoke trapped in a room, slow to fade. "W-what... why....?" Try as she might, Miria could not find the words, fragmented questions tumbling in her mind, lost in the fog of her fear. What did he want? Why was he here? How was he here? Did he have anything to do with Tamal?

When Curdle stumbled into opening his eyes, he was not confused to find that he had become she, or that there were warm arms wrapped around her waist and music in the background. A tangle of bright life and loving memories. A skein of story wrapped the wrong way ‘round. Dreams never cared to concern themselves with what should be, and these were not his besides, but still, he immersed himself in this moment of family and felt love and was loved in turn and that part of him that was trapped enjoyed it, and that part of him that was still beyond her reach yearned for the same.

S/he wanted this life, grasping at the edges to fold up the image as though it was a quilt they could cover themselves with every evening. Her and Tamal, Mother and Father, music, weaving, laughter, love. Even had he remembered that, awake, he knew none of these people, Curdle would have wished it real. Maybe it was, it felt so sure, for all that same distant part of himself marveled at the heady notion of jinni and human together, in love. In the kitchen, he rejoiced in the familial wealth that abounded here, and did not notice the moment when she turned back and he remained, rooted in the gift she had accidentally given him.

He didn’t notice when the laughter stopped or when the violin fell silent. He didn’t see the atmosphere’s shift from open and inviting to cold and angry, frightening. But he did hear her wail, the distress sending him staggering as the kitchen walls fell away and the floor gave out beneath him, forcing him back to a scene charged with hate. Oh… how the walls wept red. He forgot his fear of the unknown mind beyond this room and watched as the woman who sold tapestries in the market faced her fear and her love and her hate and could not defeat it. The revelation was too much.

But layered now over the whole of it was a level of resignation and regret that delved deep in sad recognition of the strange jinni’s broken justification. The moment was lost. He stepped forward, a body materialising of its own volition, wanting to reach past the woman’s frozen form to pull Tamal out of reach of the blood and whatever hurts he had been given to lead him to this madness. But also, out of reach of the woman whose innocence, ignorance if you will, had been sorely abused. Neither should have had to suffer this story, and true or not, he couldn’t have said, but it felt real and that was all that mattered.

He was too late though, of course he was, years too late in all likelihood, he had no place in the timeline of these dreams. Still, as the jinni charged, a sword leapt to his hand from a scabbard that had not existed before the sword was unsheathed. He would protect the woman, drive her demon away. All he managed, however, was to impede her escape, and he blinked through tears as she fell and Tamal vanished. Everything vanished but the white-washed walls and the lasting effects of traumatic emotions.

Slowly sheathing the sword, Curdle wiped at his wet cheeks, and struggled to recover from what he had witnessed. With a prouder stance, his chin shaved close and his skin less worn by wind and sun, it might well have been only his light eyes and grey horns(still working on their curl now) that gave him away. Gradually, however, as she stumbled over her recognition and he grew into himself here, where he did not belong, the jinni’s beard and horns grew out and the lines deepened around his eyes until he stood with the slight hunch of a man worn down by time. “I, messi.” His voice cracked in the quiet of her suspicions and he didn’t know how to answer her ragged questions. She’d dreamed him, was dreaming? He’d fallen in. And how did one fall into a dream? Especially when it was not their own.

“I made a mistake, I think.” In many things, he had been mistaken. In giving up. In leaving behind the urn. In involving her. In being caught in her dreams. In witnessing secrets… “I am sorry.”

He wiped at his eyes, fingers trembling as the dream gave them a weight that didn’t belong, regret clear in his voice and expression, but there was nothing else he could do. Nothing more that he could say, or ask. Nothing, except what he perhaps should have done in the first place. “Very sorry, messi. Please, I am needing your help.”

