The desert glowed in phosphorescent blue.

Sharp ridges of mountainous dunes edged in neon, huge swathes of their smoothed sides as far as the eye could see more like snow drifts than sand in the unnatural light. Even the temperature gave credence to the illusion, the wind frigid and churlish as it moved over the ribboned peaks. The source of the monochromatic hues that painted the land hung in the northeast sky. A moon that had been perpetually dulled in shadow for centuries now blazed azure so brightly, the constellations were muted.

Perched on a crest that gave an unobstructed view of the landscape Apoch studied the foreboding anomaly, dread coiling through every muscle in his body. His brooding was interrupted by encroaching footsteps gnashing against the infinite grains as O'Zenth, the village's soothsayer, settled down next to him and looked to the heavens as well.

The gusts picked up fervently in the strained silence between the two. Apoch listened as it hissed a name he knew over and over again, not from any personal relationship or memory, but from a dream that now haunted him every time he closed his eyes. His uninvited companion tipped his head slightly as if he, too, could hear the name on the wind.

“There is a story about this moon,” O'Zenth finally mused. “One that told of how the Warlocks brought it to this world. It fueled their abilities, made them terribly powerful. It was the eye of their creator, watching its children use the gifts it had bestowed upon them. Then blue turned red on one fated day, and without its blessing, their powers burned their lives out in a final effort to close the gate they had foolishly opened. When they were no more, it's light vanished from the sky."

“Is there a point to this?”

The Soothsayer regarded him with a raised brow at the brusque, derisive tone, but the warrior continued to physically ignore him. There was a rift between Apoch and everyone in his life these days, but none more so than with the current company when his consort had requested assistance.

Nedivah had meant well, he knew. Their comfortable domestic life in the westernmost outpost had been fraying with each passing night when he would wake up reaching for someone else. At first he tried to make excuses for a dream he couldn't fully explain, and she had trusted him. But nights had turned into weeks, and weeks had turned into months. It was at her request O'Zenth had thrown the bones, despite Apoch wanting nothing to do with it.

He didn't want her to know, nor did he want to have to acknowledge he knew exactly what they meant. With a toss of carved knuckles scratched with rudimentary symbols he watched his life dwindle to a bed he was no longer welcome to, nor wanted in.

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You are holding onto that which no longer exists, yet your path forward is covered in darkness, Apoch. I cannot see what your future holds.

O'Zenth pulled the blanket he had wrapped around his old body further up his neck to keep the cold wind at bay, rousing him out of the dark memories.

“Just say your piece and be done with it, I have no patience for theatrics,” Apoch said tiredly, bitterness tinging his words. “What did your all-seeing bones tell you this time?”

“You tell me.”

A muscle in his cheek feathered, blood-red gaze acknowledging the elder at long last. The faint, encouraging smile and pity in the eyes he met drew his anger up short. “You're saying the dreams are linked to this.”

O'Zenth's smile was one of those secretive kind those that plied in fortune-telling often wore. “Are they?”

In response his gaze lifted, and not for the first time that evening pondered why the girl in his dream had eyes the same ethereal cobalt as this moon.

His companion stood with the slowness of age, readjusting the blanket before addressing Apoch once more. “How much more needs to happen before you are finally moved to purpose?”

With that he left, retreating back down the sloping dune to the squat, lone mesa that their meager fortress of adobe and stone perched upon. Apoch listened to his departure, contemplating the advice. While most in their village held the readings of the bones as absolute truths, he had dealt with enough mystics to know it was all a matter of opinion. The markings were vague, the patterns were vague, the answers were vague, all for the necessity of leaving these readings as open to interpretation as they were to reality.

Yet he couldn't deny the fact O'Zenth's maddeningly ambiguous conversation had struck an uneasy chord in his own thoughts. It bothered him on a fundamental level that life would have an uncontrollable destiny.

He had chosen to ignore the dreams, to press on with his life the way he had worked so hard for it to be. With his consort and humble home, and a name no longer beginning with a title. But all of that was falling apart, and every day the path grew more narrow, more isolated. Now this moon crowned the horizon towards where the human's kingdom lay. Beckoning, taunting. Drawing him with stronger and stronger means, demanding response.

Hands resting over his folded knees clenched into fists, veins rising along forearms thickened from the arts of war. A measured inhale, held as he weighed the consequences of this new purpose.

The displaced sand as he rose joined the wind's hiss, as if it perceived his intent, and despised it.

Whatever force thought to manipulate him, had chosen in error.