But those glorious promises you hear, that beautiful shimmering light you see... just wonderful, twisted lies. All of it.

My mothers always told me to reach for the stars, but look where that got them. They got caught up in those beautiful lies and never came back.

Now I must wander this strange wasteland alone. But even though they left me, I can't make myself resent them. They have taught me to pay no heed to stars, and to learn to walk alone (even if it wasn't their intent to do so).

Just a note I forgot to include in the description:

Make sure before posting the next few sentences that all the comments from other people have shown up yet, so we don't get one of those obnoxious moments where two people overlap. For example, right now I can see that Darkling's comment was submitted 14 min 55 sec ago, but it hasn't shown up yet, so I won't post the next few sentences until it does and I can see what it says.

But, of course, that is not where I will go. They were foolish. I am not.

I sigh and shake myself out of my thoughts. We'll be approaching the town soon. I need to focus. I bring my binocs up to my eyes and scan the red rock wasteland behind me.

As the navigator and one of the caravan's scouts, it's my job to keep us safe while we travel, and part of that is making sure there's no tanglebeasts following us. The town might not open their gates to us if there's any beasts tailing us, so we need to make sure we're clear before we get any closer.

All seems to be well. There's no sign of the distinctive blood-red dustdevils that always accompany tanglebeasts. The caravan vehicle that I'm on rumbles beneath me as the treads work their way over a rough patch of rocks, and now we're within shouting distance of the town walls.

"How's it looking out there?"

I turn around, and Greg, a tall Ryokian and the head of the scouts, has walked out onto the metal viewing platform. Ryokians are one of the many avian species, and they most closely resemble swifts and swallows. They have long, blade-shaped gray-ish or white-ish wings and often also have feathers on their arms and/or faces.

"Good," is all I say. "No dustdevils."
"All right then," they answer. "We'll be attempting to make the gates before midnight." I walk back to the place where I'm supposed to sit, behind Greg and in front of all the booksellers. The mechanical caravan's treads move it along the wasteland. The town's lights, and high walls, slowly emerge into view.

Being half Ryokian and half human myself, I've got a few of their magical abilities. All Ryokians have spatial powers, although their talent with it varies, and many tend to have one or more elemtental abilites, usually the 'light-related' elements of light, energy, and fire. I've got the spatial abilites, which I'm rather good with, plus very weak fire and energy abilities. I suppose I'm lucky to have my Ryokian powers, because the human species carries no magic in its blood.

One of the booksellers is also a half-human; her name is Cora and she's not much older than me. She is half-human and half-silverfish. The silverfish are a group of beings who are human during the day and take the form of fishpeople at night. Cora doesn't appear to grow a tail after dark, but she seems to have control of water somehow. When the watersacks ran out, she managed to fill them.
Cora approaches me now.
"You," she says. "Do you know your way around this city or have a map?"
"I do" is all I can say. Because Trastresed, the city, is the place where I grew up.

Trastresed is not only my home city, but holds an outpost of the Wayfinders, my people.  Wayfinders specialize in maps, and every one of us is trained as a navigator. At the age of 12, every Wayfinder leaves the outpost or caravan (yes, there are caravans made entirely of Wayfinders) they were raised in and joins one of the many traveling caravans that doesn't already have a navigator. Of course, there are navigators who aren't Wayfinders, but everyone know Wayfinders are the best.

Cora nods, satisfied.

"I need a map of the city. I'll pay you three gold coins for your map, or if you aren't willing to part with the original, one gold coin if you can make me a quick rough copy before we exit the caravan."

I've got multiple maps of Trastresed, and I've already make several dozen high-quality copies to hand out to caravan members as we leave. It's part of my job to make sure everyone is equipped with a map of whatever town or outpost we're visiting, and because I get paid to do so by the caravan master it's free for caravan members. But this is Cora's first time on a caravan, and she doesn't know that, and I'm not about to tell her and pass up three gold coins. That's more than I make in a week.

"I'll go grab the map. Be back in one sec." I say, and dart towards my quarters.

Ah, I haven't been able to be very active on CB in a while, and it feels good to be back.

---

I swing across one of the ziplines that connects this caravan vehicle to one of the other ones, the one that my room is on. The vehicles are giant, rumbling monoliths, often called sand-crawlers, trekking over rocks and sand with huge treads.

I slip into my room, which isn't very spacious but I don't have to share it, so it isn't that bad, and rummage through the drawers of one of the many desks that are overflowing with maps. I pull out a nice-looking copy of my Trastresed map and head back towards the zipline to the sand-crawler where Cora awaits.