She floats atop a dune in Oblivion, the omnipresent red sun peeking over her hooded shoulder through the rainclouds and dust, feet limp, toes pointed toward the ochre sand. The hood is black, but dotted by an ever-moving pattern seemingly made up of clusters of stars plucked from the heavens, hanging down over her slender, almost gaunt shoulders, down to just past the knees. The only other clothing she wears is a pair of loose white linen pants, tied around her waist with a hemp cord, knotted tightly at the navel with a marble button, and a wrap of binding rags extending from just below the ribs, to the root of each armpit. Each arm sports a heavy assortment of bangles, beads, and wooden bracelets, from wrist to sunburnt elbow, with her right arm cradling a long crooked driftwood staff, worn smooth and shiny along its midriff from eons of handling by clenched fists, from the top of which dangles a whip-like bundle of bleached leather strips, its butt splintered and worn. Her face is in backlit shadow, long and wavy black hair falling over the left-hand side, spilling backward over her shoulder, leaving only half of a smirk, canine biting at a cracked bottom lip, and one bagged grey eye left to stare back at me. With an open left palm facing toward the sky, she bends down toward me, reaching, as if beckoning me to clasp her hand in mine.
