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I might, indeed, have failed to note my own encounter with the Dust Elves, but that one of my training partners mentioned a similar meeting.
Ibn Farouk is a roguish old Khadimi dwarf and a dear friend. He relayed unto me how he recently found himself separated from his caravan in a sandstorm. Keeping his wits about him, he worked his way back to the last freshwater he had stopped at. Thenceforth, he waited.
Nigh two weeks later, and running desperately short on rations, he met his saviour. The Dust Elf introduced themselves as Ayin Sharif, and shared a meal of dates and flatbread.
By-and-by they traded stories with poor Ibn. I suspect they got the worse half of that bargain, for I have spent many an evening listening to the old dwarf and I tell you, half of what he says is outright fantasy. Much of the rest is colourful exaggeration.
In return, The Wanderer told a tale of the Dust Elves before their fall. The Elenid, they called themselves in that time, and they had an empire of marble and gold that stretched from coast to coast. It fell, as Empires are wont to do, because that which had once made it great, slowly dragged it down into ignominy.
The next day the Elf guided my friend back to civilization, and would accept nought but a small personal trinket for their efforts.
I might have called his bluff, but that I had already met a similar individual (possibly even the same one, for I understand the Dust Elves are exceeding rare in these latter days). I am inclined to believe that there is more to these folk than meets the eye. I hope I shall find more to tell you of them in the coming days.
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I needed to work on my SNOT rockwork, and I had barfed up Attercop ("Poison-Head") after one too many rewatches of Across the Spiderverse. I wanted to put together an Anglo Saxon spidey, and the parts worked really well. Rockwork still needs work, but I have a better idea now than I did before...
Tags: Lego Medieval Purist Cliffs Dover Rockwork SNOT Spider-man Spidersona
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I met a traveller in an antique land. They would not share their name. But, by the customs of their people, they broke bread and oil with me, salt and water.
We spoke but a little, and most of that was me. Though they were clear and unfailingly polite, their responses were brief. I might better have sought camaraderie in an encyclopedia.
When they did speak their tone was sonorous and measured, like an oboe at daybreak. The words were as carefully selected as an obituary, but clipped in an unfamiliar manner.
Our greatest exchange was on navigating the sands of Khadim, and there they were of great help to me. They pointed me to the hidden well at Bar-al-Akh, and then on to the caravanserai at Tell Qanib. Without this knowledge I might easily have perished in that unforgiving land.
And yet, when I tried to discuss the Empress Aya, they fell silent. If this were reticence to discuss a political opinion, I might've understood. Instead, I almost felt they were unaware of her, and didn't wish to expose it. In my own country of minted coinage, taxes and public proclamations, it would be unthinkable to not know of your monarch. But out there, among the endless dunes, a person could lose all sense of the greater world.
After this, they grew silent. By and by, they thanked me for my hospitality and left. If I had caused offence I was none the wiser. I never saw them again.
It was only later that I learned this individual was likely Ayin Sharif the Wanderer; one of the "Dust Elves" from the lost lands of Wadi Hanuf. A tattered remnant of an ancient empire, long eroded and scattered to the winds.
Were I a braver soul, I would seek out those desperate folk and learn their stories. Alas, this one encounter left me quite certain that such an endeavour was beyond my capabilities. As such, what will follow are such tales of that people as I was able to gather from the citizens of Khadim.
Tags: Sand Dunes Lego Arabic Elf Elves Age of the Unseated MOC Purist Exterior
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