Mo’ay’a’s Oasis
Young mind, old soul.
She had none, so now gives all.
Her body was stolen by the desert heat,
But her spirit preservers.
Mo’ay’a’s Oasis is a tale known by all seces who have set foot on land. It is told to young children using dye-dances before they take their first breath above water, and many seces travellers have created extraordinary theatre or puppet shows in order to share the story of Mo’ay’a with other Sentient races.
It is the story of a lonely seces child who, after being separated from her family in the I’rekan desert, dies of dehydration. There are several different versions of Mo’ay’a’s death’s details; some say she walked through the hot daytime sands until she collapsed, others tell that she laid down to sleep in the looming dark and cold of the coming night and never truly awoke. All stories agree, however, that her death was one of great suffering.
The story serves as a warning to seces who choose to walk the land, that they should not wander too far from the safety of water.
The Death of Mo’ay’a
It was year 405 when Mo’aya arrived in I’reka with her family.
She hadn’t realised they’d passed the border. Not at first, in the safety of the underground tunnels they traversed.
Everything looked the same in the safe dampness of the underground river. Mossy rocks among dark shadows, broken only by the dull blue glow of soulstone clusters.
It had only been after Mo’ay’a’s surrogate, Gral’gant, had come to her in the exhausting warmth of daytime and whisked her away from her younger sibs to an entrance to the outside— To the Above, he called it. He had taken her while the rest of her parents slept, wishing to share a special moment with her, and shown her the hot sunlight of the desert outside.
Mo’ay’a had seen sand before, Many times, on her night outing with her parents on the Crat’re beaches. But that had always been beach sand; soft and moist and white with its surface littered with shells and other beautiful trinkets to collect.
This sand was different.
Sharp yellow grains curled and spun in the hot winds like bubbles in a current. And it was empty. Empty like a dead reef; with whatever life there may have been refusing to come out from the shelters to face the burning sun and heated sands.
She had reached out to touch the sunlight, but her surrogate had pulled her hand back; warning her that the light would burn her sensitive undercave skin. That she could look, but she would do best to keep within the caves.
It was a disappointment. But Mo’ay’a was an obedient child who knew her surrogate was wise. So she looked with him, standing back from the heat in the shadows of the caves, before he took her by the hand and led her back to their sleeping family and told her to rest.
She would need all of her strength to make the journey to Wh’ey.
Three weeks passed as the family travelled through the caves, guided by the river. They came across many cities, dug deeply into the cool caverns, and Mo’ay’a enjoyed her time in these unfamiliar crowds.
She had never had friends her own age, before; just her younger siblings who she was expected to care for. It was nice, she thought, to be able to play with people who enjoyed the same games that she did.
Even if her heart ached each time she had to say goodbye.
Her family was still travelling, and she couldn’t expect them to delay their travels just to give her time to play.
Still. She thought that she might like to live in a city, when she was old enough to be on her own. A place where she could have many friends who she would never have to say goodbye to....
But she knew that would be far, far in the future. So she held her tongue and never complained. She knew it was hard for her parents to take her and her siblings through the desert. They were a big family, after all. And it was a long distance to travel with so many children. They didn’t need her to tell them her troubles and make them feel guilty.
So instead she occupied herself with thoughts of the Above. She managed to steal glances at it through cave entrances while playing with the locals, but her parents kept too close an eye on her for her to ever follow her friends outside to play in it.
No matter how curious she was about the strange, unfamiliar sands.
It was at the end of the fourth week that Mo’ay’a’s curiosity finally got the better of her.
During the early hours of the morning, when the sun was just starting to rise and her family were settling in to sleep, Mo’ay’a slipped out from under her surrogate’s arm and crept away through the caves.
She walked through the crowds of the city to one of the many openings to the Above— And was stopped in her tracks by a zokex that warned her of the sun’s unforgiving heat and ordered her to return home.
But she was too curious.
So under the guise of returning to her family she slipped from the crowds and took to the quiet, empty caves that stretched well beyond the city’s limits.
She kept straight in one direction, her hand gently brushing the left wall as she went so she could find her way back, until she found what she was seeking.
It was a beam of yellow light, shining through a hole in the cavern’s wall. Warm and bright, it contrasted the dull blue soulstone that fed on its light.
Just a peak, she told herself. One peak outside. Just to know what the sand feels like....
It was a mistake.
The dry sand was loose. Much looser than she had ever known dampened beach sand to be.
