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"** The fingerprint of nature's breath?"**

Four days marching into the misery leaves only the blistering desert spanning this lonely horizon. Two colors set the contrast between Vaelia and Celestiae, ivory of the baking sand and the deep blue of the cloudless sky. Each dune hiked is a mountain, which can swell half a mile from trough to crest.

Wind carves across the sands, dividing half a dune with its other. Any spoor left by their march erodes within the moment. An implacable gale blows only the undulating track across each rising bluff, the fingerprint of nature's breath.

The first day into the desert was one of timeless misery. Cecil will not soon forget how hot his fur became, despite the insulation. The sensation of baking had lasted until they reached the end of the rocky plateau.

Leading them, the wildebeest had marched callously and confidently through the heat. Experience is what drove the guide, and knowing that things would get easier once the wind hits.

That wind has hit them, and for days it has not let up.

The rabbit remains confined in white linen and accepts the struggle of dense insulation against this wind.

Cecil hears but few things underneath all this cloth. The first sounds are of his padded feet shuffling through ivory grains -- layers of cloth crunch mercilessly beneath sturdy legs. The other noise is that of the wind howling around him, thrusting against his form without relent. It is due in part of this wind that he and his companions together keep a rope tied to the waist.

There is one sound above all others he could do without -- a persistent sound which incites suffocating claustrophobia.

The equipment he wears underneath his attire is not heavy or constricting; the vexation with it comes from the struggling cadence within the machinery. The air his lungs push through the tube sounds to be fighting rhythmically against a whirring, busted filter. Out of paranoia, he regularly elevates his arm to check if the warning light is on, but it broke that first day through the heat. He, nor his companions, have any real way to know if they are breathing in the rusty sands. Not unless someone's breath tastes of baked, dry blood would anyone know they are about to die.

If not for their guide advising otherwise, Cecil and his companion would have set camp as soon as the cooling wind struck.

"One cannot rest when the sand dares not." the wildebeest said at the end of that first day. "Moments into that nap, you become buried beneath these finest grains, never to be found. The sand feels too blissful when its warm embrace envelops your exhausted body."

The times they rest last but a moment -- to catch their breath. Any longer and the peak vanishes, sending the weariest to their doom.

The wildebeest had promised at the minimum five days without sleep. It has been four. Their guide had confessed only the day before, "The mountain we seek ought been well exposed and safe with caves and settlers." As though he recently witnessed such mountains, they have yet to grace the bleak horizon.

A wet sensation rubs into Cecil's ear. A tiny wriggling finger wet with saliva and accompanied by a child's giggle.

Through tinted goggles, Cecil glances back at the parade of figures in his stead.

The skunks have their elegant tails bound and concealed within robes tightly fastened.

The proud canine keeps his snout covered within the breathing apparatus after whining how the desert stinks of decay.

The others beyond them are shuffling and struggling to continue. In total, there are a dozen on this march. With each figures' attire, their species remain concealed under insulation.

Cecil looks toward his left, to what he feels is north. Far beyond the northern horizon is where he had left the rest of his allies.

"That damn selfish hyena." Cecil is grateful he left that unpredictable liability in Glurothri to sort out her unfinished business in Daemascus. "There are more important matters to tend to than vengeance with a lizard." Without her persistent crying, at least Cecil has no egotistical murderess to compete with for leadership.

"Cecil! Come on; they're waiting!" Jessin cries. She pouts before giving the order to her brother, "Alfonso, pull his ear!"

"You shouldn't wake him. Remember what happened to Cassidy?!" Truine reminds them.

Alfonso mutters, "We can run to foundry if he tries to kill us. Gross, there's stinky sand on my finger!"

Cecil faces forward and walks into the wooden rudder of his guide's sandboard. He stumbles back and studies the wildebeest over. "It's too soon to rest, why did you stop?"

The wildebeest holds up a calloused hand missing two fingers to signal everyone.

The party does as directed.

The golden rules shared at the start of this journey were few yet dire to obey. If the wildebeest stops, you stop. You do not speak, and you do not move, you stand where you are until told otherwise.

After a quick scan of the horizon, Cecil glares at his guide. He observes the unprotected face and snout, looking for answers as to what the old iumentis sees. The wildebeest stares toward the horizon while whispering to himself in his strange dialect of guttural sounds and nasal snorts. A bent finger points toward the southeast horizon, guiding a dozen hooded, single-pane goggles to bear witness.

Hope brings them to expect the limestone rocks of the campground. The group sinks with dismay to find only the same dunes, plus the tallest dune yet, one that reaches_high_ into the blue Celestiae.

