#sandsong

With Sandsong's scarf coming in and her learning how to fly... something worrying has started to show. Something Ari was entirely unaware of. A strange black stain has started to appear on her foot. He'd noticed her limping on that foot on occasion, but it always passed and nothing came of it. He figured maybe it was just a little quirk.

But what started as a few small dark specks on her foot, has grown into a black stain he can't identify.

And it's started to spread.

At first, he thought it was just a marking. She was getting bigger, speaking more clearly. She grew a new line of embroidery on her cloak.

But then he noticed, after a few lessons, that she was tiring more quickly than she should. Usually, when two Wayfarers fly together, their chirps and presence hold eachother aloft. But he's noticed her chirps are doing less than they should, even at her size... and that her presence actually drains his energy. It's subtle... but it's very unusual.

He keeps thinking back to how he found her. A Wayfarer... but, not. Black as the darkest shadow, markings in red, tall and dangerous. A thing referred to as a Scarfeater... said to be more dangerous than a War Machine. War Machines could be hidden from, they seemed to run on programming... but a Scarfeater was an intelligent hunter. The one he'd found was dead, fortunately for him. Otherwise, Ari was sure he'd be dead. Sandsong was in the thing's nest.

Even more surprising, Ari learned the thing had a name, Chirp, and that Sandsong saw it as her parent. She was young, had a small vocabulary, but it seemed the thing had been taking care of her. He had even gone back and gotten some of the remains of his scarf for her to help her adjust to her new home, which she still had.

But thinking back to that, seeing the stain, feeling the cold, seeing her growing tired, and needing him to give her more energy has him growing increasingly concerned.

It looks like it's time for Ari to try to do some research... to try to figure out who that Scarfeater was. What, exactly, a Scarfeater is. He swore he'd seen the thing a few times, for a moment... emerging from the shadows, but he always vanished as quickly as he appeared. Ari honestly doubts he even saw anything sometimes. Maybe it was just him seeing shadows moving and his imagination doing the rest.

The little pitter patter of Sandsong’s feet through the sand as the duo arrived at the scarfeater’s memorial was the one warmth and sure thing Ari could focus on through the anxiety he felt rising.  He saw her footsteps hitch, heard the uneven step from time to time on the stained leg. She seemed to be doing alright, especially when he chirped at her to keep her energy up. But he could tell it was draining her energy, making her feel tired and cold. She seemed concerned about it too, though she tried to downplay how bad it was. 

She held a chunk of rock with some crystals embedded in it tightly in her cloak, while he carried a drawing beneath his cloak for her. The desert flower; he’d taken her to see it a few days ago during their flying lessons. Watching the way she danced and sang to the flower as it sang back was heartwarming. Now his walls were covered in little childish doodles of flowers and music notes.

As they reached the gap in the wall that lead to where the scarfeater had once lived, he looked over at the gravestone with some of Chirp’s cloak wrapped around it. Black as the darkest shadow. Even dead, the energy around it felt cold and unnatural, sending a shiver through Ari.  It reminded him of the stain that appeared on Sandsong’s leg, the way it made him feel when looking at it and touching it, trying to give her energy and help keep her healthy and stable.

That was the real reason he was here. He knew Chirp was haunting him. He knew he’d seen his ghost more than once. Always brief. Always unexpected and frightening. Maybe a single distorted chirp that reminded him of the war machines that patrolled some areas of the Underground. 

He looked at the drawing of the desert flower he held in his cloak-tips as Song bounced and sang with little flutters of her cloak. She patted the gravestone, then the wall, turning to look at him expectantly.

He chirped back, soft and gentle, before putting the drawing up on the wall with the others.

There were so many other drawings all over the little memorial. Sandsong always wanted to tell Chirp everything. Ari had a feeling, at least to some point, that his lingering spirit heard her. Maybe the restless spirit was as comforted by the child as she was by his dark presence. 

Scarfeaters were monsters, but… this one had clearly been taking care of Sandsong. She was healthy and well cared for when he found her, aside from being orphaned and confused when he didn’t come back, and sad when she learned Chirp was gone.

She seemed to understand, at least to a point, that Chirp wasn’t coming back. Especially when Ari brought her his scarf to comfort her as she adjusted to living with him. He had a theory that the ghostly sightings were due to the Scarfeater watching over her.

