Scynt

I

In the beginning, was the dream.

It starts with a blow, soft motion of air. Uncertain, sinuous, it gains momentum and arises, wiping the expanses. Faceless, it observes everything it passes through. Faceless, right in the eye of everybody, so often ignored, yet always present. In every moment. Its absence is nonsense, staticity is its antithesis. It's dynamic flow, one of the forms chosen by Energy to reveal itself to creatures.

It lifts me.

The wind is unstopping, all around Solaryad.

There is not one single moment when dust isn't about to get into your eyes. The only instants when it's reigning an almost absolute lull - unnatural, according to someone – it's right before a storm.

On Solaryad, a storm is an ordinary thing. And it's an out of the ordinary event, as well. Really, if you will ever happen to spend some time in these expanses of sand and rock, you will have better not to stray too much from the nearest fortress. I tell you this for your sake, of course you're free to do as you like. As for me, I definitely don't feel like being caught out on the dunes by a storm.

The wind is unstopping. And Arenoll, in this very conjunction of events, is happy. Into the wind, she rides the wind.

She laughs, she laughs out of her hearth, hanging from the sail of her windsurf. This is her favorite time of the day, when the wind drags her up and down the Scynt dunes. The Scynt, the sand. For a large part of the night and for all the morning she's busy fishing; but at sunset she's free. She leaves the harpoon at home, greets her father sewing fishnets on their little trimaran, and runs away. They're poor. Theirs, is a little village at the base of Fortress Po. At sunset its shadow stretches for miles on the desert, drawing fancy shadow pictures onto the fickle-as-water dunes . The dust they are made of rises at the slightest blow of wind, and it ends up surrounding the Fortress base like shimmering fog in the moonlight.

On her way Arenoll often encounters other boats. Slow purveyor's barges, cutting through the sands as slow hippopotamuses. She shouts out a greeting and waves her hand towards the crew. Some of them recognize her. They smile. She thinks one must be lucky to be a purveyor. They can drink as much as they want. Even if they use to say that water cargo are strictly monitored and that every shortage is harshly punished by the Water Guild, Arenoll thinks anyway: "I bet whatever you want that once in a while you take that sip... I know it well myself, when you're in open desert and the sun beats down and the Grand isn't sending not even one cloud and your brain feels like it's about to whistle out of your ears like from an old teapot." Instinctively, she turns to the south, towards the Grand. The Grand is a huge whirlwind. Now it's barely visible on the horizon, as a thin dark stripe. From the whirlwind come the storms.

But now, another ship claims her attention. Or to better say, the noise it makes. She would recognize that whistle among all the noises of the world altogether. A motor boat. She rapidly maneuvers in order to get closer, and begins to chase it, playing in its wake. She looks with fascination at the engine outtakes shooting what appears to be a couple of blazing streams. That propelling force pushes the ship forward. The complex machinery shudders and sprinkles sparks along with smoke, anyway it looks resolute to see another dawn at least. Scynt gets sucked inside it, then who-knows-what triggers that pyrotechnics-looking reaction. Arenoll looks at the sand beneath her and notices the way the ships is leaving behind a gray, blackish wake. As the sand was being burnt. Which is strange, because Scynt isn't flammable. At most, it blocks your heater filters, saps strength of your fireplace causing your home to be filled with smoke, but it itself does not burn. Nevertheless, that sand really looks burnt, carbonized, dead...

Arenoll turns back and watches the wake gradually vanishing in the distance, swallowed by the intact sand. The sailors are shouting at her telling to stay away from the streams because it's dangerous. She pleases them, but not out of fear. She does not want for them to worry. By the way, they already look pretty upset. Thinking about it, Arenoll decides there's really something wrong in their behavior. Look at them, such faces they have, she thinks, it looks like they've stood in the face of death. So she decides to follow them. It's getting late anyway and she has to get back home, so it's better to head to the port.