…..
The Sand Trap
Note: I think I broke my brain. x-posted on the lj. There's nothing different between this and that but a whole lot more gratuitous raving.
…..
I.
They stepped away from the cliff walls and reeled into the baking sand. It was white and hot. In the wide distance, everything shimmered with delusion.
Dart halted, dragging a boot through sand grains that looked like salt. Paused a moment just to take it all in, as if something this large hadn't quite fit into his plans.
In a thin, awed voice, Albert said, "It's certainly…very extensive."
And it was. It stretched and rolled. The light was hard, bright, and poured down like rain. It was brighter, somehow, and that made all the color in their vision wash out.
"We have to walk across THAT?" Meru wailed, looking down at her sandals in dismay.
"Yes." That was Rose, turning to regard them like a twist in a black ribbon.
"But it's all big an' stuff!"
"Yes."
"Well, this SUCKS."
-
The sand was soft, and they sank in ever-shifting grains with every step. Miranda kept her eyes on the ground in front of her, listening to the rhythmic slosh of water in her canteen.
This was a heat that cracked you open and sank just below your skin. Baked you inside out. She could still feel the burning after the sun set on the first day. She could feel it on the skin of her companions as they rested. Feel it on their thoughts. Heat and sand.
On the second day, Meru crumpled into the dunes, dropped there and seemed surprised when she found herself on the ground. Albert had laid out his green sage's cloak and half-pulled Meru onto it when Miranda's shadow darkened them both.
"'s hot." Meru panted. Miranda gave a token 'snuh', and splashed some water onto a rag.
"We'll rest a bit, okay?"
The sun boiled down. Meru made a clicking sound under the cloth covering her face. Miranda lifted a hand to shade her eyes, and all around them lay scooping dunes and jagged pillars of rock. The light held an odd, flat look.
"Give her this." A hand drifted into her line of vision, tanned and dark, little white scars crisscrossing over the knuckles. And a corked vial held loosely between two fingers. Dart looked thoughtful when she risked a glance at him. "Potion."
"You shouldn't waste that." Rose shifted so that her weight rested on one leg, idly scuffed the line of sand in front of her.
When Miranda lifted the already drying cloth, Meru sounded like she was breathing through a reed. She looked scared, her eyes wide and wet looking around the edges.
Miranda yanked the cork out with her teeth, sharp needle-like pain at the corners of her mouth, and handed the potion and its shimmery blue contents off to Albert.
"Miranda-" Dart started, sounding dried out.
She snapped up a warding hand and rose, feeling bones pop in her knees. A quick, angered stalk to where Rose had displaced herself away from the rest of them.
'Black Monster. Bitch.'
"Waste it? She's on the fucking GROUND. She needs to REST- we ALL do!"
"If you don't think you can make it," Rose said evenly. "Then you shouldn't have come."
Miranda's hand folded into a fist. Heat and anger swam around her brain, screaming for action, for motion, for her to DO something. She breathed- hissed in air around clenched teeth- because if she opened her mouth she was going to start yelling and she wouldn't stop until she was right in Rose's calm face.
Then the world tilted. Miranda saw Rose fling out her arms for balance, take a step forward and sink to the knee in twisting sand.
Dart shouted something from what seemed a far distance away. It came on the heels of Haschel, and Albert, and everyone was screaming complicated directions. Lay flat. Float on it. Don't panic.
It was dragging her in up to her thighs when it hit. Quicksand. Sand trap. And she did panic, terror flooded her, so thick and wretched she could taste it. It seized her throat, stopped her from screaming, and all that came out was a thin, keening cry.
She clawed at it, scrambling to keep above it, and it flowed back together seamlessly as her hands passed through it. Heavy sand pressed against her back, swallowing her up.
She wanted to shout something at them, something that they'd remember to tell her sisters- something important, and all she could think was 'I should have watched where I was walking…'
And the sand slid up around her.
--
Miranda woke to the sound of sand.
It hissed as it funneled down some forgotten tunnel, pooled in a mound somewhere close. It sprayed in her face when she turned towards it. It weighed her down, burying her in an endless spill.
She coughed, used the back of her hand to wipe at the sand that clung to the corners of her mouth, and pushed herself to her elbows.
Her vision swam in doubles, black around the edges. There was a dull ache at the back of her skull, like something was trying to pry its way out. The only light came from the pearl-like glow of the spirit around her neck, and she weakly grasped and held it up.
