I think I was smiling. Yes, I know it now. I smiled then. I loved the feeling of warmth pulsing through my veins, the thought of losing that beautiful cross of birth and death I bore for my entire childhood. I didn't even think to reach for the taste of my sweet daggers. I simply closed my eyes and let the earth carry me towards her bitter land of hidden wind.
I was pulled back down through those sorrowful faces as I reached my fingertips to the sky. A figure stood frozen behind the wind, unchanging, unfeeling. The sun's fierce rays blinded me as I squinted my eyes, trying desperately to define the ominous face I saw behind the swirling shields of sand. They danced around his head, enticing me in their eternal damnation of the soul trapped behind their great power. Never moving, never blinking, he remained silent as my daring young spirit encouraged me to step nearer to the sphere of binding imprisonment he stood within. I could see more now. A face. Warm hair like the autumn's leaves and chilling empty eyes that penetrated my innocent glance.
I didn't fear him. Fear was a trivial tool for us both. We shared the thought. I took one cautious step closer as the wind grew stronger, whipping against my aggravated face. I could see him more clearly; his skin was young like mine. But a kind of immortal frailty was blended into his youthful exterior. Never so easily fooled, I reached my hand to the cold silver I held beneath my cloak. Suddenly I realized that the threat, although still present, was fading. He dug his hand into the sand beneath his feet and reached his fingers deep into its abyss. Curling his fingers, he pulled out a pile of sand and stood up slowly. His aura of death and glory shimmered across his body as he slowly released the golden dust from his grip and poured it into the hot air. It circled him slowly, bending to his dominant will. I'd never seen such lost rage in such a beautiful display, such a cold unforgiving presence in someone so young. Someone hurt, someone vengeful. Someone like me. The swirling sand began to quicken as it continued to cascade from his powerful hand. I tried to speak, but found no words in my mind to express what I suddenly felt for this boy, this creature. I pulled the throwing knife from the arsenal behind my cloak and raised it to eye level. The circling of sand grew larger, faster. For the first time in my life, my senses were lost. My guard was down. I was taught better than this.
A small crack in the orb of sand began to split open in front of me. I stood before the doorway in a haze, lost in the boy's eyes. I stepped through the sand's portal and into his world. He continued to stare at me, as if I had violated his mind. Did he not realize how deeply he had violated mine?
Every grain of sand stung my body like that of a wasp, an unceasing poison seeping through the pores of my skin. It didn't matter to me anymore. I wanted to be closer to him. I needed to be closer to him.
There was no more that I could do. No threat could repel me. I was ready. Whether or not he would try to slaughter me where I stood, I couldn't know for sure. My blades were close to my body, though I knew I had no use for them now. My cloak rose in the air and gently brushed against his torso. Suddenly the howling winds ceased, the ravenous sand dropped to the ground. Though we were powerful forces, bound to certain energies neither of us truly understood, for this quiet moment, we were a boy and a girl, standing beneath the desert sky. I heard an Indian flute echoing in the distance, and the power of his stare grabbed hold of my very soul. His lips parted as words were forming in his mind and ready to escape, and that was the moment. The moment I smiled. Any whisper, any threat, any word he might have spoken would have been enough for me. But I am cursed, and my desires were quickly stolen from me as I was violently ripped from that world. Away from the gentle sounds of the Indian flute. Away the warmth of the sand. Away from his eyes.
I gasped in horror as I awoke. The cold air from my opened window rolled into my bed and weaved into my hair. A great feeling of loss encompassed my body as my eyes shifted back and forth. Gone. Every grain of sand, an illusion. Every moment, a hallucination. Every feeling…a dream.
My heart sank as I slowly sat up in my bed and watched my frozen breath rise into the air. To have had such a feeling, to know my childish mind would deceive me…to create such a fantasy. This was not me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a small object upon my chest. I looked down in puzzlement to find a small round glass bottle connected to a black string that was tied around my neck. The fragile clear bottle was filled with the golden dust. It was the essence that he had both threatened and hypnotized me with. His power and his prison. I gripped the bottle tightly with both my hands and felt the eternal warmth radiating from within the glass. I laid my head back down upon my pillow and closed my eyes. I prayed for a dream.