Almost 4 years had passed since he took her in. She seemed to have accepted her former caretaker’s death. Even if she always came back to his memorial to leave little offerings. Shiny rocks, drawings, neat artifacts, some differently colored sand from places Ari took her, packed away in little jars. Crystals… anything a child would find and want to show to her parent. 

As Sandsong admired her drawing on the wall and told Chirp about all the adventures Ari took her on, Ari started to wander the area around the memorial.

‘I know you are here… somewhere….’ He chimed softly, his long scarf flowing. His chirps echoed hollowly in the empty room, the soft paff-paff of his feet in the sand echoing along with his chimes and chirps.

‘Chirp… that’s what she calls you.’ He chimed. ‘I’m here because of her, you know.. The stain. On her foot. I feel you might know what it is? What I can do to... Help her? I think it's making her sick.'

He felt a chill race through him, but nothing else. No movement, no presence, no haunting call echoing through the darkness. 

He tried again.

Nothing.

He sighed, before returning to Song.

‘Was Chirp always this difficult?’ he asked the child. She turned to look at him, and shrugged.

She brought out several colorful buttons she had stored away inside her hollow body, brushing some sand off of them before plopping them down at the memorial. There were a lot of buttons left there. Little bright splashes of color against the dark sand.

‘Maybe I’ll find another cl-’

The shadows moved. A strange glow in the darkest corner before a shadowy figure seemed to appear, for a brief second. He heard the faint echo of a distorted call somewhere between the mournful whirring of the war machines and the distant chirp of another Wayfarer.

‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!’ Ari shrieked and stumbled back, landing on his rear with a floomfh of fabric and puff of sand. The shadowy figure almost seemed to laugh, before turning to face away from Ari, gesturing with a cloak tip, before the shadows rippled and vanished. It was so quick he almost missed it entirely in his startled panic.

The air felt unnaturally cold and he swore he felt a draft wafting across his velvety face. Ari managed to compose himself, before standing. He knew he saw it, even if briefly. He thought over that brief sighting. The specter has gestured. Pointed. He started in the direction the apparition had gestured.

There wasn't anything obvious at first. A jar that had once held some of the golden energy found in the temple, or something like it. Something caught his eye. A little child's drawing tucked away, of a creature Ari recognized. It was a very simple childish drawing done by Sandsong when she was much younger, but the creature was so distinct compared to other creatures he’d encountered in the sands, he recognized what it was right away. A winged thing. It was a creature he was not familiar with, something that didn't exist in his world; a dragon. But made of cloth. He remembered something about this Thunder being a creature called a bookwyrm, an interdimensional traveller who studied different worlds, taking on a form to blend in. Though, he mused to himself, she very much did not blend in. He had met her once, soon after taking Sandsong in. She was truly unforgettable.

‘Thunder?’ He wondered, looking over at Sandsong. ‘Thunder did know you before I met her…’

He smiled at Song. ‘Do you remember where Thunder is?’

‘I don’t remember…’ she chirped. ‘But we can look!’ She bounced, trilling and floating up before her little scarf ran out and she drifted back into the sand.

‘Alright.’ Ari chimed. ‘We will search for Thunder. Maybe she will have some answers.’

He swore he faintly heard that distorted chirp as if filtered through deep water from far away, as if confirming his theory.

I am trying to reboot @wayfarer-ari, a blog I had SO much fun with back in the day. The old one got deleted around the whole Tumblr banning NSFW debacle ages ago... posts kept getting deleted because Tumblr decided that deserts are nudity and I got sick of it and deleted.

Ari has met a friend in the Pink Desert! The Whitecloak is a character I designed for the streamer Loggivan to make him a design he could use however he wanted... I wanna sketch him a simple character design as a warmup!

Ari isn't young. He's just smol. He's older than he looks. (Might have made him TOO smol here, but he's cute when smol so LOL)

Basically, I realized that Loggivan's favorite symbol is the one Song had, and in the couple of doodles I did after streams of his (Ones I managed to get in and play through the game with him in, was SO much fun) I drew him with his favorite symbol. Cause he mentioned it was so I thought it'd be a nice personal touch.

ANYWAY, I got the idea of him being joined by Ari and Song for (At least part of) a Journey! (Ari won't go into the snow for his own reasons)

I like the design I came up with for Loggivan! He has a very long scarf because he is very good at fancy flying and always gets all the symbols!