"Dreams"

What exactly are dreams?

Some might say, they are reflections of your past, present and future.

Then there are those who say, dreams should be given no attention, as they hold no meaning.

Lastly there are those who think dreams are something given to us by the Jinn, both the never-ending nightmares and the good dreams, which seem to fade away too fast.

I for myself think dreams are not real, as I have not experienced them. That is, however only the case for me.

My little sister, Aisha, tells me every morning, as far as she can remember of her beautiful dreams, how she danced on the back of a giant gazelle, listening to its melody, how she flew on the back of a giant bird with me and Cassim. When she has nightmare, she runs just as fast to my bad to wake me up, this time around with a crying face, saying that she does not want her brothers to fight.

Even if she does not remember...she tells me stories of magic creatures appearing in her dreams, reminding one of ancient folk lore.

It baffles me, how much imagination a 8 year old young Bedouin girl had. When she first told me of such dreams, me and Cassim, my dearest brother, tried to convince her that these dreams hold no meaning for us Bedouin, that she should not give them much attention. Nowadays however, I enjoy how she tells me of her wild dreams, and console her when she needs a hug.

Especially in these hard and seemingly never ending days, where our whole tribe travels all day in the scorching heat of the dessert and gets to rest nowhere enough. My father, the tribe leader, refuses to tell us why we are travelling with such a hurry for nearly 3 months. He says, it's important. That it is for our safety... I questioned myself...what could possibly endanger our safety, when my father the great Nabeel, the one with no enemies is protecting us? The only time we stop is to either get water at the next water fountain on our journey, or to rest the camels and ourselves at night for the following day. The only true companions I have on this journey are my brother, my sister and the desert animals. The former two can get on ones nerves after some time together, whereas the animals never complain, never stress nor hiss at me, which is kind of strange considering they are animals. Ever since I could remember did I have an affinity with animals of all sorts, except snakes. I despised them. Truly I did and still do. Eagles, short-toed snake eagles actually, somehow always followed us around, as if they were protecting something. At the time I didn't put much thought into it, as they were repelling all snakes and keeping them away from me.

As our tribe is open for people travelling with us for some days, to have some sort of protection against the relentless dangers of the desert one faces while travelling alone, we need more water than we usually plan for, which is why we have to stop at a fountain every 2-3 days.

Our tribe currently consists of 6 families, amounting to a total of 25 people. Counting the travellers, we are currently on a journey with 31 people, everyone searching for a fountain. Without my mother's map-reading skills and knowledge in the desert, we would wander around for days without any direction, most probably die out of sheer dehydration. My mother, Inayah, is the leader's wife, but instead of using her status, she is loved by everyone, since she cares for everyone as they were her own blood. Already travelling for 2 days, we were in desperate need of water, our reserves amounted to only half a day. Fortunately though, mother planed for this, as we were soon going to arrive at a village with a big fountain.

Cassim and I usually walk besides our father, whereas Aisha likes to hop on the camel with mother. Father often tells us of his glorious fights and victories against other tribes and their warriors, as how often he and mother got in trouble together, while roaming around the great cities of Yeraz, yet every time we were to ask something about the great world outside, he gave us the same old response, as if reading from a well-worn script:

*The world is a cruel place, nothing you kids should ever worry about. Life will eventually show you why we are living far from the cities, until then we won't talk about it.*

Problem is. This only sparked more curiosity, especially in the heart of my brother, Cassim.

*At this point I wasn't aware yet, how cruel the world truly was, and what the sin of curiosity can do to man's heart.*

We had finally arrived at the village at night, to refill our water tanks and to shelter us from the danger outside the village, the desert at night. It's good not to worry once in a while about Hyenas or snakes or even thieves lingering in the sands and in contrary our whole tribe sitting together for a meal. Once every 30th night, we gather around at such a village and stay there a little longer, if we are allowed to, to commemorate a festive. A festive where the woman dance, the men sing and the children play. These used to be my favourite moments, we sing, we cry and we love, but most importantly, we have fun together and can get a moment of peace after tiring days and weeks. However nowadays I feel nothing but resentment for the next festival.

So as preparation for said festive commemoration, Cassim and I decided to help father gather desert lizards, as they are our tribe's speciality. We find them by reading the behaviour of the short-toed eagles, above us. Aisha loves eating their tails, since it is the juiciest part of the meat. I, myself am not a big fan of meat in general, as I love animals, and would rather not eat them. When we have time to spare and are alone with father at such times, we try to learn some swordsmanship from him while we're at it. Luckily enough we used our tiny bit of swordsmanship knowledge and used some old worn out dagger to collect enough lizards for everyone, with time to spare at the end for father to show us one thing or two about swords and fights.

We aspired him. That's why we wanted to be like him, and well that included his way of the sword. So after gaining his approval, we followed him to a more remote location, a little bit outside the village and he begun to instruct us. Every time he swung a sword, we could practically feel his pride and power. In every movement we could see his technique and in his gaze we would feel his countless battles. He was a very proud man warrior, but above all a loving father. Which is why he showed us, and only us, his craft. And well, we tried our best to learn. We did so by trying to imitate him, and we improved by listening to his words. After some time he went back to the village, and our tribe, since he still has some duties as its chief. He ordered us to come back before sun went down, so we had around a hour to practice on our own. Free-time if you will. Cassim always mocked me that I have never won against him in a spare, *If you'd start eating meat you one day may be able to defeat me. Well only if you use black magic, that is.* He would say.

