Miria felt Curdle’s absence almost immediately; vibrant color drained into a dull pallet and vivid noises of the marketplace around her blended into indiscernible noise. She glanced behind her, meaning to catch sight of Curdle but seeing sand where he once knelt, fading humanoid shapes drifting over the area as though he had never been a part of this dream. It surprised her to feel a slight pang in her heart; she had expected that he would at least follow for a little while. Her last words echoed in her mind, a reflection of the possible thoughtlessness in them. She did say she wanted him out of her head by morning, and that feeling still rang true. So, why did it bother her that Curdle had left to immediately? She didn’t understand it and decided that it was best not to. He was just an old jinni who needed her to help him pay respects to the remains of someone he loved. She sighed, turned back around, and continued walking, each step erasing her consciousness of what had transpired like unraveling a ball of thread with each forward step. Soon, she was lost in her dream, as obscure as the shifting shapes around her. But she did not forget, the memory touching upon her recollection, sightless and intangible, but present as the light of the morning sun over the surrounding sand dunes. Miria awoke, fed and groomed Raha, and prepared for the long journey with the rest of the caravan, her movements automatic to allow her mind to be elsewhere. Was what happened even real? Miria checked her cart for the carefully-stowed urn, finding it tucked safely away, the sight of it summoning Curdle’s tears and his words of weary relief. Where she had gone wrong with Tamal, Fiira had gone right with Curdle. Where Miria believed she had attempted the impossible and been punished for it, Fiira and Curdle had dared to love each other, in whatever way that love signified, and had managed to survive the gauntlet of prejudice and cruel expectations. How common was a bond like theirs? How common was a tragedy like Miria’s? The jinni that served Miria breakfast did not respond to his master beyond what he was ordered to do, his gaze empty as he ladled leftover stew into jer small bowl. A cluster of young jinn animal tamers who had been whispering to each other scattered when humans walked by, knowing that conversing with each other without permission was forbidden, but the humans seemed too busy with their own morning chores to care and the young jinn exchanged mirthful glances at each other. The sand jinni that lead the caravan, who was the key reason they did not all sink into the sand and die beneath the sun, ate her breakfast with her master. They spoke quietly, animatedly, the jinni relaxed, her master bemused, like two good friends engaged in conversation. Yet Miria could see the thick callouses beneath the heavy iron ring around her neck where the metal had chaffed painfully against her skin for years, and she could see glimpses of scars peaking over the collar of her tunic. How well did society truly accept this human/jinn balance? Was there even a balance at all, or were the scales tipping below the surface, straining against what was natural, threatening change? Miria pondered this as she finished her preparations, as the caravan moved once more, as they pushed through a long, hard day through the desert. Why had her compassion towards a jinni make her a tragic victim? Or did she simply have the misfortune of falling in love with a creature that never saw her or the world they shared the way Curdle did? How had Curdle not fallen into hatred like Tamal did? When they finally stopped for the night, at the call of the sinking sun and the darkening sky, Miria sifted through her wares for the small bit of cloth she presented Curdle in their dream meeting. She held the fabric in her hands, the last evidence of her compassion she had held towards someone she didn’t understand, and spread it over the urn. That evening, she weaved until her fingers ached and it was a struggle just to stay awake, and she slept. Curdle did not touch her dreams, and she greeted the morning with a mild sense of disappointment. The day toiled on, Miria’s focus occupied entirely on fighting with the rest of the caravan against a minor sand storm—weak enough for there to be no need to stop, strong enough to be a nuisance. The sleep she fell into that night was driven by exhaustion, leaving her no capacity to dream. Regret greeted her that following morning; she wanted to talk to Curdle again, if only to learn how his path differed from Tamal’s. She wanted validation for being weak and foolish enough to help a jinni instead of refuse him, of accepting his presence instead of loathing him. By the time the caravan reached Hudris, days later, Miria had all but dropped her expectation for meeting the jinni, suspecting that if he did show again, it would be at Sherahd. She fell into routine that evening, prepping her wares for sale the next morning, settling Raha in the stall they’d both be sharing for a week, and making sure she would be presentable to the public. She fell asleep that night like any other, too worried and excited about the uncertainty of the next day to afford a thought to her jinni acquaintance. ~~~ Miria stepped through a spacious house, none she ever recognized, its clay walls and mish-mash of stone and wooden floors decorated in a humble Mediterranean style of dark and earthy tones, indicating sophisticated coziness and thoughtful class. Each room, Miria noticed, had so many windows, every one overlooking a cluster of palm trees or the rooftops of neighboring houses down a sloping hill or the spread of sand dunes in the distance. She felt strangely at home here, relaxed, even as she explored every room for the first time, and she wondered idly who this home belonged to. It did not cross her mind how crisp and vivid every detail of the house was, how rich the colors, how vibrant the sounds of birds chirping outside, her thoughts instead choosing to settle into this content feeling. How long had she felt so at ease?