( As all my wise friends shall surely see, this is an excerpt taken from Val and Nazareth's childhood. It's a collaboration of our play, though most of it is my work due to Val's "busy" schedule, and more will be added in time. Thanks, private messages welcome. I assure you I'm not as abrasive as I really am. )
"Enough, we've been on our feet for days."
"Cry about it, will you?"
"You know I'm lazy."
Ten-thousand acres of flame push on the horizon. An astonishingly flat sea of sand that asks an eon in every direction, burning sky, dissolving cloud, leaving but one tired and old nub of white fluff stretched like bottle cotton taken to flame. Upon this sand, a boy, a girl; matched, perhaps, at the birth of teenhood. Their attire reflects charges of the vagabond; loose, tan tunics pocked with black holes received from shattershots of dirt and rock, large and wind-rippled pants that skin at mid-shin to expose flesh too-fair for human expectation of desert folk. The boy wears belted sandals adorned with a strange variety of leather straps that crawl up his legs. The girl is barefoot and wears a silk-sheened head of airy platinum hair, perfection amidst the death their world asks of them. She lifts her hand to her neck and tugs on the thick, red scarf ensnared there.
"You are lazy," shooting her devilishly concave brows to the top floor of her head, accepting the shade awarded from her sharp and biting blonde bangs. At her side, a sheath, curved and ornate, its nose nearly dragging along the crusted earth.
"I don't see the rush," his voice doesn't betray the soft youth he wears, yet an anomalous wisdom lives in his monotonous way of speaking. "Always, always, Nazareth." He sits crosslegged upon the ground and lends his back to the twisted spine of a sharply-carved, orange boulder. A groan slips from his lips as he sprawls for comfort, a pair of thin and testy brows, similarly shaped to the girl's, bend at the meridian of his healthy, but seemingly starved and sharp face as he pays his attentions to the sky.
"The town isn't going anywhere, Nazareth."
"Val," she whispers with a smile, straying ahead several steps. Her palm acts as a brim to shield the sun. The shade was welcome. "Mother's words were urgent," mannerisms also beyond her years tether the words along. A little click sounds from the boy in distaste as he turns his head away from the girl.
"I don't really care, if I can be quite honest."
His legs rock rhythmically, enjoying this time off his feet, fully reclining against the stone, his head of medium-length black blades softly kneaded into palms drawn behind, elbows-out. This calls a curt reaction from the girl as her head snaps to him.
"Don't you dare, Val, don't you dare be this way." White morsels of fury wash the red from her knuckles as they clench the long tassels that circle her blade's hilt.
"I'll be how I want, Nazareth." He'd sat up to face her, but his relaxing pose hadn't let up. The pair meet eyes, eyes of aged, plated copper that had sat at the bottom of a well a day too long. Wind began to hiss, sand bating from stone to cloud the air, shaped in orange-brown scythes that crawl along the earth, they walk up the hills until thinning to nothing.
The girl rips the blade from its housing with a metallic ring.
"What will you do," asks the boy.
"I'll take a finger for each minute you waste."
"Enough, we've been on our feet for days."
"Cry about it, will you?"
"You know I'm lazy."
Ten-thousand acres of flame push on the horizon. An astonishingly flat sea of sand that asks an eon in every direction, burning sky, dissolving cloud, leaving but one tired and old nub of white fluff stretched like bottle cotton taken to flame. Upon this sand, a boy, a girl; matched, perhaps, at the birth of teenhood. Their attire reflects charges of the vagabond; loose, tan tunics pocked with black holes received from shattershots of dirt and rock, large and wind-rippled pants that skin at mid-shin to expose flesh too-fair for human expectation of desert folk. The boy wears belted sandals adorned with a strange variety of leather straps that crawl up his legs. The girl is barefoot and wears a silk-sheened head of airy platinum hair, perfection amidst the death their world asks of them. She lifts her hand to her neck and tugs on the thick, red scarf ensnared there.
"You are lazy," shooting her devilishly concave brows to the top floor of her head, accepting the shade awarded from her sharp and biting blonde bangs. At her side, a sheath, curved and ornate, its nose nearly dragging along the crusted earth.
"I don't see the rush," his voice doesn't betray the soft youth he wears, yet an anomalous wisdom lives in his monotonous way of speaking. "Always, always, Nazareth." He sits crosslegged upon the ground and lends his back to the twisted spine of a sharply-carved, orange boulder. A groan slips from his lips as he sprawls for comfort, a pair of thin and testy brows, similarly shaped to the girl's, bend at the meridian of his healthy, but seemingly starved and sharp face as he pays his attentions to the sky.
"The town isn't going anywhere, Nazareth."
"Val," she whispers with a smile, straying ahead several steps. Her palm acts as a brim to shield the sun. The shade was welcome. "Mother's words were urgent," mannerisms also beyond her years tether the words along. A little click sounds from the boy in distaste as he turns his head away from the girl.
"I don't really care, if I can be quite honest."
His legs rock rhythmically, enjoying this time off his feet, fully reclining against the stone, his head of medium-length black blades softly kneaded into palms drawn behind, elbows-out. This calls a curt reaction from the girl as her head snaps to him.
"Don't you dare, Val, don't you dare be this way." White morsels of fury wash the red from her knuckles as they clench the long tassels that circle her blade's hilt.
"I'll be how I want, Nazareth." He'd sat up to face her, but his relaxing pose hadn't let up. The pair meet eyes, eyes of aged, plated copper that had sat at the bottom of a well a day too long. Wind began to hiss, sand bating from stone to cloud the air, shaped in orange-brown scythes that crawl along the earth, they walk up the hills until thinning to nothing.
The girl rips the blade from its housing with a metallic ring.
"What will you do," asks the boy.
"I'll take a finger for each minute you waste."