An Embracing Shade

[TheMessenger 104]

Lesh had been traveling through the harsh desert of Aevos for several miles by now. The chains attached to the manacles around his ankles made for odd tracks as he stumbled across dune and stone. 
He had nought to drink for days, and the weariness was starting to set in along with the pounding heat of the sun. The orc’s mind had all but faded in that moment, only focused on treading onward. The new city of Krugmar was ahead, and there he would find freedom.

Just keep going, he told himself, Just over this next dune. As he did what his own inner conscious had told him, he saw something in the distance.

Not a city, no that wasn’t the shape. A tree! Where there was a tree, there must be water! Shade! Salvation! 
The  emboldened Uruk practically leapt towards this promise of safety, never minding the voice in the back of his head telling him it was merely a mirage.

If he had any water left in his body, he would have cried tears of joy upon seeing that the tree he saw was as real as he was. Beneath the tree was a small pool of water, no more than a puddle, really, feeding the tree’s roots. Yet still he drank and he drank deeply. When he had his fill, he rested beneath the tree, its roots cradling him beneath its umbrella like canopy.

Beneath the shade of the tree he felt compelled to sleep, with its roots feeling like they grasped him ever so tenderly. He slept, and he dreamed.

In his dream he saw an oasis, within the oasis, a woman, composed of all that is natural and beautiful. She looked on at the pool of water before her gaze focused on Lesh. In those intense eyes, he awoke, with but a single word engraved in his memory.

Freygoth.