Warriorlog #9. The Thing About Wags

An anonymous individual writes about her experiences —fantasy setting

The first time I learned about the existence of Wags, I liked them immediately.

We were in the desert at the time. It had been a few weeks since I left my family to join the desert travelers. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, and that was fine because that was exactly what I wanted at the time: not knowing what I was getting into.

Family life was okay, but okay is not good enough when you’re young. At least, not for me. I wanted to take a spin around the cage I had been thrown into. I felt like I was a meteorite some deity had thrown in a random direction just for kicks. I don’t feel that way now, but that’s another story.

It was noon. All desert travelers stick to their tents at noon because the sun is at its loudest. You can hear the white sand sizzling. I was the only one out. I liked sticking my bare feet into the sand and feeling the shower of the sun on my skin. The light was so bright it felt liquid.

I was the only one to notice a large shadow passing by, like a storm cloud, only even I knew that there are no storm clouds in the desert, ever. I went inside my small tent because the rarity of the event had scared me. That very second, large drops of liquid started falling from the sky into the sand.

The sound called all the travelers out. They showered in the rain, they filled their water bottles, they drank with their mouths wide open, tongues sticking out, laughing with glee, arms flung side to side.

Only to find out it hadn't been rain at all. The cloud had been a flock of Wags traveling west for nesting. It happens once every year. One of the travelers noticed the black spot in the sky and warned the others that the water they were drinking and bathing in was actually Wag pee.

He laughed, I laughed. I didn't like the desert travelers that much and felt that any animal that could so wantonly excrete on the so-called higher intelligence of the planet could become my best friend.

The Wags didn’t know what they were peeing on, but that didn’t make a bit of a difference.