The jinni's voice was like an anchor in the fog of fragmented emotions and half-formed visions, giving Miria a sense of focus. Memories of Tamal murmuring "Messi" with a hasty bow, downcast eyes, and lips drawn tight into a thin line rippled and faded behind Curdle. Miria hardly noticed. All she could feel was the grit and sand on her skin, the toil of a long day's travel in aching feet, and remnants of the hot sun lingering in brittle hair. She was no longer the pampered girl adored by her family but the nomadic merchant, aimless, loveless, shattered. All because of the jinni.

At once, perhaps unbeknownst to Curdle, he became the image of Tamal, sneering down at Miria, his eyes cold and empty. So many years she had mistook that gaze for sadness, for the lost hope of a broken slave. The memory of such foolishness angered her, pulled her to her feet, and she seethed. "No, it was my mistake for knowing you, loving you, trusting you! You are supposed to be dead! You're..."

She paused, took a wavering step back, shook her head. Up until that moment, she wanted nothing more than to lash at him, to throw words at him in shrill screams and hope those words held enough weight to actually hurt him. But there was a strange sense of realism in talking to Tamal that she couldn't place, like reliving an actual memory instead of a dream. It altered Miria's perception of her visitor, his image flickering between that of the spiteful Tamal and the humble jinni she had met so recently at the market. The jinni with the urn...

Miria gasped, blinked, and Curdle's image held, remained whole. She was suddenly aware, as though she had woken up. Somehow, she knew she was still dreaming, and somehow she knew this jinni was in her dreams, her thoughts. She didn't know how or why, but it sent chills down her spine, followed by the mortifying realization that he had witnessed very intimate moments of her subconscious.

"Y-you didn't..." A shaking hand flew to Miria's mouth. Unable to look him in the eye, she sank back down to sit, struggling not to think too much about what he had seen and what he had interpreted from the scene. His words, which felt like they were spoken so long ago, now tumbled in her thoughts; it was a wonder she could make sense of them at all. He was sorry, this was a mistake, he needed help....

"I still have your urn," she murmured, assuming that this was what the jinni needed help with. "I plan to rid myself of it."

Her gaze flickered up to him as a new question pressed against her tongue. "Are you dead?" How else would he be here in her dreams like this? Why else would he never come to claim his urn? She knew very little about the spiritual customs of the jinn; Tamal had always been so tight-lipped about such things. Now she had the sneaking suspicion that this jinni was a ghost haunting her dreams.

There was a moment of disconnect as Miria began shouting. His vision blurred and shifted and she seemed suddenly shorter. His feelings hardened and fell away even as he stepped back in shock at the vehemence of her words. The dizzying shift of being, for that moment, the source, centre and target of all her anger left him dazed and confused. He didn’t know what was happening, he didn’t know if she wanted him to grovel on his knees and beg forgiveness or shout back. He wasn’t even certain what she was blaming him for. He had never met her, known her, loved her or trusted her before yesterday. For that matter, she had never done any of those with him either.

It was only when she paused, and saw him again that he understood the problem. Rising from his position halfway to kneeling (that he did not recall starting), Curdle frowned and ran his fingers over his beard, concerned by the revelation. He was an interloper who could see and hear and feel everything in her dreams. But they were still hers. He had no control even over who he was now. This might well mean he had no control over how he would leave, or what he might be when he did. But he was spared from worrying about that by the need to address the woman’s concerns. If she acted against him here, he did not think he’d be able to stop her.

The trouble, really, was he didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t anything to say. He’d seen her love a jinni and run from the same. He’d seen her lose a family and gain the one that stole them from her. He’d heard a jinni’s suffering at her father’s hand. There was nothing that could answer that and his fingers curled into fists at his sides as she stumbled and shrank to the ground. What could he do? He knew all this and yet remained ignorant of her name. Messi… Perhaps she was more deserving of that spoken courtesy than anyone he’d ever applied it to, but he’d long since learned that it did not offer much by way of comfort.

He wanted to though, oh, it held him so close that longing to give her something… better… on which to dream. But he could not move. The only sign of his own emotional turmoil was the shifting of his left thumb over his nails, as though that might ease anything.

