Noleena stepped onto the sliding rocks, almost lost her balance, windmilled her arms, and leaped farther down the slope. She discovered that it was possible to ride a single rock for several yards, then leap quickly to another one as the rock lost momentum and came to lodge against others. Leaping, dodging cacti and crevices, her ears filled with the rocks’ harsh clatter, Noleena arrived at the bottom in a flurry of dust, gasping for breath and with her eyes covered by her hair.

“Welcome, traveler, welcome to our campfire, the shelter of our tents, the sustenance of our food, the comfort of our company.”

Noleena jumped and flung up her head, pulling hair from her eyes at the sound of a deep voice, musical and dignified, speaking the formal welcome of the Wind-wanderer people. The speaker stood five paces away: a dark, burnished young man of perhaps eighteen, with blue eyes beneath long, iridescent black hair that was wound around his head in a single plait like a crown. 

Words abandoned her. In their absence, she fumbled at her neck and drew out her father’s medallion from where it hung beneath the fabric of her dress. She held it out to the Wanderer; with a sigh of admiration and wonder he bent over it and cradled it in his callused palms.

“The seal of King Lebna. And you – his daughter and our true princess. Welcome,” he repeated, letting go of the medallion to take her hands in his own instead. He held them like small birds that needed protection. Noleena was still staring; she knew this, and felt humiliated by her rudeness and her tongue-tied silence, by the rents in her patchwork dress and the white dust smeared in her sweat, and the tangled disarray of her hair.  Still she stared at him: his proud mouth, his high cheeks decorated with rippled lines of blue mineral paste, the crescent moons in his ears, the blue beads at his throat, the width of his chest beneath a tunic that was the dark orange of cayenne pepper, the length of his legs in cream breeches.

Childhood memories crowded into her mind: the Wind-wanderers slipped silently through the alleys of Safala, left their ivory and golden horses by the temple gates, strode inside as lithe as wild animals in their flowing tunics of orange, amber and ochre, their breeches of soft fabrics colored cream or brown. They carried baskets of grapes and pomegranates still warm from the sun which they set down on the steps. With sharp knives they split the red skin, then picked out the juicy seeds to feed to her, a favorite child. They filled the shadows with their lilting laughter and musical voices, with their blue, alkaline smell of wind and dust.

 Now, beneath Noleena’s stare, the young Wind-wanderer’s lips twitched upward. Suddenly, startling herself, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face against his robe – its faint remembered smell of wind and dust and horses – and against the steady thump of his heartbeat. Heat flamed in her face. What would he think of her behavior? For a long moment, he held her. All the loneliness and fear she had experienced in the desert quivered through her muscles and he stroked her back with his long brown fingers, the way a person might gentle a nervous horse. “I thought we would never find you,” she whispered.

Noleena stepped onto the sliding rocks, almost lost her balance, windmilled her arms, and leaped farther down the slope.. Leaping, dodging cacti and crevices, her ears filled with the rocks’ harsh clatter, Noleena arrived at the bottom in a flurry of dust, gasping for breath and with her eyes covered by her hair.

“Welcome, traveler, welcome to our campfire, the shelter of our tents, the sustenance of our food, the comfort of our company.”

Noleena jumped and flung up her head, pulling hair from her eyes at the sound of a deep voice, musical and dignified, speaking the formal welcome of the Wind-wanderer people. The speaker stood five paces away: a dark, burnished young man of perhaps eighteen, with blue eyes beneath long, iridescent black hair that was wound around his head in a single plait like a crown. 

Words abandoned her. In their absence, she fumbled at her neck and drew out her father’s medallion from where it hung beneath the fabric of her dress. She held it out to the Wanderer; with a sigh of admiration and wonder he bent over it and cradled it in his callused palms.

“The seal of King Lebna. And you – his daughter and our true princess. Welcome,” he repeated, letting go of the medallion to take her hands in his own instead. He held them like small birds that needed protection. Noleena was still staring; she knew this, and felt humiliated by her rudeness and her tongue-tied silence, by the rents in her patchwork dress and the white dust smeared in her sweat, and the tangled disarray of her hair.  Still she stared at him: his proud mouth, his high cheeks decorated with rippled lines of blue mineral paste, the crescent moons in his ears, the blue beads at his throat, the width of his chest beneath a tunic that was the dark orange of cayenne pepper, the length of his legs in cream breeches.

Childhood memories crowded into her mind: the Wind-wanderers slipped silently through the alleys of Safala, left their ivory and golden horses by the temple gates, strode inside as lithe as wild animals in their flowing tunics of orange, amber and ochre, their breeches of soft fabrics colored cream or brown. They carried baskets of grapes and pomegranates still warm from the sun which they set down on the steps. With sharp knives they split the red skin, then picked out the juicy seeds to feed to her, a favorite child. They filled the shadows with their lilting laughter and musical voices, with their blue, alkaline smell of wind and dust.

 Now, beneath Noleena’s stare, the young Wind-wanderer’s lips twitched upward. Suddenly, startling herself, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face against his robe – its faint remembered smell of wind and dust and horses – and against the steady thump of his heartbeat. Heat flamed in her face. What would he think of her behavior? For a long moment, he held her. All the loneliness and fear she had experienced in the desert quivered through her muscles and he stroked her back with his long brown fingers, the way a person might gentle a nervous horse. “I thought we would never find you,” she whispered.