Cecil wanders his eyes along the horizon to make note that all of the mountainous dunes are of the same average size save one. It could not have been created by the wind because the dusty storm accompanying it billows _against_the wind. This behemoth peak chaotically disperses into the storm as it broadly collapses. The rumble of thunder meets the party long after pink lightning arcs across the horizon's dunes.

"A lone cyclone of sand without an accompanying storm?" the skunk behind Cecil says to the other. Upon finishing his words and taking a photograph, the ferocity of the storm shudders, bends, and rearranges the shape of itself. The pink lightning arcs across miles of dunes until cutting clean through the group. No harm came to anyone, despite the lightning passing directly through half of Cecil's companions. Electricity continues to arc on their dune, as if the bloated pile of sand had become statically charged.

The wildebeest bares his remaining teeth at the beeping camera the skunk battles with to deactivate.

If not for the next dune closer from the horizon swelling out like the first, Cecil would not have found an interest in the anomaly. The storm has detected them and shifted direction. The newly bulbous dune then deflates, fueling the lively storm. The next closer dune rises at an angle, only for the mass bulk of the extra mile-high dune to spill across the horizon.

With a wave, the wildebeest signals his companion at the rear.

The wildebeest's companion brandishes a giant rocket made of wood and paper from the leather quiver on his hip. It is but one of the many rockets the skunks inquired about at the start of this trek. With the wooden shaft in hand, he aims the rocket toward the southwest. With a flint striker on his other wrist and thumb, he lights the fuse. The fuse burns until it vanishes into the cylinder. A second after, the rocket emits a most disagreeable hiss before launching from his hand. Maintaining a steady bearing, it soars across the almost mile-long gap between dunes and over the next after that. It falls from view once the fuselage burns out. Cecil and his allies cannot witness the next phase, but they sure hear the faint yet haunting shriek despite the elements.

"COME ON ALREADY!" Alfonso shrieks.

Cecil's cheek receives rapid pokes and prods by soft, dirty fingers. He turns himself over, grumbling,

A grumbling behemoth roars beneath the sand as the dune four away joins the sandstorm. Vibrations soften the sand, seizing Cecil's feet between the grains until he is buried up to the knees. It is a simple enough task for him to yank free. His monstrously powerful legs would never allow submission to an immobilizing trap. His allies are not faring as well at escaping sand which now grips each up to the thighs. He looks at the wildebeest for guidance, only to find the old local sitting comfortably on his sandboard.

The black-bearded Animalia stares at the rising and falling dunes, watching, waiting.

Cecil understands the wildebeest, and his companion is prepared to leave the rabbit and his allies if they get caught by the Mouth of the Desert. Before the start of this journey, Cecil witnessed several guides sailing home. Their sand boards have impressive, complex sails inked with beautiful art, art that his eyes could easily get lost within.

It now occurs to the rabbit that none of those guides had returned with the travelers they lead into the sandy abyss. For the sake of this wildebeest, Cecil hopes the fool is not feeding the Mouth of the Desert for religious purposes. This rabbit will not hesitate to murder the encroaching megalithic-sized monster and end one more stupid religion. He pulls on the mechanism the rope is fed through, detaching him from the group.

Something pulls Cecil's ears. He swats at it, freeing his ears. Something then taps his forehead until he shoves a small creature away. A wet squish once more burrows into his ear, coaxing his spine to shiver from the sensation.

The canine companion yanks himself free of the sand and hurries to the struggling skunks until his rope stops him. Their guide throws his palm out, daring not to say a word. The skunks see that stern signal and silently flail limbs at the canine to stop him. It takes a moment for their canid soldier to see their desperation through his warp-lensed goggles. The dog stops and darts his limited view back and forth between the skunks and the wildebeest. He gives in to their plea before turning his head southward. He slowly elevates his chin to take in the towering dune beside theirs. He flips a length of his cloth over and grips the pommel of his new adamantisteel sword and the rope mechanism.

His grip relaxes as he watches the mountain-sized monster take the bait given by the rocket. The storm, along with the creature, change direction to engulf where the rocket had settled. One of the arcs of pink lightning caress the entire dune the travelers hold steady on, harmlessly passing over and through each of them.

The guide in the rear of the party lights a second rocket and aims this one toward the northwest -- the fuselage hisses as the rocket soars over one dune, then the next. The screeching whistle cries before the smoke vanishes to the wind.

The Mouth of the Desert pursues that shriek.

Something yanks on Cecil's ear, tugging his head to the side. He wonders how, since his ears are bound behind his head, within the cloth and his breathing apparatus. Something pulls his ear up and away. His head gets relentlessly tugged back and forth until he pushes his little brother away. Whoever is mocking him during this trek across the desert, they will pay dearly for this insolence!

