Under the Cover of Day - II [Old Version]
824 words. Original Work: The Jackal of An-Nadr.
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Chapter Warning | environmental whump, fear, brief mention of blood
Taglist | @killtheprotagonist @ink-and-salt
The sun was beating down on the water, glinting and blinding and sharp. Nadeem hadn't moved an inch from where he'd clambered down beneath the spines of the thicket, save to drape the dark fabric of his waist sash over his head to disguise the yellow of his turban.
Strings of algae wormed between his toes like grass, flowing with the unseen eddies of the water beneath the dappled light. Across the oasis, under the blue of their sail, the ifrit had set up camp.
Open tents spread out along a sandy stretch of embankment, while the men milled back and forth to the pond with buckets and canteens. Long, darkened limbs reached as far out as they could to collect water from the dryness of shore, feet skirting carefully around the water's edge. Their voices rose and fell in the heat of day in a way that was methodic and foreign.
Patrols had been venturing out into the oasis since dawn, groups of three or four disappearing into the underbrush only to reappear around some new part of the clearing. He’d counted twenty-two in all, with tall figures occasionally calling into the ship where he suspected there may be a handful more.
He watched the camp carefully, searching for any indicator of how long they’d stay. He knew the human caravans that traversed An-Nadr would sometimes linger for weeks at any oasis they found amongst the wastes, he had no idea what that would mean to the larger sandship.
So far they had unloaded very little save for their tents, and he was holding to the last of a prayer that meant they wouldn’t stay for long.
He’d seen enough wildlife that there had to be some kind of foragable plants, and if he was lucky—very lucky—it would be enough to get him though a few more weeks in hopes that another human caravan would pass through. If he could stay out of sight, he still had a chance.
There was only one problem.
Even under the stifling heat of the afternoon sun, the water that trickled up from the earth below them was so cold that his limbs had gone numb where they were buried in the depths of the silt. With the night fast approaching, he knew he couldn’t stay.
But there was nothing between him and the ifrit camp but open water.
When night fell he would slip from the bank under the cover of darkness, where he could pick his way over the stones back out into the relative safety of the dunes. The sand, heat-baked by the light of day, he hoped would be enough to bring him warmth through the dawn. Having nearly drank his weight in water, he figured he could make it another night or two before he’d have to find a way back.
The desert bought him time.
He just had to wait. He wound his fingers through the roots buried in mud beneath him, and leaned his head back into a crook between branches. He watched the world through his lashes, biding his time as the wind trickled through the thorns.
Ifyaa had spent the morning unloading the ship, the sun beating down on him until his shoulders had begun to smolder in the heat. Wisps were still rising from his skin as he made his way through the camp, side-stepping bedrolls and limbs as he made his way toward his tent.
Several of the others had just returned from patrol, and among them he spotted his husband trailing behind the rest. Yeezumon’s eyes were cast out over the oasis, scanning the trees as if he was expecting to see something move.
Ifyaa finished securing the side of the tent flap, then slipped between the other ifrit and made his way across the beach. Yeezumon didn’t glance back when he approached, but he automatically reached out for Ifyaa’s hand.
They brushed the tips of their fingers down each other’s palm, settling in at one another’s side.
Yeezumon glanced at him, distracted. He passed something over, silent as Ifyaa took it and held it up to see. A jagged stone half as long as his finger, the pointed tip covered in red-brown blood.
“Hm. So I wasn’t seeing things,” he murmured. He turned it over in the light, then handed the stone back, “What’s it doing so far south?”
“I don’t know. I had my patrol check the horizon, but there’s been no sign of other ships.”
He sighed. Ifyaa slowly unwound his turban, stepping forward into the water. He felt his husband tense as he waded out into the ankle deep silt, the faint sound of splashing turning eyes from the camp before they realized it was only him. He tugged his tuban free, running fingers over the rippled waves of his hair before stooping to run the fabric through the water.
“Well whatever it is,” he wrung the cloth, “I don’t fancy a mercy killing.” He scanned the edge of the pool. “Have you told Adrsiae?”
Something in the tone of his husband’s voice made him glance back, and he found dark eyes following him with just the barest trace of a smile.
“Habibi, how do you feel about a new pet?”
