The sand swirled and danced in the air, the wind claiming the job of master choreographer. It sang to the sand, a soft, quiet melody to encourage the erosion and shaping of the land. Cacti swayed where they stood, partaking in the routine, but refusing to move from their home, ensuring that the land around them stayed as still, as same as ever.
The sand continued to move, entrapped within the winds firm, unseen hands. Its delicate dance was only interrupted by one thing, a girl casting her long, black shadow across the shifting landscape. The silhouette showed that of the girl, projecting her to be slim to the point of almost nothingness and her height that of the greatest, oldest, most wise trees that have been growing for hundreds of years, far within the depths of the forests three moon’s ride on the strongest stallions. But it was not just the girl that was shown by the shadows, her figure was decked with flickering brilliance, every movement made produced an array of warm, liquid light.
The girl herself had gold stitched into the silk clothing she wore. Her dress a deep, blood red, flowing from her shoulders with its ends barely sweeping the ground as she stood there. The gown was synched at the waist with a plaited chord made of the same, delicate fabric as the dress. The garment was a masterpiece, crafted to such perfection that the artists who saw the vision in even it’s most roughest, unfinished form had stopped and stared, stunned at its beauty.
But the girl that wore such beauty did not pale in comparison. Eyes as blue as the deepest crevices of the ocean stared out across the landscape and lips stained a red deeper than the flower of any cacti trembled ever so slightly in fear. Hair rivaling the darkest night fell to her waist, flowing graciously in the wind, begging to join with the sand in its triumphant movements and skin as soft to touch as a newborn’s and as dark as the cocoa beans that grew wildly and without restraint north of the great river.
A small, crystal clear tear rolled down her delicate cheeks and fell to the ground, it’s life but a heartbeat long and completely insignificant to the thrumming diversity that is held within the sweeping desert around the girl.
This girl, bound with the name Centehua, stood as still as her racing heartbeat would permit. Her breathing, so shallow, almost to the point that it was not there at all was hidden by the flowing gown, it seemed that, to the eye of one looking in upon the girl, would suspect that she had been masterfully crafted out of a deep wood like that found on the palm’s on the southern coastal lines, and painted with every impeccable detail matching the Princess of the Taneki tribe.
The tear that had fallen had been born out of concern, of undying worry and of a hatred so wild that it all but consumed the heart of it’s maker. The lips, ever so slightly shook with the ice cold fear of the unknown, for beyond the sand and its meticulous ritual, further than the blossoming shrubbery of the beaches lay a speck. A speck swaying with the ocean in its constant mission to reach the dry shores, a speck hosting stretches of white with a line in its centre, as if holding it to the dark mass just below the white that seemed to be swaying backwards and forwards. This speck, this mystery, the cause of such strikingly cold fear clashing with a burning hatred was, undoubtedly, moving closer and closer, just as the ocean, until it will, as it inevitably must, hit the shoreline.
