The Parable of the Sun #

It is said that long ago, before the Sunshifters knew the ways of the sand, there was a wanderer named Rethan. He was swift-footed, and prided himself on his endurance. He had never lost his way in the shifting dunes, nor had he ever been caught unprepared by the desert’s fickle moods.

One day, Rethan set out to prove himself in the Endless Dunes, a place where the sand swallows footprints before they are even made. He sent out in search of the fabled Whispering Oasis, an elusive place of cool shade and water that shimmered in the distance but was never truly reached. Many sought it, few returned.

Rethan laughed at the warnings of the elders. “I am faster than the wind, sharper than the mirage. No Suncoat shall weigh me down, no veil shall dim my sight. I will return with water cupped in my hands, and the desert shall know my name.”

So he set out, bare-skinned under the relentless sun, his pride stronger than his wisdom.

For hours he ran, but the dunes stretched ever onward. The oasis flickered on the horizon, teasing him with its promise. The wind began to rise, whispering secrets he did not understand. His skin burned, but he ignored the pain. His breath grew shallow, but he did not stop.

By nightfall, the cold bit into his seared flesh, his body raw and broken. The stars above swirled like shifting sands, and the desert itself seemed to turn upon him. When he collapsed, half-buried in the dunes, Sethis, the Spirit of Mirages, came to him in the form of a shimmering figure.

“Why do you seek what you do not understand?” Sethis whispered.

“I am strong. I am fast. The desert should yield to me,” Rethan gasped.

“The desert yields to none. It does not test you, nor does it care for your strength. It only is. You have seen its light but not its wisdom. You have walked its sands, but never worn them.”

With a flickering hand, Sethis reached down and dusted Rethan’s body with shimmering metal, cooling his burns and easing his breath.

“You wished to outrun the sun, but the wise do not fight the light—they wear it.”

The mirage faded. Rethan awoke, half-buried, his skin shimmering faintly with the dust of Sethis. When he stumbled back to the caravans, he did not speak for many days. But from that day forward, he never walked the sands without Suncoat upon his skin, and when others laughed at its weight, he only whispered:

“It is not the sun that burns, but the pride that walks beneath it.”