Xanthe awoke to sunlight. From the platform high in the tree, the sunrise came much earlier than the lowland swamp she had grown up in. There was a plate of strange nuts and fruits beside her on the dry, well-sanded planks, and a small block of cereal loaf. She sat up and ate breakfast as the sun came up, glittering over the expansive desert that surrounded the oasis.
As she'd finished eating, she nimbly hopped down the gnarled trunks of the live-oak, touching down on the carefully-maintained graphene-soil moisture turf, wandering off. Xanthe spent a good three hours wandering the oasis- at that time of the week, most of the boys that would have been playing in the waterfall or helping to weave baskets and hunt scorpions all over the oasis were back either in their caravans or one of the shimmering desert cities- Xanthe's time at the oasis had been carefully planned. She wandered the camp in amazement, wondering at the science to maintain such a lush biome in that unforgiving sun.
She'd abandoned her heavy cloak once the sun neared its zenith, and lounged by a clear pool, fully naked under the shade of a date-palm, her sides and flanks still painted with red and black figures. The sound of a bell startled her, and as it kept ringing she followed it up to a wide, low-roofed hut balanced between seven trees over the top of a small waterfall. She entered the hut, finding Narcissus sitting cross-legged on the thick-roped mesh net that the roof was built over. There was a cutting-board in the middle of the hammock-floor, as long as a man and covered with bowls of diced vegetables, piles of spices, and several short, curved knives. Narcissus had a burlap bag on his lap and as he saw Xanthe approach, he opened it and reached inside.
"Salutations," he said, "I hope you slept well?"
"Yes, Cxyeiur," Xanthe answered, using the polite honorific for speak to a Myieaoul, "And I'm grateful for breakfast."
"Oh? You enjoyed it?" He answered, pulling from the bag a large brown dune-hare with double-black stripes running down it's back. "Good, you'll like lunch even better. Have you thought about what I asked you last night?"
Xanthe nodded. The hours she had whiled away around the oasis were spent mostly reliving the dream that had been the night before. "Yes, and I'm ready to answer your question."