Sweet Dreams

The last few nights I have been haunted. By what I do not know. Something in my dreams that I can not get my hands on. Something I can not see. I have tossed and turned .. waking up in a sweat ... not sure why.

So last night .. I took a trip to the desert on a blood red kaiila. As I approached the in-between a great river opened up before me. Urging the beast into the water I rode him as he swam for the far shore .. but while we crossed small fish ate away at the beast and it screamed in pain. By the time we reached the shore the beast was a macabre mess of bone with strips of flesh clinging to it's frame. But he still carried me well .. and so we entered the desert together like that.

The first I saw was a tree .. alone upon the vast empty sand. I rode towards it and there sat a little girl .. high up in the branches. She studied me .. canting her head this way and that as I spoke to her and I asked her if she had seen anything new pass beneath the tree .. something that did not belong here. Something that she would not have recognized. Her avian smile was quick and cold but she shook her head .. her eyes darting to the right and the left of me as if she could see me better for the space I did not take up.

I turned in the saddle .. looking around me but I saw nothing besides the endless rolling dunes. When I looked back the avian girl was gone.. the branches empty and I felt very alone.

Suddenly the sand began to give way .. sucking the paws of the beast deeper and deeper .. he floundered attempting to escape but the more he did the worse he was caught .. I kicked free of the stirrups and jumped to grab a lower limb of the tree .. watching as the great skinless beast slowly sank with carnivore screams into the blazing sand. Then I felt the tree limb curling around my wrist .. holding me .. tightly. I panicked kicking at the trunk and jerking my arm attempting to free myself now ... despite the very real knowledge that to free myself from the branch would mean certain death from the sand. It was still a natural reaction and I could not help the desperation of being held against my will. But the limb did not give way .. though I clawed at it with my fingers until the nails ripped and tore deep enough to cause my fingers to bleed with the effort.

I woke thrashing and I yelled out something .. in a language I did not understand .. sweat covering my chest and stinging my eyes as I tried to figure out where I was.

I was inside my wagon .. Si slept beside me as if I had not just made enough noise to stampede the entire herd. My breath grating and rasping in my lungs and I rubbed at the blistered and welted marks on my wrist.

I had some answers now .. but there was still so much more I did not yet understand.