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Description
Gran walked along, silently, on the tiny beach he had found, listening to the soft crunch of sand under his feet.
How long had be been here now? A week? Two? Time had lost it's meaning for him. Ever since he had wandered out here in the forests of Kain's nature sector, and had found the land refused to allow him to leave. And why? For the same reason he had been dragged out here in the first place by Enkidu and Strele.
"You need to get in touch with your rahi side." They said.
He sighed. They were right, but he was still at odds with himself. And to be perfectly honest, he had no idea how to even begin.
So, he was stuck here. And though it was too peaceful to hate it, he was thoroughly annoyed every time he thought about it. He wanted to be back with his friends. He was tired of being alone, tired of spending cold nights shivering somewhere, tired of having to scramble to find food or go hungry. Tired of trying to figure himself out and still feeling no closer to any answers than before.
By now he had wandered towards what was something of a sand dune. Considering the smallness of the beach, he was surprised something that big had managed to form. But with this place, who knew what was possible.
Arguing with himself the whole way about how good an idea it was, he loped over to the dune and started exploring it. He seemed to be the first to find it, there were no other footprints, not even those of rahi. Fine by him. His few encounters with the rahi who lived around here had been... dicey. He'd nearly lost his leg once, and his head in another encounter. And he still had plenty of bruises from either encounter.
When the dune started to crumble and fall on top of him, at an alarming rate of speed, he found the only thing he felt was a general sense of how stupid he was. Stupid stupid stupid; the word echoed in his mind as he tried, without success, to outrun the onrushing sand.
Then the world went dark as he was flattened by a heap of sand, and found himself buried under it.
Well, at least the world had been kind enough to give him a well-marked grave, he thought.
It took him longer than it should have, he reflected later, to realize that he wasn't suffocating.
It took him even longer to figure out why.
Ever since he had become a Hordika he had generally been trying to ignore the fact - much to his friends' general annoyance - and so had never really considered any of the abilities he may have inherited.
There were plenty of species of burrowing rahi who lived in deserts, and were capable of breathing the air trapped between grains of sand, without inhaling the sand at the same time. And as he slowly worked his way out of his would-be grave, he felt a slight smile crawl onto his face as he thought about just how very lucky he was that he had taken after such rahi. Certainly better than suffocating to death.
After all, being dead probably wasn't much fun, he thought as his head popped up into the sunlight. He shook his head as he wriggled his way back out of the sand, shaking the clingy stuff from his body as he did so.
Well, that was two lessons down: Don't climb on sand dunes, and don't ignore your friends. How many more left to go?

Description
Gran walked along, silently, on the tiny beach he had found, listening to the soft crunch of sand under his feet.
How long had be been here now? A week? Two? Time had lost it's meaning for him. Ever since he had wandered out here in the forests of Kain's nature sector, and had found the land refused to allow him to leave. And why? For the same reason he had been dragged out here in the first place by Enkidu and Strele.
"You need to get in touch with your rahi side." They said.
He sighed. They were right, but he was still at odds with himself. And to be perfectly honest, he had no idea how to even begin.
So, he was stuck here. And though it was too peaceful to hate it, he was thoroughly annoyed every time he thought about it. He wanted to be back with his friends. He was tired of being alone, tired of spending cold nights shivering somewhere, tired of having to scramble to find food or go hungry. Tired of trying to figure himself out and still feeling no closer to any answers than before.
By now he had wandered towards what was something of a sand dune. Considering the smallness of the beach, he was surprised something that big had managed to form. But with this place, who knew what was possible.
Arguing with himself the whole way about how good an idea it was, he loped over to the dune and started exploring it. He seemed to be the first to find it, there were no other footprints, not even those of rahi. Fine by him. His few encounters with the rahi who lived around here had been... dicey. He'd nearly lost his leg once, and his head in another encounter. And he still had plenty of bruises from either encounter.
When the dune started to crumble and fall on top of him, at an alarming rate of speed, he found the only thing he felt was a general sense of how stupid he was. Stupid stupid stupid; the word echoed in his mind as he tried, without success, to outrun the onrushing sand.
Then the world went dark as he was flattened by a heap of sand, and found himself buried under it.
Well, at least the world had been kind enough to give him a well-marked grave, he thought.
It took him longer than it should have, he reflected later, to realize that he wasn't suffocating.
It took him even longer to figure out why.
Ever since he had become a Hordika he had generally been trying to ignore the fact - much to his friends' general annoyance - and so had never really considered any of the abilities he may have inherited.
There were plenty of species of burrowing rahi who lived in deserts, and were capable of breathing the air trapped between grains of sand, without inhaling the sand at the same time. And as he slowly worked his way out of his would-be grave, he felt a slight smile crawl onto his face as he thought about just how very lucky he was that he had taken after such rahi. Certainly better than suffocating to death.
After all, being dead probably wasn't much fun, he thought as his head popped up into the sunlight. He shook his head as he wriggled his way back out of the sand, shaking the clingy stuff from his body as he did so.
Well, that was two lessons down: Don't climb on sand dunes, and don't ignore your friends. How many more left to go?