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The heat is crippling, and Feferi is glad for the layers of cloth that separate her from the sun. Her head droops, her eyes half-closed and drowsy in the heat. Her body sways to the rhythm of her camel's stride, and she thinks about nothing, nothing, nothing.
She's miles from her homeland, miles from the rich ocean shores that dominate her childhood memories. She tries to remember the sound of the sea, the smell of the beach, and has difficulty. Her heart, though, still tugs towards the west, towards home, towards trading routes conquered by sleek ships instead of a road that's little more than a path of sand, wearing down everything it blows against.
It's an honor to have been chosen by her family to take the trading caravan east, she tells herself (firmly, wearily). She's not the leader of this expedition, but with the amount of work she's already doing, she knows it won't be long until she is. But she doesn't want this route. She thinks of her cousin Eridan, made captain of his own ship at the same meeting that assigned her to this caravan, and has to suppress a stab of jealousy.
“How are you holding up?”
Feferi's head lifts, and she turns her slitted eyes to the left. The girl beside her rides her mount with a grace she can only wonder at, her back primly straight and head held high. She gives Feferi a smile, and even her sharp canines seem elegant, somehow. Feferi swallows with a dry throat and promptly begins to cough.
The other woman hands over her waterskin and Feferi takes a grateful gulp.
“Ka-na-ya,” she whines, “how do you stay so be-youtiful when it's as dry as a bone?”
She laughs. “Practice,” she says. “Well. There are some tricks I can show you this evening, if you are interested.”
Feferi is interested. Very interested. More interested than she should be, probably, considering that she's the clan head's daughter and Kanaya is just the head of the caravan guard—considering that her marriage is probably being arranged at home right now. But home is far away, leagues and furloughs away, and she hasn't seen the ocean in months. Home is a hard thing to cling to in the desert, which whittles away excess until only lean truths remain.
“Come to my tent after dinner?” Feferi asks, and she can't stop herself from shyly dropping Kanaya's gaze.
Kanaya reaches out and untangles her hand from her camel's reins. She runs a slow thumb across Feferi's rough palm, and smiles. “It would be my pleasure,” she says.
Perhaps there's something to be said for the silk road after all, Feferi thinks.