**Black magic...Ironic. As if Life had already warned me...**

After losing to him once more, he picked up my sword and helped me stand back up. Cassim was my brother after all, so he tried to show me what I did wrong, and while I did not seem to be completely talentless, some might even argue I had some talent, Cassim just has an affinity for the sword, just like I have for animals.

While Cassim and I were both brothers, we couldn't be any more different. He was a bit taller than me, has long black hair and green olive eyes, just like our father.

Before going back we took some time four ourselves, sat down and started talking.

"Why are we looking so grumpy today, huh Amir?" He said with a concerned look on his face, which was rather unusual for him. Even at the time. "Today we celebrate mahrajan saghir".

"You wouldn't get it", I ascertained him, as I looked away, "You and Aisha are the only people who like me. Actually the only people who would even look my way. The other children will come to play with you but I'll be alone, once again, talking to the birds."

"Then I'll stay with you... The whole night if you need me to. That is my duty as your older Brother after all!", he responded.

"Older Brother? You're NOT my older brother Cassim, being 2 fingers taller than me doesn't qualify you to be my older brother, and if anything I'M the older brother. How come you're never the older brother when father tells us to help him clean and polish the swords?" I hissed at him with light tears in my eyes.

"Fine then! You get to be the older brother for tonight, but no more crying and being grumpy!" He quickly catches on, "I know that your red cinder hair and two different eye colours scare off the children of our tribe...but what they think does not matter. Think of Aisha. She is happy when you are happy and sad when you are sad. If you won't do it for me...which I doubt you will... do it for her..."

"My eyes and hair? As if that was the only problem. They are scared of me, they despise me, for my looks. They are scared of something they don't understand. Because of me...they hurt not only you but also my precious friends, the animals." I added to our heated conversation "But I suppose you're right. Neither Aisha nor our parents would be happy about this. As long as you stay with me, I think I can handle it..."

He took my hand to help me get back up and walk back to father, who probably is already eagerly awaiting for us to arrive. As we were getting closer to the the fountain, which was just on the outskirts of the village, we saw father talking to another figure, which I thought was someone of our tribe, yet when we came closer it wasn't someone familiar at all. No one we were travelling with at the time. However my dad seemed to talk to the man rather serious. When we passed by, he averted his gaze from my dad to me. Not to Cassim, but clearly to me, I was sure of that. He stared so intensely with his pitch black eyes, it felt like he was looking into my soul...as if he was trying to check something. His muscular stature and body full of scars didn't help, as I stopped feeling uncomfortable, and started feeling...scared. I told Cassim to go on ahead, as I started walking towards father. *What am I doing?* I asked myself, while slowly moving towards the both of them, his gaze now towards my father again. Where did all that courage come from, from a 16 year old scared-cat boy? Well it felt like something more innate. Something I couldn't resist, as if fate was knocking on the door.

**Something like "fate" didn't cross my mind at all at that point, but looking back now, it very well might have been the turning point of it all**.

I reached father and unwillingly interrupted their heated conversation. The stranger's gaze once again directed towards me. *"Father"*, I muttered with a clearly worried tone "Mother is awaiting us, let's go... we should get there before sun sets completely, or else... Aisha will be mad..." Father however didn't reply immediately. He looked into the strangers eyes, took a quick look at his body and then took a deep breath. "It would be a good idea to get going, Amir" he said in a deep and gravelly voice. "Let's not make your mother wait to lo-"

"Your son?" He got interrupted by quaky yet ominous voice "I thought you had no children, O'Grand Nabeel, slayer of all fiends, greatest protector of the sands"

"Don't you DARE to ever lay hands on my family, Asad", my father yelled, as he took my arm and left "Even HE wouldn't be able to protect you this time! That I swear on MY name!"

The so called "Asad" begun to slowly disappear as we walked further away. "Who was That?" I asked, with a less frightened tone "Why does he carry two blades? And why did he call you protector of the san-" My father interrupted me "That, Amir, is a...friend of my past. Nothing that should be of your concern, son"

"That surely did not sound like a friend to me." I thought to myself if it does, "I'm done looking for friends."

To clear things up as quick as possible, to not cause any suspicion at the festival, I told him that Cassim and the others are already waiting for us to arrive. The whole tribe is waiting for their leader, to start the commemoratives. He nicked, as gave me a sigh: "Amir..." I looked back in confusion, but we had already arrived as Aisha sprang into my face and shouted "I was waiting for you to eat the lizard together!". She seems to always forget I don't feel to good eating any meat.

Soon after, Aisha clung onto father, as I approached Cassim who was patiently waiting for me to come, with my favourite food, grilled cactus, one in each hand.

As we watched the beautiful desert sunset Cassim turned his head and jokingly said "Hey you know if it weren't for your hair you could become a total womaniser." I looked confused to him, as this came out of nowhere "Well only second to me though, as I will one day marry the most beautiful woman, the desert has to offer", he added as we both looked at each other and laughed out loud, sharing a moment together."What do the eagles say? Will we enjoy the festival?" asking, knowing very well I can't understand them, even though they are around me all the time.

I looked up, stared at them a while and, with a smile, I declared: "We will enjoy it brother! I think we will for once!"

The festival then went on for the next day and night. Right after that we continued our trip to a place we had no idea if it even existed. But it was still fine, since my family and loved ones were accompanying me.

Or at least...

That's what should have happened...