"Back to the sands"

Coin satchel weighing with recently acquired loot banged up against Roya’s hip with every step forward. Initially she had come here on a mission... one which she had successfully completed and been rewarded for. However,  She had extended her trip as an opportunity to revisit her homeland. Roya wasn’t here to sight see… The whereabouts of her excuse for a father had been bothering her more than a needed trip down memory lane. She hoped maybe she would be able to suck answers out of the people here, someone had to know him.

The landscape was barren, bur not level in every possible way… Amid the dunes Roya trudged through lands of sandstone canons and skyscraping columns… She had never come across the sights quite like these within Fiore… they had there deserts too… but that’s not what the country was known for unlike Desierto. The blazing miles of sandy landscape and extreme heat gave the flame mage this nostalgic feeling… but not the good kind, for every moment she knew bandits or venomous sand lurking creatures alike could appear out of nowhere. That feeling pushed her to continue to find civilization.

 As if the distance across the sands and heat wasn’t tough enough... A stampede of sand could be seen billowing on the horizon… Soon that strong wind came to rush against Roya, a harsh cloud of desert smog pluming forward in its wake.  Trudging on against the currents of sand, she crossed her one arm just over her forehead. Already ravished raven strands whipped back against the pressure, blowing back in in harmony with her whirling shawl.

 The storm only worsened… but, she never stopped pushing against this blizzard of blistering hot sand. Eyelids quivered into a squint, lashes blinking furiously in an attempt to keep her eyes clear of the mass quantity of sand howling her way. She couldn’t see five feet in front of her now…let alone manage to open her eyes more than a second.

This continued for many minutes, hours. Each step sapped more and more of her energy and will. By now her footfalls became stumbles. Fatigue had drawn itself clearly across her expression, grim visage, dark circles beneath her scarcely opening eyes.  Eventually her knees gave out and came to rack against the sands roughly, her frame tumbling down just as quickly, puff of burning dust escaping from the ground which she crashed against. Roya Nakano’s world soon fell very very dark.
 

Raven lashes fluttered weakly with her awakening. Roya hadn’t awoken buried beneath steaming sand or shivering in the desert night… she wasn’t outside anymore…. instead she was gazing up towards what seemed to be a makeshift ceiling of dried straw and root. The corners of her vision remained blurred, eyelids barley raised. She sorely sat up against the dirt flooring. The mage lazily glanced around the one room.. it was pretty much empty besides the cot she laid. Hell… she was alive? With the same grogginess she rubbed her eyes, dragging her legs off the side of the bunk.

Slowly she ambled back to her feet, slipping back into her sandals. Slowly stepping towards the curtain door, Roya checked if anything was missing from the sown bag at her side… surely she hadn’t been robbed. Sighing with relief she caught the cloth which hung over the doorway and pulled it away  and stepped into the dry, blazing, afternoon sunlight.

Sea-green Irises gaped in sudden awe…Slowly ambling out of the hut she gazed off the small slope she stood, unable to take her eyes off the trashy looking little settlement. Homes were cheaply crafted by stuck together slabs of rock and debris, glued by a clay mold, one that you could only get from the ground here… Roya would know that…  She spent her younger days in this same slum settlement, digging down into the sand and earth with her bare hands to bring it home… Roya instinctively blinked down to her palms, as if to check if she still had dirt stuck beneath her nails to leave black crescents at the ends of her fingers… 

This was weird like she was in a dream… Roya turned over to a small lift in the terrain to unveil a graveyard of crumpled and torn apart homes. That’s where she lived right… just before she burned up what structure was left and allowed it to collapse in on itself the day she lost gave up her arm. Roya realized neighboring housings must have caught flame. This was two years ago.

“Your already awake?”

Roya whirled around behind her to face the accented feminine tome which had struck her ears so suddenly. The other woman was of middle-aged, faint stressed lines sat upon her visage. She had the signature unkempt Desierto black hair which led down to her chin. She was practically dressed in rags, just as the poor were. Roya didn’t recognize this lady from her time in this settlement-- she glanced down off the ledge to the bodies occupying the little makeshift village, no one familiar. Perhaps everyone she knew here before had died off and other poor folks had moved in?....

“Yeah, I’m up…”

 

She had been surprised to find this woman knew fluent English although accented… Roya only managed the language after teaching herself, Everyone here was so poor an un educated.. Roya couldn’t even read….