He never opens his eyes, being completely unable to do so. The Observatory will not allow it. The anole's dream holds him tight and keeps him in-character. Dainty claws from scaly fingers press through and caress the wrinkles of his brain. The anole maintains the most impenetrable of grips on this cotton-stuffed mind.

The dune Cecil and his companions previously marched across rises fifteen hundred feet higher. The Mouth of the Desert continues through to the next, roaring until the dunes have her gracious wind-blessed patterns shaken into a smooth haze.

Details of the behemoth finally break through the tumultuous storm. Wicked scales shrouded beneath the sand; each host bristles the thickness of Cecil's torso. Each hair is a conductive electrode that reacts holistically with the metal compounds of the sand. The living storm chasing the behemoth is entirely of the creature's making.

Cecil imagines just how large the creature is, as so much of it remains buried within the depths of this expressly bottomless waste. Does it have only scales, he thinks. Are those hairs made of organic matter or machine? Does it have an actual mouth or anus? Is this thing some ancient monster, or something from another world, or something entirely unintentional? Is it a Life-Breather?

Just the thought of encountering a Life-Breather this soon from the last swells his legs and sends his brows colliding with fury. The interior of his goggles illuminates with celeste light. Before he realizes he was getting ready to crush the Mouth of the Desert, lines of light had already coursed through his limbs beneath his fur. He pulls the power back, but it was too late. A wave of pink lightning harmlessly arced once more over their dune, until staggering a moment longer as it passed through Cecil's charged body.

The Mouth of the Desert halts all momentum and redirects the wild sandstorm toward their dune. The vibration of its roar centers intricately around Cecil, locking its otherworldly sensors onto the rabbit's Dragon-Blooded heritage.

The sand beneath Cecil's feet turns loose as though it were never there -- which is all it takes for him to lose his footing. He thumps the loose sand to launch himself and fly, but the sand devours the force of his cannon-like kick. He bounces helplessly down the dune's wall, failing to slow or stop his graceless descent into the deep trough. After a tumble that feels to take forever, once the angle of the sand tilts more in his favor to stop, Cecil instead finds himself swiftly submerged into the unsettling. He has just enough time to pull the linen mask over his goggles because, in the next second, he can move no more. The weight on him increases tenfold with every passing second. His goggles press hard against his face until the rim starts cutting the sides of his flesh.

Ten feet of sand covers him in an instant, a moment later, a hundred feet of sand. As the loose mountains move with the wind, there will soon be well over a thousand feet of sand upon him. He is but a soft, wet pocket of blood and air, beneath the pressure of a mountain. He can no longer take air into his lungs. The mechanism which filters the desert rust cracks. Or was that my rib cage? The pain spearing through his body tells him it was a bit of both. Blood fills his mouth as organs give way. The minimal pockets of air left in his lungs bursts into his chest cavity until the bubbles noisily transfer between crushed organs. The pressure on his skull splits the bone and pushes his eyes from their sockets until each pops.

The roar of the beast fills his ruptured ears as it comes for him. He had become an interest buried within perfect sediment. The promise of being eaten fills him with hope as more of his bones fracture and break. His collar bone collapses, cutting his esophagus open. One eardrum has yet to fully pop, letting him endure the sound of air and greasy blood burbling from the many lacerations on his flesh.

The Mouth of the Desert is finally upon him, blasting the sand away. As a shattered sliver of bloody flesh, he tumbles against a wet, slimy plane.

Broken bones are quick to reconnect. The golden and celeste light that engulfs him hardens his blood vessels and tightens his muscles. He can move once more, now being less like flattened roadkill and more like the monster this world ought to fear. He inhales the vile lung-rot from the megalithic beast. His belly exhumes whatever food and guts were within it, clogging his breathing apparatus.

Despite being dead, foul smells always get him.

Reaching into his pauldron, he finds the pearl and grips it against his chest. He calls to her, even though she has not answered him for many days. The last time he heard from her, she was on her way to study for a test at Commons Park. He wishes she be done with her midterms so he can ask her to _please_get herself to the library and find out what precisely the Mouth of the Desert is. He only needs to know if he can kill this dumb creature.

Falling and falling, splatting and squishing across one slimy surface after the next, his healing body has been swallowed up by a guardian of the Burning Continent. Soon, all he can smell is dirt, a lot of dirt. Familiar dirt.

"The fingerprint of nature's breath?"

"What? She used it in this version."

"Three dreams is enough, Shale. I'm tired of the sentence structures in this draft. You've rewritten much better than this, and the last had no rope in it. Fix our young archivist's errors for tonight's dream. The Anomaly should be visiting him, and we best keep him hard and sensitive if it's to happen with her."

"Okay, Eth'Dolamere. I'm severing the connection and letting him wake up."