Maris bolted up from her sleeping mat and gasped. A single lamplight flickered. She looked wildly around at her sleeping family. Her mother and father were across the tent behind a large curtain. She could hear her father snoring. Her brothers were all spread out around her on their own mats. Adam, the eldest, lay flat on his back with one arm by his side and one across his chest. Rylan lay at his feet, perpendicular to him. He was splayed on his stomach, arms and legs peeking out from underneath his blankets. And closest to Maris on her left, Lance, the youngest brother, was laying on his side facing away from her. 

On her right, the slit in the tent that served as the door swayed gently in the cool night breeze and she could see twinkles of moonlight each time it opened. Maris threw off her blankets and stepped outside. Still in her night dress, she shivered at the chill desert night as she stole away from the tent. She felt a pull on her soul. Something was calling to her from the desert, and she intended to answer it. She found herself being drawn south toward the Rotten River’s bank; the Sandmire Nomads had been following it from desert to desert for some time now and were nearly always camped beside it. The dark peaks of the Ziri Mountains, most often called the Spears, pierced the sky above her as she walked to the river at its feet. 

Upon reaching the water, Maris didn’t break her stride, instead splashing right into the river until she was submerged up to her neck. Then she dipped her head under and swam to the bottom. She felt the pull even more strongly now--it was like a chain tethered to her chest. She needed to go deeper to follow it, but wasn’t sure if she could hold her breath that long. [i]You don’t need to[/i], said a voice inside. [i]Breathe.[/i] She slowed in her strokes and obeyed, and to her great shock, was rewarded with oxygen. She still felt the water enter her lungs, unmistakably wet and heavy, but it brought no pain--only the same relief of a gulpful of air. Amazed, she breathed in again as she resumed her swim to the bottom. 

Deeper and deeper she went until at last she saw it gleaming on the riverbed. Locke’s trident. [i]Her[/i] trident. She grabbed its staff in both hands and, holding it out above her head, kicked her way back to the surface. When she broke the surface, she smoothly expelled the water from her lungs--not a painful process, but natural, as if she’d been doing it all her life. She felt dazed as she pulled herself to the riverbank and lay on the sand for a moment to catch her breath, the trident at her side. As soon as she felt her breathing become even again she sat up and held the trident in her lap to get a closer look.

It was only a few inches shorter than she was, she reckoned, and a beautiful, brilliant gold. The prongs were barbed and wickedly sharp, and the middle prong rose taller than those on either side. The bottom of the staff was also sharp, though not barbed, and her immediate thought was that it would make a great hiking staff. But then she remembered her dream. Maris was a champion now, and she had a duty to fulfill. This was to be her weapon. 

Fully awake now, the implications of her dream hit her for the first time since she awoke. The Sandmire had never been a religious group, thieving, conniving grifters as they were, but their general agnosticism did nothing to deter Maris from accepting her dream as reality immediately. She stood using her trident and strode quickly to her tent, her nightdress sopping wet and probably see-through by now. Luckily, no one in her part of the camp had stirred, and she took care to not wake her family either when she entered her tent. She moved behind the tall dressing panel, stripped out of her drenched nightdress, and dressed quickly in the day clothes she removed from her trunk, a red undershirt with tan pants and a long yellow tunic. She draped her long red scarf across her shoulders and stepped out from behind the panel. She grabbed her leather knapsack and slipped her leather shoes on as she left the tent. Now she needed supplies. Her knapsack already carried her needle and thread, flint and steel, and canteen, but for the rest she was going to need to raid the supplies tent. And for that, she’d need to overcome the two guards that sat at its entrance.

The girl sneaked in between the many tents, taking a roundabout way to the supplies tent in the center of the camp until she was nearly right behind it. She could sense the two guards at the front of the tent. She didn’t know if they were asleep or not, but she could feel them moving--ripples in the air emanated from them with every slight movement they made, even just the rise and fall of their chests. She grinned at this newfound power. [i]Being a champion is going to have some great perks[/i], she thought. But then her face fell. [i]I know they’re there, but how am I going to get past them? I can’t kill them! They’ve done nothing wrong.[/i] She gripped her trident tightly to her chest, thinking. [i]If only I could get in there without even using the entrance.[/i]

As suddenly as she thought it, she felt a cool liquid pool at her feet and she was slipping down into it. She at least had the presence of mind not to scream, but she was so startled that when she popped back up out of the puddle and found herself in the middle of the supplies tent, she dropped her trident on the rug-covered floor and fell over on her back. Sitting up, she looked at her feet with wide eyes and saw a small pool of water on the rug, rapidly receding into nothing. She felt the spot when it was gone. It was bone-dry, as if the water had never been there at all. She wanted to giggle with excitement, but now that her newfound powers had brought her here, she needed to get packing.

Maris ended up taking three two-inch spools of thread, several yards of off-white scrap cloth, a long length of sturdy rope, a shortbow and quiver with twenty arrows, a pouch of salt to dry her own meat, and as much food as she could stuff into the remaining space of the knapsack. She used her puddle to pop back out of the tent and snuck her way back down to the riverbank. She filled her canteen and took several generous handfuls of the water before standing back up and swinging her knapsack over her shoulders. She wouldn’t say goodbye to her family. She had fought with them for long enough--they’d be glad to wake up and see her bedroll empty. [i]One less troublesome mouth to feed.[/i] She’d only never left before because she couldn’t come up with a concrete reason why. Now she had one. She was Locke’s Champion, and she would win her Titan the war.