Two hours later and Levi was forced to recognize the unwelcome truth.
"It was a fucking mirage," Levi growled angrily, jumping down off the camel as they drew to a halt and immediately regretting his rashness. They had been riding hard and his legs nearly gave way under him.
"A Fata Morgana," Hani added, sounding equally as bitter and disappointed. "I've never seen such an elaborate one before."
Fata Morganas were the most complex of the desert's optical illusions. Mirages that often replicated distant structures and buildings on the horizon.
"Well at least we know we've finally reach the inner desert," Levi spat angrily, kicking at the sand with his boot and wincing at the renewed use of his leg muscles. "Don't get those kind of mirages on the outskirts."
"Damn," Hani stated bluntly, looking up at the darkening sky, "we're going to lose the sun soon as well - do you even have any idea where we are or have we gone catastrophically off course?"
"I'm afraid to guess the latter," Levi muttered, rubbing down his face with miserably blistered hands from holding onto the camel.
"I said we shouldn't -"
"Hani don't you dare start!" Levi snapped, pointing his finger accusingly at the younger man whose eyes widened in shock and then narrowed in anger.
"I have every right to fucking start!" Hani yelled. "I'm surprised those scars aren't setting you on fire by now - you could have wasted us days."
"Oh what does it matter?" Levi roared. "You'll still get to Alack in the end!"
"We don't even know how much time I have!" Hani was half screaming now, his throat sounded raw and hoarse and the sound would have made Levi wince with sympathy if he hadn’t been so damn angry himself.
"I need to bring my sister back to life!" Hani exclaimed.
"And what if you can't?" Levi shouted, causing Hani to fall silent, his slender chest rising and falling in agitated, panting breaths.
"What the hell will you do then Hani? What if I take you to Alack and it's just a damn ruin with nothing else there? You’re so fucking naïve kid if you think that anyone here gets a happy ending unless they pay for it in a dodgy massage parlour."
"Fuck you," Hani snarled, turning sharply away from Levi and stalking back towards the camel before pulling a food bag out.
"Gods give me strength," Levi muttered, throwing his hands up in the air in a defeated gesture before pacing off in the other direction towards some low lying dunes. Levi was just crossing over the crest of dune and padding gruffly down the other side when he stopped to look up.
There was another town on the horizon - but this time, what with the approaching darkness and it only being about three miles away, Levi could see that lanterns had been lit and smoke from fires was drifting into the purpled evening sky.
It was definitely not a Fata Morgana or any type of mirage, it was actually a town and Levi couldn’t believe their luck. Even if the place was a shithole, which it was more than likely to be in these parts, they could still stock up on supplies and try to figure out their bearings and which way they needed to head in to get to Egidu.
Levi felt a sharp stab of guilt as he remembered the urgency of Hani's words – the kid’s desperation to get to Alack and bring his sister back. Levi wasn't even necessarily taking him in the direction of the fabled city. Even if they made it successfully to Egidu there was no guarantee that Milton would still be there or be willing to help Levi after their last encounter.
Levi sighed, deciding to cross those bridges when he arrived at them. Instead, he clapped his hands together - feeling distinctly more hopeful at the prospect of not being totally lost in the desert. Levi started to take a few more steps forward, calling out behind him at the same time, "Hani? Hey Hani you should come see th- FUCK!"
Levi lost his sense of balance completely as his left leg suddenly become submerged in the patch of suspiciously flat sand in front of him. By the time the quicksand had swallowed him right up to the knee, Levi's other foot was also already being pulled under.
"Holy fuck, not now" Levi groaned, "HANI?! HANI GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!"
"Gods alive what is it?" Hani snapped, finally appearing over the hill with an incredibly grumpy expression that morphed into one of horror as he noticed Levi's predicament.
"Shit - that's sinking sand!" Hani exclaimed, hurrying down the dune towards where Levi was craning his neck to look back at him.
"Fantastically observed Hani," Levi huffed, "don't tread in it will you?"
"What -" Hani looked genuinely distraught for a moment, "holy shit you're going down fast!"
Levi had to bite back another sarcastic remark in favour of instructing Hani to go get some kind of rope.
"We don't have any rope!" Hani protested, wildly looking around as if half expecting a full coiled rope to appear at any given moment. "I'll have to come pull you out,"
"No!" Levi snapped sharply, causing Hani to halt in his tracks. "I'm too far from the edge, you start coming over here and putting force on it you'll get stuck as well."
"Well then what can I do?" Hani stammered.
"Unfortunately my magic's not going to help," Levi groaned as the noxious sand started to bubble up past his bellybutton. "All I can keep doing is shifting into someone taller!"
"I -" Hani started, "my magic won't help here either."
