31 Days of Horror 2025: Candle

​Sweltering heat beat down upon the dunewain and it's damp steed as it slid across the silky pearlescent sands. Minze lay swallowed in the shadow of the sail, watchful of the sliding horizon with squinted eyes. This was his second time crossing the Selvenite Desert this year, a feat few risked or made their living off of. Then there was the Warpon, splitting the entire desert in half just beyond the horizon. Crossing the ancient bridge was as precarious as staying afloat the twisting sands.  

Minze had learned to adapt to the ever shifting sands over the years, carving a path twice a year from north to south of the western continent. He was one of few who would willingly risk his life to travel, though this left his coin purse heavy with silver Plumes. For a Praukov of his standing, coin was all that mattered to get by. A little heat stroke and dampened fur was nothing to balk at. 

As he settled down for a nap, the dunewain abruptly lurched to the side, sending sand cascading up and over the wooden bow. Minze let out a shocked yowl, hands flying to grab hold of the sail's rope. The last thing he needed was to be cast into the desert sea and swallowed by the sands. His horse let out a gut wrenching whinny and spurred into a galloping pace before he could even grab hold of the reigns.

"Neitz! No! Heel!" His voice was ripped from him by the wind whipping his face and the sail to tatters. His steed refused to listen, hooves dug ankle deep into the sands as it lurched forward as fast as it could to flee its fate.

Glittering sand swallowed the sky and them whole. A glimpse of clay colored scales ripped the horse and the dunewain attached deep beneath the sands. Minze struggled to curl in on himself, the sand crushing around him and leaving little air to breathe. The myth of the desert was real, and it finally came to devour him. Minze had always been warned that the sands were alive. 

His dunewain splintered upon hard rock as it fell from the sky, casting him sprawling with his goods across the rough slate. He scrambled to his feet with aching joints to hunt for his satchel. While he was blessed with night vision, his eyes had been burned from years of staring out at that blinding sea of sand. He needed something, anything, to see his surroundings and find a way free. 

The crunching of bone and the squelch of flesh made his paws tremble as he dug into the leather satchel. He let out a relieved gasp as his paw clutched around a waxy puck and then his book of match sticks. It would have to do for the moment. He floundered with the matches, one after another dying in his grip until it finally caught flame in the less than ideal air. The flame bit into the wick and sputtered to life with a bit of a struggle. Shadows cast across the large hollow beneath the earth in dancing waves. 

Minze held his breath as he slowly turned himself around towards the echo of smacking lips. As little as he wanted to know, his instincts fraying his fur in a rush to run, he needed to know the fat of his horse. He needed to understand where he might spend his last breath. The candle fell from his paralyzed paws as the light illuminated the source of the clay scales. "Neitz... By the wings..."

A monstrously large snake with the upper half of a Brelonian woman and eyes of a predator stared back at him. Splintered fangs glistened with the ichor of what he could only assume was his horse. Her lips parted in a mocking idea of a smile as her form slithered forward. Shale grinding against ceramic echoed around them with her purposeful movement. 

"Oh... What a pretty little kitty." She hissed in the common tongue, something Minze had little time to consider as she closed in on him.

A clawed and calloused hand grasped around his small frame, dwarfing him in her grip. In only a moment, he was tucked to her breast as they dove towards a wall of sand. The Praukov would become her own personal pet. Until she grew hungry.