Blooming in the Desert

Thus Spoke the Lion

"I can't believe I escaped the slave traders only to get enslaved again." The cat-eared Anima girl named Nafa grumbles as she walks on the hot sands of Vargas desert together with her new employer's party. Her new employer, a human named Omiro Jaller, has given her the task of taking care of his camel-horse, Rutu, as they walk toward her home village in the depths of southern Vargas. In front of her and the animal, walks the turban-wearing greedy demon that is her new 'slave driver', Omiro Jaller. And besides him, walks Ain Salze, her fellow 'slave' to the greedy demon.

While calling it 'slavery' is a stretch, it is undeniable that the salary Jaller promises her – five gold khirs a month – is lower than that of a lowly builder. It's still far above a slave's wage, but for Nafa, there is no difference. Getting her freedom taken from her as the debt chains her to a human's employment is considered slavery in her books.

Of course, she isn't entirely blameless for the conditions of her employment. Escaping the slave trader's caravan and setting most of the fellow slaves free, Nafa ran into the desert and used her instinct to guide herself back to her village. A small misstep caused her to wake up a sandworm and became its prey. After an hour-long chase across the desert, she saw a dingy old cart, running from the sight of the sandworm. Tired of the chase, she decided to trick the massive beast and sacrifice the dingy cart – after getting the humans in the cart to safety, of course.

And so, the cart was swallowed, the humans alive, and the sandworm disappeared. She intended to run using her Anima agility and strength – both of which is above a normal adult human's abilities – if the humans were to ask for retribution of some kind, but she never thought that she would met a human who could immobilize her with a grip. This human-demon caused her a bit of a trauma, and now she's too afraid to even try to run from him. And seeing that he isn't going to let her off the hook without paying the debt, she told him to go to her village, where her family could repay him for the destroyed cart and its contents. Although it took a lot of begging and sweet talking, she finally manages to convince her employer to turn their direction to her village.

"Oi, Nafa. How far are we now?" Jaller suddenly asks the sullen girl walking behind him. The girl, startled, reflexively puts on a small smile and answers in a sweet voice, "Uhhh, it's not far from here! Only a couple of minutes away."

Jaller raises an eyebrow. "A couple of minutes? But I see nothing over the horizon. Surely we'll see your so-called village from here if it is truly only a couple of minutes away, right?" He interrogates the female Anima.

Nafa smiles nervously. After a few moments of silence, she finally replies, "I-I'm not lying! It's really just a couple of minutes away! It's a couple of minutes... on sand dragons..." Her voice trails off as she realizes that, at this moment, their party is not on a sand dragon that the Animas of her village usually use.

Tamed sand dragons – enormous, camel-horse-sized lizards – are the usual riding choice of Animas, used since the times of wars for the purpose of intimidation. The lizards, compared to the camel-horses, are more resilient and able to carry more weight, as well as being surprisingly faster in scurrying over the desert sand. Even in the times of peace, Animas still rides sand dragons instead of camel-horses for long distance traveling over the desert. Humans, on the other hand, still consider the massive lizards dangerous as well as very frightening, thus prefer camel-horses for their ride.

Since they are not on a sand dragon at the moment, Nafa can only smile nervously to her new employer. Jaller, after hearing her reply about sand dragons, looks at her before sighing in disappointment. "Ain. Directions, please." The merchant orders the staff wielding boy walking besides him. "Okay, sir." The boy answers. A few moments later, the party walks under the blistering sun towards the direction that Ain points to.