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Sanzuwu
My Dust and your Malik~
Carefully, Dust traversed the scarred land as if it were still rife with danger. Here, years ago, it happened. Just on the edge of the Hewn City, her way of life was shattered. Every step she took ached through her bones, leading to the deep scar that buckled inward on her chest.
It was a surge of the shade beasts, which happened all at once. They poured from the city and descended upon her stationed encampment. Many of her friends didn't make it out, and she longed to say neither did she. One moment she was fighting, and then the next she opened her eyes and stirred her broken body to find the aftermath of destruction. She laid among the dead, and in an attempt to make contact, she sent forth a beam of magic into the air.
But nothing came. Her magic was severed from her being. Ashamed and broken, she fled the order, believing it for the better they thought her as dead. But she missed them, and needed to know some of her friends had made it out that day.
She lifted her head into the breeze, and caught sight of a pale silhouette. There!
He looked much like her, and she was almost certain he belonged to her order. She postured herself into the least threatening stance she could take, and approached. His watch into the blackened depths of the city faltered as he saw her in his peripherals, and he turned questioningly at the pearlcatcher approaching him. His wings flared lightly.
"You there. You do understand this is dangerous territory, right? I thought civilians were warned about coming here..."
"Civilians? Oh! Yes uhh... I've heard about the creatures that lurk this place. It's just... I'm a gardener, and assistant to an apothecary. There are only certain herbs that grow in the twilight between here and the city, you see?" Dust grinned through her half-lie, hoping he wouldn't take notice.
"I'm Dust, it's nice to meet you, uhh...."
The male pearlcatcher shifted his weight, a scaly brow lifting as he assessed her.
"I'm Malik,"
and you are... very muscular for just a gardener. He kept that puzzled retort to himself.
Dust's awkward grin receded into a genuine smile.
"Well then Malik... I hope you don't mind if I accompany you here for just a bit? Like you said, it's a dangerous area, and I'm just a civilian. And you! Look at you. You obviously belong to the Order of Scatterlight Sentinels, right? I'm sure you could protect me."
Malik paused. Before he could begin to explain that
no, he could not be distracted from his duties, the nature of her facade finally dawned on him. He knew something was off, she wasn't quite good at hiding it. But that explained it all. Before he could stop himself, a deep laugh broke forth. Dust looked slightly offended, but he couldn't help it.
"I take it you weren't one of their spies or intel?" he chuckled. "Because you give everything away, far too easily."
Dust took on a look of mock indignation at the half-insult. "Why! That's rude, you know!" She sighed however, dropping her tone at being caught. "I suppose I can drop the ignorant 'civilian' act then, since you don't much appreciate it. Here I was trying so hard. No, in fact, I wasn't intel. Wasn't even a messenger. I was a soldier."
Malik nodded, and relaxed his wariness at being told the truth. As they both traversed the border of the Hewn City, he quietly listened to her tale, nodding silently at intervals for her to continue.
"So that's why you were so interested in me," he answered innocently.
"Well,
of course," Dust chided. "Not everything is about your good looks."
He paused while she kept walking. Her tail swished in frustration.
"By the eleven! It's just my luck that you're not a Sentinel, here, of all places."
He shook off the slight buzz her unintended compliment gave him, and caught up to her with a canter.
"No, I'm not. However, surely one of the messengers from my order could get into contact when they have time. We've heard of them, and I know how difficult it is to find them, especially on your own."
It was Dust's turn to stop abruptly this time, and Malik bumped into her backside with a soft
oof. She turned, metaphorical stars in her eyes.
"You would do that? For me? Someone you just met?"
He sheepishly scratched at his mane. "It might uh.. take some time. There are lengthy processes these things must go through, and I'd have to file a report of everything that happened toda-"
He didn't get to finish, as she crashed on him with a tight hug, which couldn't belie the residual strength of her years as a soldier.
He was wheezing and she was laughing, but nothing could shake the light dusting across the scales of his face.
Ahh there you go! Sorry if anything I wrote of him was ooc xux