The silence of the white halls did little to hide the sound of horse hooves on cold tile. It was like the palace in night time and unlike, in that the echoes did not ring but fell flat and stale in the burdened air. Zahi's dark eyes were fixed on the door long before the man who is not djinn entered, closely followed behind by an obedient Anat.
The pain in his belly had settled as he sat quiet and he felt quite able to stand once more. Zahi gave a fierce look to the man who is not djinn, unwilling to meet the man smile for smile when there was truly nothing in this place which instilled happiness. He then plucked the water from the man's hands with a prim uncertainty, tasting the water and finding it flat and cold with a biting taste, almost acidic, underlying it. It was water, however. This much was true. “There is nothing like, in my home,” he admitted with care. It would not do to offend his host.
Seeing no sign of the old woman and believing that now in the company of another man, he might take a chance and not be the invalid the woman wished him to be, Zahi drew back the blankets and swung his legs over the side of the cold bed. Anat, silent but for her tail swishing in contentment, flicked her ears to the hall, then returned them to her master. As he gripped the edge of the bed, Zahi took a slow breath.
“Do not think me common, O my host. I am grateful for this chance to see your land. It is superb, white and filled with a great many wonders which my simple life will not explain.” His stomach heaved slightly and he settled it with a determined swallow and tilted his head toward the man who is not djinn. “But such a life is not for me. I do not know what ties this land of yours has to our sands, no doubt you are as happy as I to be in the winds again.” He glanced at the doorway where a woman in white with her hair pulled severely back as many of the women were then cleared his throat. “If you must keep me, at the very least, let me leave the women's compartments and cease their hovering. I am feeling like a broken old man with all of their nattering at me.” His jaw clenched as did his fingers at the edge of the bed.
Anat shook herself then snuffled at the back of Dorian's head, lipping at the hair there before she snorted as if to second what her master had said. The air in the hospital was not a dry, heated comfort but smelt of sickness and death and the animal was forced to take her comfort in the nearness of kind men.
At the edge of worlds, the jackal bitch mouthed the dry papers, kept whole by dry and sands and spirits. Careful of the pages, she sneezed the dead out of her nose and trotted without second thought into the dark recesses beyond the propped door. Her small paws left small sand imprints for a stride or two, at which time the prints then faded to nothing. Keen eyes saw more in the dark than the human before her had and she left the small room for the green hallways beyond, undeterred by the thrumming and lack of detectable movement nearby. The enclosed spaces were den-like and she merely kept an eye out for whatever large thing it was which left such a large hole.
Some ways in, she found an alcove and there, paused. The parchment laid at her feet, she yawned widely, her teeth tinged emerald in the gloom, and flicking her tail over her paws, she perched, as if a cat, atop a wide shelf and kept watch. Her whiskers told her someone would be along soon and she had a delivery to make.