She fell; tumbling down the hilly dune and into the bright, hot daytime with sand scattering up behind her and filling her gills with a rough dryness that choked her violently.
She coughed and sputtered as she tried to stand and, with tears welling in her eyes as a gust blew more sand into her face, she desperately tried to scale the dune back up to the cave.
It was too steep.
Far too steep.
And she simply slid back to the bottom; more sand showering her.
Panting, crying, and with the sun beating against her back; Mo’ay’a cried out.
But she went unheard. She was simply too far from the city.
Swallowing, Mo’ay’a tried to reorientate herself....
Which way had she come from?
If she could figure out the direction.... She could make it back to the city.
And then there would be hope.
Mo’ay’a winced at the burning sun that kissed her back and lifted her shirt to cover her neck.
She had kept her hand on the left wall. Which meant home was....
That way.
Mo’ay’a had gone in the wrong direction.
The sun beat down on her, blistering her sensitive skin. And the sand in the wind made her gills and eyes ache more and more each time it scraped against her.
After hours wandering in the open desert, with no inkling of the city, she had realised the mistake she had made and turned around. But everything looked the same, and she hadn’t known how far to turn and knew she had only grown more lost.
She had given up finding the city; now all she hoped for was to find a cave....
But the more she walked, the less sense the desert made.
The dunes blurred and the sky glowed; dancing and dancing in the waves of heat that shook them like ripples on disturbed water.
It was too much.
Mo’ay’a collapsed, her knees giving out as she didn’t bother to catch herself and hit the ground with a dull thump that send grains of sand spattering up around her.
A gust of wind caught the sand, swirling it away into the air, and Mo’ay’a let out a low groan as another gust danced over her skin; pulling a blanket of sand over her legs from the dune to cover her.
It felt... cool.
The itchy sand stopped the sun beating so hard against her skin, and she let out a sigh of relief as more covered her; shielding her from the heat.
And as the sand blanketed her, a darkness crept into the corners of her eyes. Growing blacker and blacker, until the world around her vanished into nothing.
It was night when Mo’ay’a woke up.
A suffocating darkness had enveloped her from head to toe and, desperately, she dug herself from the heavy dune.
She was thirsty.
Her gills ached.
Her skin was dry.
And she was choking on the sand in her gills.
It was agonising in a way she could have never imagined before.
She wanted to go home.
Painfully, the child pushed herself to her feet; staggering in a random direction and praying to all the gods she knew that she would find her way home.
Something was wrong.
There was something wrong with the night.
Mo’ay’a could feel it.
The air was warmer than it should have been.
And climbing the dunes didn’t exhaust her.
It was like a bad dream; feverish and wrong. And nothing felt how it should.
Mo’ay’a was scared.
And she was thirsty.
She wanted water.
She just wanted some water....
She could imagine it.
The feeling of the ocean back home.
Closing her eyes, Mo’ay’a gave a heavy sigh and pictured it in her mind.
She could all but feel the dark waves washing over her feet as she walked with her family along the beach. And she swore she could smell the cold, salty water in the air.
It was all so vivid she felt like she could cup her hands and scoop the ocean up....
But she opened her eyes and gazed out across the lonely desert, and her heart sunk to her stomach.
There was no ocean here.
A sigh escaped Mo’ay’a as she scanned the horizon and it took the girl a moment to realise that, while fantasising about the ocean, she had actually cupped her hands to scoop the imaginary water....
And then, when she looked down at her cupped hands, her eyes widened and she froze.
There was water in her hands.
Water!
Tentatively, unable to believe what she was seeing, Mo’ay’a lifted her hands and brought the water to her mouth— But she could not drink it. It simply ran over her skin and dripped to the ground, and she was left feeling as thirsty as before.
A strangled sound escaped her throat as she watched the water soak into the sand and she grasp desperately at the thirsty ground; confusion and desperation combining into fear as she dug at the quickly-disappearing droplets.
But it was to no avail, and the girl collapsed to the ground with a miserable cry.
Mo’ay’a’s wandering continued until the dawn began to touch the sky with its deadly yellow light, when she looked out across the sands and waited for the heat to join her thirst.
But, to her surprise, the heat never hit her. Even when the sun rose to the middle of the sky, she still felt cool— And she began to wonder if this really was all just a bad dream....
She told herself quietly, again and again, that she would wake up and be in her surrogate’s arms. But the itching in her gills felt far too real for her to fully believe it. And the dream had lasted for so long....
But nothing felt right. And so she had to be dreaming.
Dreaming, or....
Or....
She didn’t want to think about that.
