Notes: Title from the August 8, 2005 prompt for the lj community 31_days.

The dirt was cracked; her mouth felt dry and dusty. She looked out at the barren landscape. She was going to die there. The oppressive heat pushed her body into the ground, choked back her thoughts. At least the gnawing hunger was receding from the edges of her consciousness, though she dimly registered the tearing ache still spreading through her body. Her eyelids fluttered open and shut. Flies buzzed too loudly in her ears, echoing further and further away. The soft swell of her tattered robes was the only sign of her breath.

The sun stung at her eyes as she looked towards a blurry shape obscured by the rolling heat waves. Arms filled with fruit, his eyes flicked over her as he sighed, bent over her, smiling and offering food.

Long after she had forgotten the first words he said to her, she would remember the brush of his long outstretched fingers, his silver-bright hair and spindly legs, the curl of his lips as he spoke, still smiling, and the taste of dried persimmons lingering in her mouth.