By now She and the stranger had sat down outside, legs hanging over that little ridge. The flame mage learned that she had only been a mile away from the settlement when this woman’s brother had found her crumpled body in the sand and hauled her back here to rest up… She was thankful, but would of rather gotten out of that scenario on her own… she was stubborn like that. Roya kept her gaze towards the slum folks below. She wondered how long it would take till she was satisfied enough to return back to Fiore…Tartarus… Yugi

“How many of you are here?” Roya inquired simply, eyes sliding to the woman beside her. “Some.” The slum civilian stifled her answer almost immediately. Was that… a nervous tones lingering in her voice? Eyes narrowing, Roya’s viridian hues skimmed over the settlement once again. It all seemed very odd that even from here that there was not one face she recognized in this place, this was her home but at the same time it was so far from it. Roya’s eyes only glared back to Pari, staring longly at the silver banded bracelet hanging off her wrist before she caught the gaze and slowly slid that clad arm behind her back. There was a pause and never did Roya’s gaze waver. “Pari, what happened to the people here, before you?” The slum woman’s eyes stretched suddenly in reply. Roya watched as her gaze fell to her feet and she began pressing her teeth down into her lip. “T-The brigands came and rounded them up.” She gulped. “They handed any criminals hiding out in the slums here too proper authority, the rest are probably being auction offed to slavers in Pergrande… My slum was attacked as well, those of us who made it out found this place raided too...”

A sudden smirk glazed over Roya’s lips, practically stretching ear to ear. Her eyes were wide. Ebony locks had fallen to shade the expression in her eyes. “And the man I’m looking for? Daichi Nakano?" She hissed. The older woman only tensed up more, biting the inner-side of her mouth. “P-Probably ended up like the rest.” No. It was too good to be true for the evil man who birthed and abused her to get what was coming to him? Something was off about this whole predicament…
 

Would ya stop lying to me, Pari?” Gingerly, Roya clambered to her feet. She stretched her shoulders as she stepped towards Pari. Obviously missing one of her arms Roya was still intimidating… “If the bandits got here before you…” She began, reaching for the short sword sheathed at her stub. “Then what are you doing with that bracelet. Hmn?” She hissed… Roya knew a neighbor once upon a time, a time where she still lived within this canon, with the same piece of jewelry… It would pay her a pretty penny to sell but never did she do so for it held sentimental meaning… There was a hiatus, a breath of silence. The supposed slum woman had been found out.

Pari jumped back, dust kicking up beneath raw her heels, pebbles flicking off the lift. Roya just drew her blade, lurching forward with the sword point. Pari only evaded again... Then she flipped out the cutlass sheathed beneath the clothes on her back. Roya stayed silent, no, she wasn’t paralyzed or shocked or anything like that… she kept that cold grit visage… Hell… she had expected this the whole time. “Okay maybe we didn’t find this place like that.” Why wouldn’t Pari just come out and say it. She’d been caught with this red handed. “You mean you are the ones who came and attacked this slum?” Roya inquired confidentially. Due to the sudden shift on the older woman’s expression it seemed she had hit this nail right on its head.

The whole time Roya had been putting together a puzzle of that was really going on here… The last piece had clicked into place: This was a whole con… they didn’t save people from the burning wasteland of a desert; they brought them here and planned to toss ‘em to the slavers… and any criminals they picked up? They snagged them for the bounty cash…. These people were probably sitting on a lot of money, what gave them the right to stay here? Cause no one would expect what they were really doing…

“You lied about the man I’m looking for too, Daichi Nakano?” Roya murmured her voice quieting.

Pari’s sweaty grip seemed to stiffen around the hilt of her cutlass. “Yes,”
This time, her reply was not a lie

Roya merely tossed her blade in her hand, a confident gesture which tiptoed along the line of arrogance. “Then I’ll ask ya again.” The sinner pronounced loud enough for her to hear. “Where is he and who is he.” She bit, narrowing gaze sharp and hostile as her blade point.

Pari lurched forward with her own cutlass. There was a clash of swords, metal work grinding against each other with each woman’s sheer strength. The blades seemed to tremble against one another’s force. “The man you’re looking for…” Pari fell back recalculating her strike. Roya moved a little too late, a scratch forming below her eye, scarlet dripping down her cheek from the small wound. Roya just sparked a smirk, eyes widening maniacally. She clenched the hilt of her katana. “He’s responsible for this, right.” She’d chuckle. Only her father was capable of such evil… for what? His own personal gain, to escape poverty?  “Yeah.” Pari would confirm, fatigued gaze sharpening.

“Just take me to em…” Roya growled; an ember of white flame sparked off her hand, just for a second. Pari seemed to notice, a bit surprised but she didn’t say a thing about the little magic flame. “He’s not taking visitors and I’ve seen our damn tattoo… you’re that pyromaniac from Fiore… I told you where we send criminals.” With that Pari unsheathed the shell whistle hanging around her neck, drawing the chain line out of her shirt to place the mouth of the horn between her lips. “You would have been halfway back to Fiore by now. On a one way ride to prison. Or who knows… maybe towards a well-deserved lynching” Having finished her statement, Pari released a breath into the whistle. The sound hummed loudly through the canon, alerting and drawing all of her bandit allies from their homes.

Things had increased in difficulty for Roya. Forms rose from the side of the canon, left their work and gathered up their blades; each bandit headed in the noises direction, coming To Pari’s side.

They were all dressed in their own ‘rags’ men and women.. If Roya hadn’t heard what she heard she may have still been convinced these were all slum people…
No they were all slave ranglers and bounty hunters… but more importantly they were all her father’s pawns… what had he promised these people? Saftey..? Fame?... Money?...