((I wrote this chapter beforehand on a piece of paper, and accidentally made it 3rd person. It kinda sounded better like that, so I'm keeping this chapter in that format))

As Alastor bustled about, doing his duties - which mainly consisted of making sure his family did theirs, he hummed a melody. He had woken up with it ringing in his head, and now, as it played in his head he unconsciously hummed it. Cheerful and light, the sound carried over the dunes for miles around him, finally reaching human ears. 10 miles away from cheerful yet dutiful Alastor and his humming, Circe raised her tired and heat-heavy head. Somewhere around her, in the desert she believed to be long devoid of human life, someone was humming. And it wasn't just any song, but one she knew! 

She put her head back down onto the soft sand, contemplating sleep. But Circe wasn't an idiot. She knew that the sands around her were treacherously soft. She'd likely never wake up if she fell asleep, so the tired girl thought of her sister. Eva. She needed to live for Eva. So Circe opened her cracked, dry lips, and listening for a second, whistled an answer to the tune she had heard, before falling back onto the sand, heavy eyelids closing, and only one thought left in a muddled head: Help.

Back at his adoptive family's home, Alastor raised his head sharply into the air, startling the Mirages (as he called them in his head) around him. 14 years of being blind had sharpened his hearing considerably. And now, he had heard, clear as day, an answer to his whistle song. That meant someone else was out there! Unless it was just the sand dunes echoing his song. But no, the song he'd heard in reply had been higher and possessed some strange lilt, as if the singer had an accent. It also varied slightly, just as the song in his head did. Alastor couldn't let the singer get away. But he also couldn't let his adoptive family find them. This meant he had to find whoever had sung the reply to his melody. He had to go into the desert. And go alone. 

For his lone trek into the desert, Alastor needed an excuse. Fortunately, he had just the one ready. Like many others he had used before, it started with a trip to Mother. 

-------------------------Time Skip-------------------------

Half an hour later, armed with two buckets and a bundle of food, Alastor was on a mission. Due to the whole "being in the middle of a desert" thing, his tribe often didn't have enough water. They had to get it from the nearest well, which was in a human town. Fortunately, the people who lived there had died a long time ago. Unfortunately, it had soon been taken up by "The Forgotten", a group of humans exiled from their towns. These humans heard of the mirage monsters, and, as people often do with others who don't look, sound, and/or speak like them, feared them. With this fear came hatred. Deep hatred. So deep that the mirage monsters couldn't walk in an area of 2 miles around the village without being attacked. This is where Alastor came in. The blind yet human boy that came into the village around once in 2 months, got water, then disappeared. As far as "The Forgotten" were concerned, Alastor lived alone in the desert and didn't like society enough to come live with people. Some of them still suspected Alastor of working and/or living with the mirage monsters, but the majority outvoted them in trusting the boy. 

No one would know if Alastor took a small detour. Or even a big one. So Alastor decided that since the buckets of water would be heavy, it would be better to do that task last. This is why now, he was hesitating on the path to the village. The whistle had come from somewhere north, but the boy didn't know exactly where. He raised his head, angling it to let his song carry downwind, and whistled a country song that he vaguely remembered from before his birth mother had died. 

No reply.

He repeated the song bit, cringing at the notes he got wrong.

Still no reply.

Alastor sighed and set his buckets down. So much trouble for a person he didn't even know. He had half-expected this, but the disappointment was still sharp. He would have to wander into the desert, away from the paths he knew. The buckets would be his point of contact for the path leading to the abandoned village. Otherwise, he would lose his way and wander in the desert for the rest of his (short if he stayed there) life. He sighed again and set off.

-------------------------Time Skip-------------------------

After wandering for a long while (so long, in fact, that he had contemplated turning around and forgetting the mysterious desert person many times), Alastor had not discovered anything except what seemed to be a sand-covered log. Alastor would have wondered how it had gotten there, given there were no trees in the desert, but he had 'seen' many strange things in the desert, so a log was nothing new. He wandered around in circles but always came back to the log. It seemed to beckon to him in the hot sun, inviting him to sit down and rest.

Eventually, he gave in. Alastor sank down onto the log, breathing a deep sigh as he did so. Had he hallucinated the vo-? Before Alastor could even finish thinking, the log beneath him moaned quietly and weakly spat sand. 

"What the-?" Alastor chirped in the musical language of the Mirages, springing to his feet. The 'log' he had just been sitting on was not, indeed, a log! Under closer observation, it turned out to be a long-limbed human, mostly covered by sand so they felt like a log. Alistar knelt and cleared away the sand as we he could, given he couldn't see what he was doing. The human's short-cropped hair was all sandy, though Alistar could feel its texture was different from his own.

"Hello? Human? Was it you who sung the song?" Alastor didn't know much of humans, beside the fact he was one. "Helloo?" He poked the human, gently at first, then harder. The human moaned again and tried to roll over. 

"Tirett." 

Water

The word was spoken so softly that Alastor barely heard it. The human coughed drily and repeated 

"Tirett, laan." 

Water, please

The words sounded familiar to Alastor, as if he had heard them long ago. Yes.., he had! His mother had spoken a language similar to this one. The human was asking for...water? Alastor suddenly remembered he was sitting next to two pails for water. However, they were empty.      "S-staur vem," He told the human, frantically searching his memory for the language he had spoken all those years ago. "Wait here, I'll be back with water soon. Si'll ta ovris yevin tirett ner."

With that, Alastor grabbed the buckets and ran towards what he hoped to be the human town. He had to help the human. Alastor didn't know why, but something inside him shouted, screamed for him to help. This human was here, in the desert for a reason. Alastor had to know why.