Chapter 335: Peregrination
n. travel from one place to another, especially on foot
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The days stretched on, the sun seemed to rise and set hastily while they slowly trudged their way through the swampy lands at the edge of Fire Country. Bugs swarmed overhead; heat leeched out their slowly returning strength as they skirted around the edges of civilization. Food was sparse and as they journeyed potable water became harder to find.
On the third day of their meandering journey, as the forest began to thin, the wildlife grew scalier, and rivers dried up Gaara finally fought his way out of unconsciousness.
Gaara's muscles ached, his eyes felt glued shut, and his mouth felt as dry as his homeland. The heat felt familiar but a humidity that felt unusual hung in the air. Muffled chatter reached his ears, but the words were hard to pick out.
"…ara?" whispered in the howling wind, "wa… up."
"G…ara!"
A drizzle of water leaked between his parched lips helped to shake the last sleepy cobwebs from his exhausted mind. Noises still sounded distant, but the words became distinguishable from others.
"Hello," whispered a cheery voice that finally persuaded Gaara to pry his glued eyes open only to be blinded by the dazzling smile on Kagome's concerned face.
While trees transmuted from lush leafy trees to prickly pines before conclusively settling on scrubby sagebrush, they trekked onwards. The farther west they traveled the green of Fire Country bled away until all that remained was a lifeless beige. Progressively the animals that had been so evident in the forest became scant as they hid in the shadows away from the harsh heat of the sun, the larger furry mammals devolving into scaly reptiles.
In all of Kagome's travels she had never seen such a transformation in landscape. She carefully observed all the changes until they successfully absconded to the grainy dunes of the desert and a familiar fear washed over her, hastening her heartbeat.
"There appears to be an abandoned village just ahead," reported Kankuro, his voice rumbling through his back where Kagome had been resting her cheek as he carried her over the loose sand.
"We should stop there tonight, it's a bit early but it'll give us the best cover for the night, the wind is picking up," rationalized Temari.
Kagome's mouth dried, panic pulsed through her body as hazy memories resurfaced of her first appearance in the desert and the sandstorm that nearly claimed her life.
Memories overlapped with reality as a series of decaying, sundried brick buildings materialized amid the haze of yellow sand and rising rays of heat refracted from desert dunes. Kagome raised a hand to her mouth to try to stifle shallow gasps of panic that might worry her companions.
Unheralded, Kagome was once again battling and lost amid a cloud of taupe sand, its fine grit washing over her exposed skin leaving abrasions, its friction raising blistering sores. Her heavy backpack pulling her deeply into the loose sand that tugged at her ankles, trying to bury her as she fitfully crawled out of its deathly maw.
"Kagome?" a hand gripped Kagome's shoulder and with a breathless wheeze Kagome realized she had stopped breathing. Wild blue eyes searched frantically, looking around with unseeing eyes, struggling to pull her way out of the memories that enthralled her. Reality and fiction blending so seamlessly that her only refuge was the drowsy teal eyes beside her, their hue so unlike the surrounding dunes.
Matching her breathing to the redhead, she could feel her blood thaw. Control slowly returned as Kagome's gaze turned towards the derelict village before snagging on a half-buried well amongst their ruins.
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