"Just my luck," Levi muttered as the sand tugged him down another few inches and he attempted to shape shift into someone with an incredibly long neck. It was rather difficult to use his power whilst in a full body bind and even when he did try to turn into someone taller the sand still stubbornly came up to the same point of his body.
It was when the sand was finally creeping up around Levi's armpits, with him desperately struggling to keep his arms above the surface that he realised Hani had disappeared.
Levi huffed, if he was going to die, he would have quite liked to do it with something nice to look at rather than the rather ugly sand dune he had in front of him. As sand dunes went, this one wasn't even particularly attractive – it was all lopsided like Ethel had been at the very end.
Oh god, Levi moaned in his head - wondering if this was the sand gods' punishment for failing to give Ethel a proper funeral?
"LEVI?" Hani’s scream racked through Levi's overloaded brain. "Fuck I've been trying to get your attention!" Hani continued, his face flushing a furious red as he struggled to hoist something coiled and heavy onto his shoulder.
"Hani where the hell did you find a rope?" Levi asked, sounding altogether too relaxed and resigned to his inevitable grisly end. However, as he peered harder across the sand level he could definitely confirm that Hani was in fact holding some kind of gnarled white rope.
"Grab on!" Hani yelled, chucking the rope towards Levi and managing to land it with a thud about a foot away from him. Levi gritted his teeth as he strained to manoeuvre his right arm over to get a firm grasp on the rope.
He had only just managed to grab it and look back to see Hani attaching the other end to their camel when his entire face popped under the sand.
A few agonizing moments later and Levi's head managed to crack back up through the surface and into the chilled night air of the desert. The first sound he heard upon his reintroduction to the land of the living was Hani's clicking tongue - cryptically urging the camel on and up the sand dune, pulling Levi to safety with every haul.
"Shit, Levi are you okay?" Hani garbled, reaching down to grab at the older man's aching shoulders and wrench him in the last few feet to solid ground.
"I've been better," Levi coughed, hacking up a disturbing amount of sand onto the ground, "but then again I've probably been worse." He gave a pained grunt as the camel continued to move forward, oblivious to its already achieved success.
"Let go," Hani snapped, batting Levi's hand until he could force his stiff and raw fingers apart to release the rope.
"Now we're even," Hani huffed finally, after having stared intently at Levi for a few minutes as if to check he wasn't going to keel over like Ethel.
"How do you figure that?" Levi croaked, attempting to massage his arms back into the correct sockets without letting out too much of a feminine scream.
"I saved your life," Hani stated pointedly, gesturing back to the cursed sand.
"You need me," Levi corrected, "without me you're screwed and without you, I'm screwed."
"I didn't do it for me!" Hani snapped, looking vaguely offended.
"Oh I know, I know," Levi stated hoarsely, "you did it to get your sister back."
"You - " Hani stared blankly at Levi for a moment, "you're unbelievable!" the younger man exclaimed before he abruptly stood up and started aggressively dusting sand from himself.
"I'm normally told that under more pleasant circumstances," Levi said grimly, squinting over at the rope still disappearing behind the dune. "You need to tell your damn camel he can stop now."
Hani looked up with a surprised expression, before huffing and clicking his tongue a few times, the rope dragged to a halt.
"Where did you find rope?" Levi asked, knitting his eyebrows together and staring up at Hani.
"It's not rope," Hani replied, but he still sounded strangely upset. "It's desert vine."
"Isn't that a root?" Levi pulled a face.
"Yes," Hani nodded sharply, "I knew there'd be some around here because the roots always try to seek out water and this type of quicksand is fluid based at the bottom. "
"You know about the different types of quicksand but you've never seen a Sabe scorpion before?" Levi squinted curiously at a flushed and annoyed looking Hani.
"I read a book," Hani snapped, "I like to actually know about the terrain I’m-“
"So let me get this straight," Levi interrupted, "you went and dug up a stretch of incredibly tough plant root?"
"Desert vine travels very near to the surface," Hani shrugged, "you can often see where it is due to small raised tunnel like bumps. I used a knife to cut it."
"Hani," Levi started slowly.
"What?" Hani replied looking defensive.
"That really was quite brilliant of you kitten,"
"Fuck off," Hani retorted but Levi could tell the flush on the younger man's face was a pleased one. "We should try to get to that town," Hani said quickly, as if trying to change the subject.
"Oh good, you've noticed it," Levi nodded, looking back out over the desert to the twinkling lights. "That's actually what I was calling you over here to see."
"We can get more supplies there," Hani continued, "work out where we are and stuff."
"Fantastic idea Hani," Levi smiled softly, "but let's go round the quicksand this time eh?"
Hani snorted a laugh before reaching his hand down to help Levi up.
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