weak to accomplish this grand project. I quickly decided to turn the ruins into a plainer place by
my remaining magic. I hovered higher, then sent more magic into the ash with a frantic and loud
cry. The dark specks brightened into sandy white, until it became dunes of sand and flat plains. I
managed an oasis with saxaul trees and a small pond, that was the only beauty I could achieve.
I felt exhausted, but I went on, sending weakening magic into the cooling black stones. I ordered
all the floating ash back into the core of the Earth. At last, I transformed the rocks into cliffs and
spikes of stone, until I had to let go and the black stones buried themselves deep into the sand. I
knew the leftover spirit bolts would turn them into coal. The Sun Spirit returned to take revenge
probably because my creation had angered him. Just then, I felt scorching hot, and I flew off to
my den in the land that I named after the great eruption: The Gobi Desert.
At daytime, I was wandering around the desert, hoping to meet a survivor. Every dusk, I was
waiting at the oasis, wishing to see a lost one return. Centuries passed, my heart was shattered. I
realized that it would be impossible to see any one of them again...
The sky was darkening as I stared miserably down at the gigantic trucks growling off with
full loads of coal. The stench from the smoke rising from the steaming pipes smothered my snout.
I sneezed as the smoke crept up my nose and I blew it off with my left paw. I finally turned away
and glided off, hidden by the darkness of night. I settled on the very edge of a cliff and glanced at
my oasis, before the full moon rose into the sky. I gazed north and saw the cursed comet again. I
could not hold my sorrow and kept howling at the moon, tears streaming down my snout.
“My pack is lost forever in the flames,
The fire holds doom as all the same,
But even when their spirits are scorched away,
I have no choice but to search in the fading grays.”
