Ahmed could hear the screams of his people. Rushing outside of his
father's tent, he saw that El'Jazira was in chaos. Jazirans ran
helter-skelter throughout the town, dodging out of the way of panicked
horses and stampeding camels, and while the ganissary guards were making
attempts to keep order, he could see that their eyes were just as
terrified as those around them.

A small whimper caught his attention, and Ahmed turned to see a small
child, frozen with fear, staring up at the sky. Shading his eyes, he
glanced upward and beheld not the sun, but a flaming mass barrelling
down toward the earth. Without thinking, he snatched the child into his
arms and ran as fast as he could, away from the centre of the shadow
that was quickly enveloping the village.

A split second later, a deafening crash sounded through the village, and
Ahmed felt the eerie sensation of being lifted off the ground. "So this
is how atavians fly..." were his last thoughts before all was blotted
out.

~ ~ ~

He awoke some time later amid a tangle of tent canvases. The whimpering
child still lay in his arms, scraped and bruised, but otherwise
unharmed. Pressing his hand to his forehead to ease a pounding ache,
Ahmed stood and, with a chill, took in a scene of utter devastation.
Hundreds of tents and buildings, once the prosperous village of
El'Jazira, were now gone, replaced by a smoking pit in the desert.

Ahmed could feel the eyes of the few survivors upon him as he stepped
carefully through the remnants of the town, nearing the edge of the
crater. Drawing shaky breaths he peered over into the abyss, mesmerised
by the sight of twisting, crystalline formations that spiralled up from
the ground where the force of Ashaxei's landing had turned sand to
glass.

"How could such beauty come from such tragedy?" he thought to himself as
he turned back to his people, tallying in his head the toll that had
been taken. Dozens were lost, from his father, the esteemed Sheik Abd
el'Salam, to the humble workers of the village's once-thriving tanning
industry. But the people of the desert are hardy, and they will carry
on.

Penned by My hand on the 1st of Lupar, in the year 609 AF.