If Sabzira were to have asked herself, roughly a century ago, if she'd be wandering the sandy dunes of the surface world, wrapped in thick linen to protect her red eyes from the bright sun, she'd have laughed. Then probably flayed someone nearby just because the sheer idea of it was so preposterous it couldn't have possibly been her idea.
Yet there she was. Her thigh high boots protected her skin as much as they bothered her. She'd wanted to put some distance in during the morning, when the desert was more forgiving than during the heat of the day, but morning did not last long. Already she could feel her breath in the linen wrap over her head starting to become too stifling.
Which meant she'd need to stop and set up the shade. Traveling when it was in the height of heat was just a waste of water. Sabzira as certain her camel companion would agree. "Aşağı" The camel complied with the command and folded its long, awkward legs and settled in the steadily warming sand. Sabzira went about pulling off the material for the shade and poles to set it up in the sand. It was rudimentary, but served both her and the camel during the blistering heat of the day.
The locals hadn't been kidding when they'd said crossing the desert would be a task. Once her small day camp was set up, Sabzira stretched out in the relative cool of the shade, on a swath of fabric since she couldn't just plop on the warm sand like the camel, and pulled off her boots. Let her legs and feet air out some.
At some point, Sabzira had ended up laying back and idly dozing. That was really the best use of the time during the high heat of the day. Sleep through it until later on, when she could continue on walking. Traveling. Her dreams were warm, of bright light and endless, rolling waves of shifting sands she sailed on a small ship that was furred. Like a camel.
Sabzira was jerked awake as she shade was ripped from the sand, the camel panicking. Something had set it off. The sun hadn't gone down nearly enough, so the abrupt exposure to the afternoon sun left her momentarily light-blind. It didn't matter she'd been on the surface for a handful of years – that did nothing for a near lifetime of being exposed to the dark.
Which meant she didn't see the death of her camel, but she heard the wet impact, the quick silence of her companion's panicked cries, and heavy thump that followed.
Sabzira cursed softly and crouched, low and ready, while she blinked and held her hands out. Her bare feet burned on the exposed sand, but that was extremely minor when it meant she could be the next squishy target to go down.
It wasn't the sound of foot steps that drew her attention, or the heavy impact of feet on the sand, but the sliding of something across the sands. A chill shot up her spine and Sabzira instinctively rolled back, just before there was a heavy impact near where she'd been. Or she assumed where she'd been, because she couldn't see damned thing.
Her weapons were on the camel. She'd grown far too complacent over her travels and hadn't thought to take them off too. At that moment, she thought she was going to die due to her own sheer stupidity. Sabzira found her footing quickly and rubbed at her eyes, her vision returning slowly in the bright afternoon.
A blurred, brown shape was moving at her.
That was all the information she needed to dash away. Feet burning on the sands, she sought to find a bleary way around whatever the massive, slithering shape was and toward where the camel had went down. Thankfully, not on the side her short sword and serrated dagger were strapped. Relief washed over her as her hands found the hilts, but it was short lived when she was thrown off her back from a heavy impact.
The world spun as she tumbled in the air. Training alone kept her hands on her weapons and from her eviscerating herself in doing so. Sabzira might be out of her element but she knew how to fight. The slam turned into a very ungraceful roll that brought her to her feet, so she could finally see what she was to fight.
Some giant, scaled snake scorpion hybrid.
Nope.
Sabzira took quick stock of her surroundings and made a break toward the shadowed shaped is the near distance. She never wanted to camp at things she didn't know, but at this point any sort of cover that wasn't flimsy cloth sounded better than nothing.
Many jukes, half misses, and strained breathing later, the shadowed shapes resolved themselves into the ruines of a small building. That'd do. Sabzira jumped over a low wall and... then the ground gave out from under her and plunged her into deep darkness.
Damn it was her last thought before she hit solid ground. Hard.