The desert was no place for a mermanta.
It was the stuff of nightmares for any merfolk: the endless stretch of hot, dry sand promising a death both swift and excruciatingly painful to any of his people who somehow ended up there. Hak Etme - like the Climb - was a void on merfolk maps, sometimes populated by imaginative monsters and the ominous words Here be dragons.
But the world had changed, and so had the maps. And so, it seemed, had the desert. Or at least one corner of it.
Gathering his courage and bracing himself for the test that Safrin's demigod had requested of him, Hadama Aquaported to the Suvahasi at the designated time. He arrived with no fanfare beyond a low wave of displaced water that rippled out from the deep pool of the tropical oasis and a clenched jaw beneath his stoic expression. His tension turned to surprise, however, at the humid jungle that crowded the edges of the water, and for one disorienting moment he wondered if he had somehow mis-jumped and ended up in the Oerwoud instead.
"Ronin...?" he rumbled, his deep voice containing an uncharacteristic note of uncertainty as he circled the pool slowly, trying to get his bearings.
It was the stuff of nightmares for any merfolk: the endless stretch of hot, dry sand promising a death both swift and excruciatingly painful to any of his people who somehow ended up there. Hak Etme - like the Climb - was a void on merfolk maps, sometimes populated by imaginative monsters and the ominous words Here be dragons.
But the world had changed, and so had the maps. And so, it seemed, had the desert. Or at least one corner of it.
Gathering his courage and bracing himself for the test that Safrin's demigod had requested of him, Hadama Aquaported to the Suvahasi at the designated time. He arrived with no fanfare beyond a low wave of displaced water that rippled out from the deep pool of the tropical oasis and a clenched jaw beneath his stoic expression. His tension turned to surprise, however, at the humid jungle that crowded the edges of the water, and for one disorienting moment he wondered if he had somehow mis-jumped and ended up in the Oerwoud instead.
"Ronin...?" he rumbled, his deep voice containing an uncharacteristic note of uncertainty as he circled the pool slowly, trying to get his bearings.
