wildracer (wildracer) wrote in thefield, @ 2009-05-01 12:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | jasper, z - 1st tribe - day 17 |
Camp Sanctuary
Who: Jasper
Where: That Damn Desert, the Oasis
When: Evening
Rating: G
Jasper had walked through hell and found paradise. Pure, unadulterated paradise. There was a wide pool of clean, sweet water that bubbled up from some underground spring and in the deeper pockets there were fish. There were trees just bursting with fruit. Small-ish animals darted through the undergrowth. The night was warm enough here that she didn't even need a fire at night. There was easily enough to keep their tribe alive for three, maybe even four weeks - assuming it hadn't gotten bigger while she'd gone following Arlo. And the view while the cool breeze swept in from the desert and made the tops of the trees dance? The stars, with the occasional meteor lighting up the sky with a temporary wound of light? That was an exercise in spirituality alone.
She knew exactly what she wanted to name the oasis, too, if people decided they wanted to use it on their traveling ways - this was definitely a Camp Sanctuary, because it was a sanctuary away from the heat and sand and uncompromising sun that flooded the rest of the desert that she'd seen so far, except for the valley of names.
Jasper wasn't much sure of anything else, while she rested under a palm tree, eating a piece of fruit that she thought might be related to the roseberries, though they were smaller, darker, and had a much more concentrated taste. They grew around the edge of the oasis, so they were probably conserving the scraps of water they could. Jasper liked them, though. Anyway, Jasper wasn't sure of much anything else, except that at nightfall, she was heading back. Arlo was probably dead. That was all there was too it. If he'd been at the oasis, she would've found something. She hadn't. There weren't other tracks. And if the sandstorm hadn't gotten him, the sandworms probably did. Or something else did. Or he died of starvation, or dehydration, or hyperthermia. The odds were against him on being alive, being perfectly honest.
Jasper nodded to herself and picked up the empty husk of a coconut melon thing she found growing under the water; it would definitely carry liquid now, too. Yeah, she'd leave tonight.