Edited: Apr, 27, 2020
Note: Above, Mountain Maiden inspiration. Artist unknown.
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Dunes of the desert grew in size the further away they got from Nuaka. Pretty soon they couldn't just walk over the dunes—they had to climb. Deel with all his bags, of course, needed her help to carry them because otherwise, she would probably end up carrying him.
"Why do you have so much stuff?" She muttered in Kathulan, but Deel said nothing. His Human face had 'I don't know what you said' written all over it. There were also tears in his eyes as if he was already imagining being eaten by a legendary Mountain Maiden. It made her wonder how in the name of the moons he had survived this long. Deel did not fit a survivor's profile. He was quite the opposite.
He was ungrateful, too. When Pinti roughly hulled the tied-up bag on to the top of the dune, Deel scampered up the dune so fast his sweaty face was caked in sand.
"Don't throw it like that!" He rushed to the bag and patted the dust from it. "You need to be more careful, Pinti."
"But nothing's damaged. And I checked, just papers in there." She argued and he scowled. Sighing, she attempted to roll it down the dune and slide after, but Deel yanked the bag from her.
"Don't do it like that!" He complained. "This is my stuff. Take care of it." He was testing her patience. Pinti would have gladly clawed his stupid Human face rendering him unconscious.
I'm going to be bald from stress by the time I'm done with him. She sighed as she took care not to throw his precious bundles of paper.
Heat scorched the skin under her fur and when she lightly combed through the fur on her arm, a thick tuft came off. She was shedding so much that little poofs of blue fur tumbleweeded across the sand dunes behind her where footprints and paw prints dotted the sand side by side.
In the sky she found the thin sliver of yellow and blue light of the Second Ring. It stretched from one end of the horizon to the other. Supposedly, most Halfhumans made their home there.
Pinti knew, like the Second Ring, the First Ring was also just that—a Ring. All rings were shaped like a doughnut—which she also thanked Humans for inventing—and what lay in the middle of the First Ring was still a mystery even to Humans.
Some speculated it was space, others speculated it was a different kind of black hole, and yet others believed it was somehow solid, but whichever it was, there was no way for anyone to get there on foot. Those who tried, never returned. Some religious Humans claimed that was where the afterlife was and they would go on and on about it, but whatever they said, Pinti only believed in one afterlife—those up in the stars.
But that's also just a myth. No one lives up there. She recalled Kalis saying that the idea of an afterlife or even ancestors watching over you in the sky was just created to stop children from crying.
A shadow soon stretched towards them across the orange sand turning it brown. They were coming upon a large dune that seemed to be the tallest in the area.
"Mountain Maiden graveyard on the other side." Deel whimpered. "This is the one. I can't do it. I can't go. I—"
Scowling, she jumped up to the mountain with unsheathed claws. She had climbed many dunes and already knew what to expect—the slippery sand. She had to move faster than the speed she was slipping. Deel's bag on her arm slowed her down a little and it took extra effort to get to the top. Deel cried out from below, but she ignored him. As the sun beat down on her back, she concentrated hard not to slip too much or to pant. She didn't want to become a desert in her throat.
At last a gust of fresh air smacked her in the face. Pulling herself up to the top, she set the bag near her feet. Before her eyes was the bright blue sky and the reflective, bright orange sand that almost blinded her with its vivid colors. Below the mountainous dune were star sand dunes of various sizes. Wind blew sand up onto their peaks and onto metal artifacts of hands or heads scattered around the dunes—remnants of Mountain Maidens.
Pinti had seen only one full-body Mountain Maiden in her life and it was at a Human museum. It was probably as tall as this mountainous dune she stood on or maybe even taller. It has hard for her to imagine that many centuries ago these fallen creatures used to walk the Rings. Rusted metal creaked and whistled as wind traveled around and through hollow spaces.
Deel, in his Human form, had finally made it up the mountain. She had expected him to take off his necklace and use his claws, but apparently he wasn't smart enough.
"How can you climb so well?" He gasped for breath, laying down on the flattened peak. She twitched her whiskers hoping it was just a rhetorical question.
Sand blew into her lungs and she doubled over in a fit of coughs. Once she regained herself, she slid her way down the other side, letting the sand billow behind her and mix her blue with the orange dust. At the bottom she glanced back up. Deel had not followed. He was jumping frantically and then he staggered backwards.
"Th-That's a long way down!" He called. "I'll be there! M-Mountain Maidens aren't going to scare m-me!"
Pinti scoffed as he so tentatively tried to slide down slope, easing his way forward and gripping the sand with his useless grubby hand—the other held his bags. It was such unnecessary caution, she grimaced and headed into the graveyard of centuries old.
As graveyards often were, a quiet blanketed the area except for the whistling of the wind, almost cutting her off from the rest of the world. It was like time ran slower here or maybe not at all, but of course that was just an illusion as the position of some of the shadows shifted as the sun tiptoed across the sky. If she kept careful watch and shielded her eyes, she could almost see the sun moving. The closer they got to Syaraize, the faster time passed.
Footsteps thrummed against sand as Deel ran past her, flailing his arms as if fleeing for his life. Scowling, she wondered what he was so afraid of. These creatures were dead. Rumors told that when the world was created, there were seven guardians and they created the Mountain Maidens to help them protect the world from intruders.
Passing a Mountain Maiden's head, she sniffed the air finding the scent of iron and sand, nothing more than that. The rusted metallic face was crumbling and half sunken into the desert. The Mountain Maiden's eyes looked up toward the sky frozen in time. The mouth was twisted to the side and the nose was half broken. The elements had certainly devoured whatever grand creation this used to be.
"Pinti, hurry up!" Pale-faced Deel was waving at her. Behind him was another mountainous dune as if competing with the one they just climbed. Leaving Deel to be a stubborn struggling grubby-handed Human, Pinti slithered up the dune, finding good hardened parts of sand to use as pawholds. Once at the top, could she finally take a gander at Syaraize, the largest Portal City in the First Ring.
Syaraize's cone-shaped dome looked smaller than Bairenshire's. Because it didn't have a mega-wall squishing everything together, the city itself, as far as she could see, looked wider and more spread out. The inside buildings were a mixture of modern and ancient. Glass structures were built into the old brick ones of ancient times. Some ruins made of rock were repainted silvery blue or plain gray to match the modern towers.
The grand portal stood outside the dome next to the Portal Station tower. As all portals were, the elongated oval sat vertically upon the ground, swirling with ugly gray, yellow, and green magick. Even from far away it was obvious how anyone would be like an ant if they stood in front of it.
She pursed her lips. Pinti had come this way two years ago, but didn't remember it being this big. What she did remember were the spokes coming out of the dome. Patrolling police ships of the ruling power, the High Collection or HC, flew in and out. HC's police force was not kind to Kathula because HC believed Kathula were Edglings' pets and did awful deeds in return for magical powers.
Deel tapped her on the shoulder, breathing heavily and stinking of sweat. "Hey, were you listening? I asked you if you've been to Syaraize."
I was thinking. She signed with her tail. "And no. When we came, it was the other portal."
"Was that tail flick thing something?" Deel reached for her tail which she dodged.
What was it with him? Was he trying to mess with her on purpose? Pinti shot a glare at him when he grinned as if nothing was an issue. He probably didn't see the issue because he was the issue. She couldn't wait to get rid of him!