I step out my Pueblo this tempered morning to see a stranger has entered my home. A robust man with a large backpack full of metals and ropes smiles and waves to me. He calls himself Eimanity. Eimanity bows as he talks to me and offers goods to me that I don't need to have me show him my home. After Eimanity hears of the lands anger that will soon come, its walls of sand and rain it throws these days. Eimanity fears not the land and after praising my Pueblo grasp my hands and wishes me health, gives me some of his foods while heading off into the burning sands.
Fearing for my new friend I call Red-tailed Hawk. Hawk with her powerful wings descends to me and demands the reason for my summons. I speak with Hawk and ask for her guidance and protection over Eimanity. Hawk raises her pointed talon and focuses on the goods left by Eimanity. "Give to me those goods Eimanity left and I will watch over your friend," says Hawk, and I was more than ready to give her what she asked. Basket in claw, Hawk leaves me. And, I rest easy knowing Eimanity is safe.
I take off to find the human that has been placed under my protection has gone. High in the air, I gleam down for my human. After two days of tracking, stopping my watch only to hunt my human seems to have run out of water. It shakes a skin which previously had water which pours no more. It cries to the sky for water. How foolish of the human, does he not see the river ahead of him? Can't he feel the water below? I caw out to him and circle a pond. In its curiosity, of me, the human pushes past the limits that were holding it back to chase me.
The human sees the beautiful Palo Verde and hides in its shadow as it dives into the pool of water. It scares off the horned lizards and cottontails from the life-giving well. I find disgust with its disregard for its fellow land dwellers as it chops the Verde down to make a temporary dwelling. The human then fills all his skins and decanters with the waters of the pond reducing its volume greatly, before diving into the remaining. This bathing ritual defiled the purity of the lack so not even the monsters will approach it. Sleeping loudly my foolish human sleeps on the ground next to the waters defiled by it, surrounded by those that slither and crawl, the spinners and the stabbers. I rest upon the perch of his bed a symbol to quell the mob's advances. Each one in its own right to take the life of the man that has condemned them to find new homes. I conceded to them that each had the skills and talents to take him. But under my watch, our pueblo brother believes Eimanity is worth protecting.
The next day before sunrise I take off. Looking down the pond has been covered in sand, the tree began to fade and the fauna has fled. Seeing his shelter has been eaten by the desert the human begins off anew with a smile on his face, the fool.
As I look down at the human in my charge I see the effects of the sands draining his vitality. As the wind changes beneath my wing I know what's coming. In the horizon, I see the wall. As my human drops to his knees and begins to sleep, the fool. I swoop down and cover my human in the tarp he left in his goods. I collect a few rocks and pin down the tarp before flying off. I have done all I can, now the desert will be its judge.
The storm passes and I return to my buried human. In my surprise, he was already up and unborrowed himself. He folded this tarp and placed it in his bag, taking the rocks I secured it with and piled them into a stack placing a food offering on top of it. My human then turns around and walks back towards the grave of the pond. I watched as he bowed before it and wept, the child. He then collected the seeds he had early cast off from the Verde's corpse. He dug a large hole. I landed next to him resting on his old nest. He smiled at me and covered this hole with his tarp. As I cocked my head Eimanity began to empty his decanters and skins leaving only one. He plants then the seeds of Verde and sleeps again in his nest.
The spinners and stabbers, those crawlers and slithers all returned that night to look at what Eimanity had done. After they gathered they looked to one another and left. All agreed with hope for Eimanity.