Cavern, if you were being charitable. Big honkin' tunnel if you tried for realism. Maybe a dogleg, Miranda thought, and pulled herself out of the sand that covered her. Something trickled onto her head, and she jumped, stumbled to the side. Heard her heartbeat triple as she watched another stream of sand fall from above onto the floor.
'It's like being trapped in the wrong end of a hourglass.' she reflected.
"So you're awake."
The voice sounded flat, and echoed in the carved out chamber. Sounded like a bad note played on a drum. Miranda shuffled around and squinted into the dark. She heard nothing over the noise of falling sand, and saw nothing beyond the strobing light.
"It's about time." It said, and Rose gradually became visible in the shadows around her.
"Where the hell'd you go?" Miranda snapped. Her eyesight was still blurry, her head still hurt, and there was about a pound of sand in a place she didn't know existed. Better yet? Why the hell aren't you dead?
Rose didn't answer right away. She stood at the edge of the offered light and began to unbuckle her armor. Miranda watched her numbly until the other woman shook the sand from her shoulder guard. Part of her brain clicked then, a belated 'oh' of comprehension.
"I found another tunnel. It might lead to the surface." Rose shucked off a boot and tipped it upside down, making a disgusted sound at the clumps of sand it gave up.
Miranda scratched at the back of her head, little grains of sand sprinkling to the ground. Give her a Mille Seseau winter any time. She reached for the canteen at her belt, and grabbed air. "Ah, hell…"
Rose shook out her other boot, glancing up. "I drank it."
"You WHAT?" It came out as a croak.
"There will be water elsewhere. Should be close, the tunnels around here? They're damp."
'I'll kill her. No one has to know she landed here with me.' She thought with a flash of red inspiration. Her brain felt like it had a sticky lint covering. It was interfering with irrational thought. What she really wanted was to hear Albert telling her to calm down using really big words.
"Miranda…?"
There were two Roses, barefoot and stepping carefully towards her. They blurred and merged for a moment, at the same time there was a sudden hot throb – almost like a heartbeat – at the back of her skull. She swayed, the black around her vision swarming outward into a sea of dots.
Miranda reached out, grabbing at something that wasn't there, felt her knees give out; her body hit the ground and then the dull echo of nothing.
-
It was a steady drip somewhere at the edge of reason. It sounded like water, and the longer she listened, the louder it became. There shouldn't be water in the desert. Maybe there was below, and they could dig, and Meru would have all the water she needed…
There was something covering her face, damp and clinging. She reached at clawed at it, an urgent ripple in her stomach signaling the start of something unpleasant. She twisted to her side and gagged around the lump in her throat. Her mouth felt gummy, her tongue dry, and her head swam.
"You're awake."
'We did this already,' she thought crazily. Everything was moving too fast in her mind, images spilling into one another. 'You drank my water, bitch.'
"Where are we?"
There was a 'hmm' and the scrap of glass against rock. "I dragged you." The sound of leather against leather came next. "I found water."
'Whee!' Miranda crushed that thought and slapped it off to where she didn't have to deal with it and its crazy. She'd have her mental breakdown later, thank you. Anyway: dragged?
She sat up slowly, waiting for the headache to pound her back down. It twanged, good enough. The air smelled cooler, and wet. There was no sand here, only slick rocks and moss. The thing that had been on her face turned out to be a bandana, soaked through with water than smelled…odd.
"But we can't drink it yet."
'Hope killer!'
Rose sat with her long legs tucked under her, just out of reach. Her hair was pulled back tightly, a dark ponytail running down her back. Her eyes were dark, in this light. In front of her was Miranda's pack, all its contents arrayed neatly around it.
It was a meager little fare. Most of their supplies had been with Kongol, who could take the heat (or even if he couldn't, he didn't bitch about it) and Dart, who didn't seem to notice it.
She grabbed the white-silver spirit and brought it closer. Some jerky, two canteens (both empty,) and potions; two blue in frosted vials, two that held a thick, green liquid, and another pair, purple in color, with a sun burned into the cork stopper. And, Miranda noted, there was a half-empty one lying to the side. Blue. Healing.
'Maybe that's why she's not seeing double and falling down. Thought Miss Mighty didn't wanna waste them?'
"What the hells that?" Miranda asked, pointing at the purple. She certainly didn't remember buying it.
Rose began to tuck the glass vials back into the leather sleeves they came from. "We might need them. As for this," she said, holding aloft a green tinted potion. "I have an idea."
--
Next Chapter: Honkin' Huge Doom Turtles. For real.