It had been two days, and Mo’ay’a knew that she was dead.
There was no other explanation for it.
Why she wasn’t tired. Why the sun wasn’t hot. Why the night wasn’t cold. Why the sand had stopped itching her skin.
And why she couldn’t drink.
It had been the second night that she had been forced to admit it. And her grief had been overwhelming.
She just wanted to go home.
But she knew it was impossible. That she was gone. And that home was just a memory, now.
Her imagined future, that she had laid out in front of herself a thousand times, had been ripped away from her and replaced with... this.
This thirst.
This ache.
This unbearable grief.
Why?
Why was she to exist like this?
Mo’ay’a could hear crying coming from over the dunes.
Quiet, miserable sobbing that cut her to her core.
So she struggled to the top of the slippery dune and peered out over the sand.
Below her, wings lifted to protect himself from the vicious sun that beat down against him, was a young avio boy.
Mo’ay’a recognised this boy; she had played with him the day before she had snuck out to the desert. He was a sweet thing that had shared his toys without hesitation— And like he hadn’t hesitated then, Mo’ay’a didn’t hesitate now.
She slid down the dune, stumbling to the avio boy’s side with a greeting.
He jumped at her sudden appearance, sniffing back his tears and smiling wide as he greeted her and asked if she knew the way home.
His tears returned when she answered him honestly.
Mo’ay’a tried to put an arm around her friend, to comfort him and promise him that he would be alright. But when she touched his shoulder her hand simply passed through him like she was made of air.
She stepped back as the avio cried with fear and put his wings over his head and trembling.
Mo’ay’a sighed, then, her gills still aching with thirst as another wave of grief hit her.
But she had no time to sit in her grief. Not now; if the avio boy stayed out here with no water he would meet the same fate as she had. And she couldn’t bare that thought....
So she looked down at her friend and closed her eyes, holding her cupped hands to the sky. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to summon water again —or if he would be able to drink it if she did— but still, she tried.
She thought of the river in the cave that her family had travelled by. The way it had trickled through rocks and washed its fresh, clean, cool waters over the algae-covered rocks. She thought of the cold running waterfall that splashed the ground and soaked the walls and roof with misty spray.... It was falling into her hands, filling them with clear, clean water.
She felt the cold water drip from her hands and opened her eyes to see the young avio had stopped crying to stare at her in amazement.
She shifted forward, offering her water to him, and he drank the water pooled in Mo’ay’a’s palms gratefully.
A wet line ran down the boy’s chin as Mo’ay’a pulled her hands away and she let herself smile.
At least something good had come from this curse....
The boy stared back at her, his eyes sparkling with amazement as she sat beside him in the hot, beating sun that she could not feel.
The boy could feel it, though. Mo’ay’a could see that.... So she pooled more water in her palms, cool and fresh, before dripping it onto his sore-looking skin.
A game was offered, then, to distract from the pain of the heat. But it wasn’t enough to keep the boy cool....
So Mo’ay’a splashed him again; soaking his feathers and clothes and eliciting a giggle as he rose to his feet and stumbled around her.
And she took chase; spraying water from her palms into the air to rain droplets down on the boy.
And the pair played together; dancing over the no-longer-dry sand.
“How much water can you make?”
The question had taken Mo’ay’a by surprise, and she had admitted she didn’t know.
But she was curious.
How much water could she make?
They had found a dip in the dunes to use as a reservoir to test Mo’ay’a’s abilities.
It had filled up quicker than she had expected; so quickly that she and the avio boy had to retreat all the way to the top of the dune.
They had looked out over Mo’ay’a’s creation, amazed by her power.... And then heard a shout.
It was the boy’s name; cried out in relief over the sands as a group of older avio circled overhead. A search party that had come to find him.
The boy cheered back; flapping his wings and leaping into the air to greet the adults.
And Mo’ay’a smiled.
He’d been found.
She’d kept him alive and he had been found.
It made the ache in her heart lighter to know she had helped him.
That this curse could serve a purpose....
The boy landed by her side, motioning for her to follow him home— And she simply looked to her friend, a sad twinkle in the corners of her eyes as she shook her head and asked him to tell her family she wouldn’t be coming home.
To tell them that she was sorry.
She’d only wanted to look....
And so it was that Mo’ay’a forever tread the desert sands, searching for lost souls to share her water with.
Thousands of years passed the desert by and the girl used her powers to turn what she could of the desert into lush and rich oasises. Creating rest stops for all souls in need; person or animal alike.