The Sand had long since claimed the land. It had fought the humans, not with loud warfare or grandstanding or explosions. None of those things were necessary, for this was not a war but a decision. A ruling. A mandate that had existed for millennia. Patience was its weapon of choice. The Sand knew how to watch. For an age, it watched, and it listened, and it remembered. Sands always remember. The Earth never forgets. And the humans had never been kind to their land. It had never been theirs, for they had borrowed it from the Gods, leased it from the Earth itself, and yet treated it like a plaything. Had no care for what else was sharing their resources, not even their own. So the Sand bided their time. Took their lands back, not piece by piece, but inch by inch. Decade by decade. The Sands moved slowly, but there was no stopping them when they had decided. And they had decided on Justice and Patience and Hope for a new land, a better land. A land once again untamed and its own and a balance. And the humans never stood a chance. Never realised what was happening, until it was too late. Never stopped fighting themselves until the Sands piled up and their dwellings became monuments, relics of their own destruction. Doors never closing, never opening, somewhere in between, held in a moment. Humans had long since abandoned that place. The Sands ruled freely. The land was its own once more.
excerpt from the unpublished the world is no longer our own (by me!)