She broke him from his paralysis with her mention of the urn though. It grabbed his attention and dragged him forward one, then two steps as she spoke of being rid of it. Not when he had only just found it again! Please! “No, messi, please do- not… Dead? No, I…” His expression shifted from worried to confused to unsure. “I do not think...”

How could he tell? He might be. He felt real, but this was her dreaming, her creation. Bringing his hands up, he frowned at them as he opened and closed his fingers, realising belatedly that there was no old ache of worn out joints as he did. Not so real then. But his body, his real body, was in a small hut in the middle of Renna. Was it dreaming too? Was he the only one dreaming? Flying and seeing everything the way he saw magic… Falling into her breath… That was the stuff of dreams. But a human and jinni falling in love, that was fantasy. Never would he have dreamed anything like it. So, it could not only be him dreaming her. But was she dreaming him? Was he alive now only because he existed in her head?

No, no… No! He fought the surge of panic that bubbled up in his chest and made it hard to breathe (did he need to now?), closing his eyes and blotting out as much as he could of his situation now. He couldn’t afford to panic. He couldn’t afford to lose himself. It didn’t matter if she was dreaming or if he was dead or if none of this was real. If it was all he could do, than he needed to make the most of it. He had to keep his head and tell her what she needed to know. The struggle to keep himself together thinned his lips behind his beard and whitened his knuckles, but somewhere, distant, a drum was beating a slow, echoing rhythm, lub-dub lub-dub. And his breast expanded and contracted. Somewhere, his body was resting, lying prone on the floor of a stucco hut and awaiting his return. The certainty settled his nerves.

He did not dare wonder how he might manage that return.

When he opened his eyes again, they were a little harder, a little clearer. More focused on his own goals than keeping her history from engulfing him. “I am not dead, messi. It may be I cannot say the same tomorrow, but tonight…” How did one describe what he had seen and done that evening? He certainly did not think he could. “I am alive.”

“If… Messi, if you have carried the urn so far already, please do not throw it away now. I would relieve you of its burden, yet I do not know how to escape this place or the binds that keep me in Renna. Will you bring me with you when you wake?” He could not have disguised the tremble in his voice at the last question. If she wanted him to beg, he believed he would. And he was not even sure if her will and memory alone would accomplish anything. He did not know how dream travel worked. But this was his last and only chance. He had given up once already, too easily by far. He would not make the same mistake twice.

Confusion wrapped Miria like a shroud as she 'gazed' upon this not-dead Jinni somehow in her mind, a perfect stranger that may or may not have seen some of her darkest, most intimate memories. "I-I don't understand," she stammered. The more she interacted with him, the more real the conversation felt, as though he was physically here with her and she was actually conversing with him.

Gradually, a new setting took shape around them and clarified, her own mind attempting to make this conversation feel as real as she perceived it to be. The buzz of commerce commenced around her, accompanied by the smell of fresh-baked bread, the hint of manure, and the allure of Renna's surrounding shifting sands. She could feel the packed earth at her feet and see her tapestries around her. They were at the merchant square of Renna, exactly where Miria had first met this Jinni, except this time there were no guards hunting him. This time, he was just another person standing over her wares.

Somehow, this helped Miria gather her wits and organize the many questions swarming around her head. She could deal with this mysterious, mystical person in this way, merchant to customer, in her element.

"How am I to bring you with me if you are not physically here?" she asked, and the image of the Jinni shimmered, only briefly, as if to confirm what she already knew. "I am dreaming, you are here, but your body is somewhere else. How is this possible?" Miria looked around, as though doing so would give her the answers she sought. "Is your body on the caravan, perhaps?"

No. Miria remembered that he had said that it was still in Renna. She realized that if she was to better understand this person and this situation, she needed to know who this Jinni was.

"What are you?" she asked in her best business-like tone. "Who are you? Is this your magic, getting into people's heads?"