As the sun began sinking into the searing desert sand, radiant oranges and reds filled the horizon with the warmth. After a full days work of delivering ray after ray of heat the late afternoon sand managed to still bake the very air it rested beneath. As the celestial descended from the daytime sky, it danced in the shimmering air. Its form stretched and distorted in the atmosphere like a reflection in the lake. The sky growing darker until it was filled with the blood of the one who'd worked so hard to keep it illuminated all day. With a flash of verdant green all at once it was gone and the cold, empty clutches of night took its hold over the twilight.

A male-shape sat motionless on a bench by a fountain at a plaza in a little town within the Land of Wind. A cooing bird sat on his still, unmoving lap nestling into the comfortable cloak draped over the silent shape. For it the sun-baked, black cloak would probably bring it life-giving heat through the coming cold night, that was so typical of Kaze no Kuni. From the darkening, cloudless sky another bird landed on the bench adjacent to the abandoned man-shape, seeking companionship from the other. One small hop then another would put it right next to the other as it too nestled into the object's thick cloak. Together the two birds found warmth, and a little bit of safety beneath the sky that was slowly beginning to reveal milky specks against its dark blue canvas.

The town too slowly lit up as lights flickered in windows and over streets. The slow, steady spread of liquid light filled the plaza once again with a fiery, orange warmth. As the street lamps flickered in a burst of wind that pierced the town like a jagged knife cutting messily through its streets. The silicon life blood that pumped through the veins of the town violently scraped against the walls ever so slightly eroding at the graffiti left behind in the wake of multiple dead governments and regimes. Still the chaos that once had burned through the Land of Wind and forged its life blood into glass, sundering and razing its military base of operations .

The male-shaped figures cloak blew back revealing a pale, corpse like figure from beneath it. The figure, unblinking and motionless even as the sandy wind blew past its face, slowly rolling it eyes downward as it noticed the two doves that had been lulled to sleep by hours of silence. The figures cloak was bunched up just enough so the doves remained unbattered by the incoming wind. For the first time since the fall of the Sand. It had served some purpose. He was dragged back into some else's memories once more as he saw the same dream that normally accompanied the silence.

Fear, pain, and then death, it was always the same cycle every time. Whether it was the stranger whose name he stole's home town, the sick of the small town whose walls he was now running from, or the Land of Wind whose innocents he was unable to protect. Every time it was the same cycle. A wagon drawn by two ebony horses, pulled up the name thief had been waiting for the man who guided the two thoroughbreds. Carefully the name-thief placed the two avians delicately on the bench wrapped warmly in the thief's cloak. He'd shed that skin for now and see if he could rebuild himself a new one.

"There gonna miss you here kid: You did some awful good work." The name-thief would give half a nod as he climbed into the back of the wagon. "I'd bring that cloak if I was you. It's gonna be a trifle dealin' with that weather, 'n'  you not havin' a cloak keepin' that rain ofuv yer back."

"Do not worry too much for me: This body's been aching to taste the rain."

[WC= 679]
TRAVEL COMPLETE