Chapter Five - LatroP

  My shoes sink into the sand… The air is warm even with the sun down… The stars are…

  I stumble as Keats pulls me forwards, even more so because I am captivated by the stars out here… The galaxy stretches before me, swirling, flowing, moving fast enough for me to start to see the way galaxies moved around each other, all dancers at a cosmic ball that flowed around… What?

  Keats, who apparently has forgotten all about being fourteen years old, pulls me with mad glee along the ridge of a large dune, snuffling at the ground as goes like a hound on the hunt.

  It’s only when I stumble, catching myself on the sand, its fine texture feeling so smooth as it flows along my skin, that I realize that this? Is real.

  A little desperately, I turn around to look for the riverway, for the city, for the safety of not dying in a desert I am totally unprepared to survive in. But uh.

  It’s gone.

  All I see behind me is sand… The damn desert didn’t even have the courtesy to show me a mirage of mountains or an ocean or… Well… Anything!

  I giggle.

  Then call out to the stars, out to the cause of whatever it was that was happening to me, to whoever, if anyone, that is doing it, “Hope you have a plan here!” I jiggle my head, adding, "Preferably one that involves me NOT dying of dehydration!”

  Another giggle wracks me, ever my favorite defense mechanism, as the absurdity of everything starts to push at the edges of my mind.

  Suddenly though, a shooting star tears across the night sky, burning a deep blue for a brilliant moment before vanishing like it was never there.

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  I nod at this.

  Take a deep breath.

  If I am stuck here anyway? Might as well see this through.

  Turning back to Keats I notice that my old boy is acting almost young again. The madlad is prancing in place, howl-growling in excitement, clacking his teeth and tugging on his leash, really doing everything in his power to tell me he is happy and feels safe to explore.

  I look at the leash, then at the stars… and shrug. The leash makes a sharp metal clink as I let the boy free of it, unable to keep laughing as I watch my furball zoom between anything that isn’t sand, sniffing all, digging at some, and happily claiming only the most interesting finds for his kingdom.

  Shaking my head with a grin I follow Keats as he makes his way ever up the large dune, always towards the old stone ruins sticking out of the top.

  From here it kind of looks like a stonehenge thingy… I try hard to keep a stable visual image of what this… Tower? Would have looked like when it was first built. For some reason just the pure insanity of building something like this so high up and of such heavy stones is what strikes me most.

  Hah… Actually, now Keats has me back on the ridge trail, I can see the other side of the dune, and yeah, desert. Since there are red rocky ridges jutting out of the sand dune?" And uh, since I have read maybe too many books, I make a game of jumping from the stones in front of me, playing “don’t summon the sand worm” with myself as I make my way up to the ruin.

  Keats looks back at me, now huffing and puffing (walking on sand, especially uphill, is hard!), and howls, striking me under those stars as maybe the most majestic he has ever looked, a true knight errant seeking justice, adventure, and treats!

  Laughing at my own joke, I make the last few strides to the top and lean against the ancient stone, letting out an exhausted “Blarg!” which echoes out across the dunes.

  Unlike the sand, the large stone I picked to lean against is chilly to the touch. I press my face into it, enjoying the relief it provides as I take a moment to catch my breath.

  Keats comes up to me and walks around my legs, licks my hand and clacks his teeth.

  I grin and pet the boy’s ears, “Yeah, yeah, I’m an old man too you know?”

  Keats gives a low friendly grumble-howl, allows a few more seconds of pets to happen, then bounds off towards the inner courtyard of the ruins.

  I grin, knock on the stone for good luck, and follow him.