"Is this the doll man you have dreamt about?" Annani asked.
Cyra nodded. "But I drew it wrong." She pulled the paper back and added more stick figures around the first. "I don't know how to make him look pretty, and he is not alone. I forgot to draw the others."
Khiann had had immortal guards with him, escorting the caravan. If he was buried in the sand in stasis, perhaps they were as well.
"Are they also doll men?" Annani asked.
Cyra nodded. "They are all sleeping in the golden sand. Like Sleeping Beauty."
"Do you know the story of Sleeping Beauty?"
The girl nodded. "I saw the movie." She looked up from her drawing and smiled. "The prince gave Sleeping Beauty a kiss, and she woke up. It was nice." Cyra selected a yellow crayon and began adding more swirls. "Sometimes the sleeping men flicker."
"Flicker?" Annani kept her voice gentle. "What do you mean, sweetheart?"
Cyra's small face scrunched in concentration. "Like... like candles when there is wind. I worry when they do that."
"Why does it worry you?"
"Because I don't know what's happening." Cyra looked up, her dark eyes troubled. "Are they trying to wake up? Are they trying to tell me something, but I'm too little to understand?"
Annani reached across the low table and took the child's small hand. The fingers were so tiny, so delicate, but she could feel the potential thrumming beneath the skin. This child was special.
"You understand more than you know. These dreams are gifts, even when they are confusing."
"Maman says I shouldn't talk about them. She says people will think I'm strange."
"Your mother wants to protect you, which is what good mothers do. But here, with me, you can speak of anything you see. I will never think you are strange."
Cyra studied her with that too-wise gaze of hers. "Do you have dreams too?"
Annani nodded. "Different kinds of dreams, but yes. Sometimes I can close my eyes and see what someone I care about is doing, or where they are, just like you do."
Annani had a gift of far viewing, but it was limited.
"Can you see the pretty man?"
Annani swallowed the lump in her throat. "I lost a very pretty man a long time ago, a man I loved more than life itself. But I was not blessed with dreams of him. I only have a deep yearning to find him."
Cyra nodded. "If he's sleeping, like Sleeping Beauty, you can wake him up with a kiss. You are a princess, so you can do that."
Annani smiled, though it carried millennia of sadness. "I guess I could, but I need to find him first. I do not know where he sleeps."
Cyra returned to her drawing, adding black and orange shapes above the sand that made no sense. They were probably decorations.
"What are these?" Annani pointed.
"Dragons," Cyra said in a tone that indicated she thought Annani should have known that.
"What are they doing in the desert?"
Cyra shrugged. "I don't know. I just thought it would be cool. Maybe the dragons can help wake up the sleeping men. There are four more in the sand."
"Dragons or men?"
Cyra gave Annani an incredulous look. "Men." She pointed at the dragons she drew. "There are only three dragons. Two black and one gold."
"I see." Annani pretended to examine the drawing more closely. "Do all the men look the same?"
