The desert at night, it is almost beautiful.
The sky still holds traces of red from the hot hot day, and the sand - the sand is like finely crumbled snow. But so bizarrely devoid of any trace of characteristic cold dampness. It is solid, delicate grains that sweep through the wind.
Eerily cool, as if it shouldn't exist. Not like this.
There is almost a mystic, magical feel to the place at night, with the gold of earth paled to a such soft white by the moon. The echoing heat from the sun stays reflected and burns still beneath his feet slightly as he stands.
For miles Miroku can see. Miles and miles and miles.
The sky is full of black inky dots, like hundreds of tiny holes in a dyed blanket. One that has been left out to the moths in the attic. Only on far grander scale.
Hundreds of lights.
He is nearly a mile from the campsite, he has counted his steps, but even from this distance he can see the steady glow from their fire as if he were still standing right there before it.
The sky turns to an eerie mixture of red and black, as if it were almost painted on. And, at night, the sand dulls to a soft white shade. An odd combination of hues that send a sharp chill down his spine.
He feels out of place. The land has a taint of mystical air to it like this.
It is unnatural, it is no place for a human.
And he is certain that even if he walked until morning, he would still be able to see this soft red light. The dancing spark of flame, from no matter how far he goes.
Miroku wouldn't be surprised to find dragons sleeping here in the crevices between the dunes, myths and children's fairytales though they be. This desert area has that much a feel of timelessness to it.
Even more of a fairytale, actually, than Kagome's wild claims of men walking in space. Of large metal things she called machines which were supposed to stay aloft in the air with no wings, no heart beating, no sentience at all.
When the only machines he knew of were crude, rudimentary, and more trouble than they were worth.
Sango will have lost all track of time by the moment Miroku and Shippo find her, but a few weeks have past since the day the two of them, the young fox, and Kilala first entered the village.
They walked in, under their own power, and immediately secured a room at the local inn - a place so ill-used that it became a sort of storehouse. With boxes and jars of dried preservatives nestled deep in the dug-out basement.
Sango slept between a crate of old, useless harnesses that would no longer fit the horses, and a box of children's toys.
"There's a legend in this village," Miroku started to tell her when she walked down the stairs into the kitchen. He pauses, then glances across the room at the cook before continuing.
"Some call it an old god, but I think it could just be a demon. They say something visits this village in the middle of the night and takes things."
A thieving demon? Well, some do. Despite how they rage against humanity, the creatures still seem drawn to human toys.
"These people." Miroku's voice lowered to a whisper and said, "They think they will be favored if the demon steals something from them. So they leave things out. Trinkets, toys. Anything to attract the demon's attention."
And there it was. Sitting in the windowsill and very much out of place, was a silver gravy boat. Polished to an impossibly high shine and without a purpose.
A beautiful quilt carefully handstitched from tattered scraps, more colors than Sango had seen in her life, and tied to the doorknob of the house across the street. Being beaten by the wind as they talked.
The place is small, too small to be called a village even really. There's just a handful of houses, barely huddled close. The wind walks right through, and in the spaces between, Sango can see wide glances of the desert, taunting her.
Looming, as massive as a threat, everywhere.
The day after they arrived in this small outpost where humans, without much of a reason of because they can, fight to survive in a land that seems all but set on killing them. The day after, Sango woke up early and left the room.
She headed down the stairs, intent on a short walk around the perimeter of the area, and stepped out of the makeshift inn. The abandoned inn.
The specious building that blocked her view of the rising winds until she was already in them.
Her only warning was a faint screeching sound that made her half-turn, more than sure some demonic creature was wailing behind her.
A echo of something she had never heard before in her life, had no memory of being told of something like it, an unearthly wail that rose up behind her to a roar and swallowed her up, whole.
The entire world around her suddenly turned into dust. As if she was a demon, expelled into nothingness. Immediately lost.
She screams, but her voice is lost beneath the shriek of sand and wind raging all around her. She turns, intent on the building - any building - but it is not there.
She lunges forward, sweeps her arms out to the side, runs. Certain of her own location.
The sands turns to tiny daggers, fragmented shards of glass that blind her as they swirl into her eyes, circling a hundred miles an hour with no clear destination. A tornado of sand. She shields her face with her arm, breathes through her shirt, but it is not enough.
She is in a cloud, an earthly cloud piecemealed from dust and dirt, screaming at the top of her lungs, but no one can hear her.
The buildings are built too far apart, she turns to where the nearest should be, but they are too far, too far apart and she slips right through.
Sango yells but there is no one to listen. Only the sandstorm.
She covers her face with one arm as she gropes against the blinding wave with the other and walks between the houses, runs right past without even knowing until hours later, when she is throwing up sand and all alone in the middle of the desert.