Still so Far

The world was a spinning haze as Amissa woke. Her ears rung as she shifted to stand.

She tried desperately to remember what had happened through the the dizziness and the throbbing in her head. Her mind would not cooperate, and she realized she was falling.

She tried to catch herself, and failed, hitting the ground with a thud that shook her mind even further.

She lay there, not moving, waiting for the world to, once again, come into focus.

There was no way to know how long she had been there.

What had they taken?

The world snapped into focus. The events leading up to her concussion poured back.

She felt the stinging of the bleeding cut on her neck, and the throbbing in her head focused in on a painful welt where she had been hit.

Gritting her teeth, Amissa stood.

She reeled back, but caught herself.

There were no signs of the bandits. The tents were gone, and any remnant the campfire had been scattered and buried.

Amissa shouted out, but was drown out by silence and the rustling leaves of the oasis.

Still shaken, she checked herself over.

She ran her hoof over the painful bump where she had been struck and winced.

She moved her attention to the trail of blood dripping down her neck. The cut had mostly stopped bleeding but was dirty, and caked in sand and dried blood. She stared to try and brush away some of the dirt,and was greeted with stabbing pain.

After waiting for the Pain to die back down, she proceeded to brush away at the cut again, more carefully this time. She managed to to remove most of the dirt and sand. It still needed to be cleaned, but it would do.

She looked about for any supplies that may have been left behind. The area had been thoroughly cleared out.

They had taken her bag, and...

Amissa felt around her neck.

Her mother's necklace was gone.

Everything was gone. The only thing left was her tattered sun-bleached cloak.

She dug her hooves in to the sand, looking to the sky and screaming in rage.

The night responded, as always, with silence.

Amissa stomped furiously. She tore up nearby plants, shouted in anger, and slammed her hooves into trees leaving behind marks and leaving her hooves sore. She hit her head against a tree, wracking her traumatized brain, and causing her to stumble back.

Slumping to the ground against the tree, she burst out crying.

Suddenly she felt exhausted. Being robbed, her panic, her fit of rage, it had left her drained.

She laid against the tree, and placed her head in her hooves. She lay there crying, until she fell asleep.

~~~~~

It was mid day. The sun beat down, baking everything it touched with blistering heat.

Amissa opened her eyes slowly to the stabbing light.

Her head still ached, but the dizziness of the previous night had faded.

She placed a hoof against where her necklace used to be and had to stop herself from crying again.

Something caught her eye in the distance.

Past the brush of the oasis, along the dunes in the distance, barely visible, were a set of lines in the sand.

It must have been a trail left by the bandit's wagon after they had left.

The rage from last night re-intensified. She gritted her teeth and took flight. Getting closed she could see the lines in the sand ahead going southeast.

She took off as fast as she could, not paying attention to the heat of the sun, or her own hunger or thirst. She didn't care. They had taken something important, and she was going to get it back.