The amazing adventures of the sextuplet elven dwarves CHAPTER 2: The Caravan - part 1

It was midnight. The moon was mostly covered by clouds and because of that could hardly spy on the unsuspecting creatures of the world. It had always hated such weather. Somewhere in the desert a few tents had been raised. A soft moaning could be heard from the first one, and no, it was not what you think. A sleeping man was turning every few seconds. His forehead was full of sweat. He continued to whisper and moan, louder and louder suddenly waking up with a “Aaaah!”.
A young girl quickly lit a candle bringing up dancing shadows upon the cloth walls of the tent. It certainly did nothing to the frightful atmosphere, perhaps actually making it worse. She came by the man’s side and sat on her knees, stroking his hair. “It’s ok papa, it’s just a dream.” His eyes were vivid, watching a point somewhere in a time and space far away from there. “It was not! I have seen him yesterday and now he haunts me in my dreams.” The young girl took his hand with her other hand lowering her other hand. “It’s just a legend papa, the snow storm, it makes you see things.” {As anyone knows snow transformed into sand when it touched the ground after a very complex and mysterious formula that has baffled scientist for centuries, even though intelligence had only been recorded for a few decades, which was another paradox; and since this happened in all the deserts it did should not have been seen as strange}. The father squeezed her hand tightly and looked directly into her eyes. “No, it was real!”, he turned towards the dance of the shadows but not really watching it. “He was in front of me, then at the right, appearing all over the place, and his body hideously deformed. I know what I saw. It was El Achbucrapa riding his evil pink pony from the depths of hell.”
The desert had always the coldest of places. Everyone knew that. Few peoples had ever managed to live in these places, most tried to go through as fast as possible. Seven furs per person! That was needed to survive the torment. Some recommended hats as well though many fought on the right look. Mostly people either supported the [higher than a wedding cake but still of the same shape] hat or the [fur lined dead fish like overturned boat] hat. The two cultures had been killed with shame a very long time ago.
Seeing the sun mocking you was bad even through the peripheral vision. It looked as though it should at least give some warmth. Unfortunately somewhere near the Lost Islands it lost the will for heat and just shone with increased brightness. This day something was slightly strange in the desert, a lonely lizard thought, as she travelled the empty wasteland. She stopped, tensed her seven layers of skin. It kept looking around while the hind legs dug a whole out of which a cry resounded. “Get off me damn creature.” The animal scurried away while the mound of sand revealed Fimli. The pony under him was chewing. A strange animal this was. Even if presented with nothingness a pony would find nothing quite chewy and in need of some seasoning, though not so much as to cover the interesting taste. Five other mounds trembled revealing the rest of the brothers. They would actually continue to tremble for several hours, but the story of their bodies is better told one other time, when none is eating.
Aimli rode in front of the group. “We need to find shelter as soon as possible.” Fimli nodded in agreement. Cimli raised his head then looked around at his brothers. “Bloods of my blood, I have need of you. Ride forth for me, Aimli to the south, Bimli to the west, Fimli to the east and Dimli to the north. Seek for other cities, living or dead. Seek for caravans and people.” Eimli looked at his brother with sadness. “It’s the sun and the cold. Messed his mind up. Brain freeze and all that.” Bimli rode off without so much as a nod. Aimli was shaking his head “All good but it does not make any sense going back north.” Cimli came beside him and clutched Aimli’s tunic. “^%S!” {He was not swearing, that is a transcript of his exact words} Eimli whispered from where he was standing, which of course meant everybody could hear what he was saying, but still the intent was there “Don’t disagree with him, he might get violent.” Aimli looked at Cimli’s eyes and saw no more sign of intelligent life and so he made a hand motion which sent Dimli on his way.
There had been many an attempt for understanding Dimli but none had proved fruitful. There was a very clear reason for this and that was the total lack of reason inside the little persons head. But perhaps this was only because he was thinking differently. Not worse, but a bit hard for others to understand sometimes.
It was at this point that the poor man saw his greatest fear for the ninth time in a few days which is, needless to say, quite unfortunate. “It ... it is it, El Achbucrapa, run for your lives.” He shouted while trying to climb down from his cart. The man stumbled and fell face first into the sand. This would later become a meme, but now was just silly. Dimli meanwhile approached them slowly with the patience of the lazy man too bored to care what happens around him. The daughter came and caught the man’s shirt just in time before he stumbled once again on a dune and started another cultural trend of dune rolling. “It’s just a dwarf on a pink horse papa, stop acting silly.” The man turned his head slowly and faced his fear. It took him about .093 seconds to realize his mistake and start laughing. Hard. So hard in fact that his daughter took a few steps away to be sure to be sure. The man was not laughing though of his own silliness, but for another reason. He whispered to his daughter “He’s soooooo ugly. Look at those ears, and the belly, dear Lord.” Bimli just turned his horse and started riding back. “ Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.” He said. For some reason the caravan actually started to follow him. Travelers were not known to be leaders, so they really only had one other option.
Somewhere on the horizon, a lone figure stood watching. It was of short stature and [not to be described here] body features. Its pink pony neighed. The figure covered its mouth with a rather dirty piece of cloth and started following the caravan.

©Iustin