Nights in the Desert
Eta #03 – The Speed of Dark
Both of them knew that they would never forget that time they had spent trekking over the desert from Xing to Amestris. Burning hot during the day, temperatures dropping to below zero at night, and the fact that it was so pitch black at night.
The darkness itself didn't worry them; it was just the speed that it came that did. It would start to get dark, which was then they often stopped for the night, and with several minutes, it was so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
When they had been just on the outskirts of Xing, where the darkness didn't affect them, Ran Fan and her grandfather would spar every night, as part of her training. Occasionally Ling joined in, giving Ran Fan a taste of sword fighting.
There was one night, when they were slightly further out into the desert, having left Xing's border, that one of these harmless spars had turned into a full on battle. Not yet used to the speed at which the night came in, bringing the darkness with it, the battle had ran far and wide.
Fu had remained pretty steady – quickly he had seen that there was no point in chasing after his granddaughter, she was away with Ling, completely absorbed into beating him. Ling too, had been completely absorbed in the sparring, and had not noticed at all that he and Ran Fan were bringing their mini battle further and further away from where they had decided to pitch camp for that night.
Neither of them were prepared for the blackness of the night either. So, when it came down, both of them were completely lost, both unaware of the fact that they had drifted so far from camp and so far from each other.
Eventually, Ling found Ran Fan, though it was more that he tripped over her than found her. "Ran Fan, you okay?" he asked, as he heard the grunts of his bodyguard.
"Master Ling, next time, can you try not to fall over me?" was her reply.
