Dawn in the Desert III

       Pillars of pastel twilight ascended the heavens of the pre-dawn sky, reaching for fleeting stars.  As might smoke before the flame, the pillars wavered, expanded, and gave way to the spark of the rising sun.  As the horizon came alight, and dawn's warmth washed over the dunes of the Calim, Red's eyes calmly opened, their mahogany hue cast ablaze with the coming of the dawn.  
       Red blinked away the haze of waking, and remained still for a moment, content to watch the silent rising of the sun.  
       "Morning," came a soft voice not far away.  A slight grin crept briefly across his face.  She had noticed.
       "Morning, indeed," he replied quietly.  He sat a few moments longer, back resting against his propped up leather pack, and took a deep, relaxing breath through his nose.  Then, knees popping away the stiffness of the chill desert night, he pushed off the sandy ground, and rose to his feet, stretching his shoulders wide with a crack down his spine.  
       With a crick of his neck from side to side, he glanced at Valerian, still sitting upon her bedroll a few paces away, reclined but alert, facing the North.  She hardly appeared to have moved all night.  
       "Awaiting something?" he asked, dusting the sand from his leathers.  A pointed ear twitched, nearly obscured by her pinned-up hair. She paused for a breath before turning to peer over her shoulder, meeting his gaze with glinting amber eyes that danced with the fire of the early morning light.
       "…I'm just savoring rest while I can."  A pleasant smile played at her lips, but Red parsed some fashion of warning from the depth of her tone.  Her eyes lingered but a moment, then returned to the sunrise. Her voice had not rang of threat, but of veiled concern, and Red shifted with unease, eyes instinctively glancing about.  
       Others around the camp were rousing as well, awakened as he was by the sudden light and warmth of daylight's return.  Already, the quiet murmur of morning prayers, and the rustle of supplies being packed away for another day's march had joined the hushed whispers of their number's few mages' arcane recitations, preparing their minds for the day's casting.
       "So," Red started, refocusing his attention upon Valerian, "'Yes,' then." A crease cut into his brow as his thumbs came to rest across the hilts of the daggers at his belt.
       The ear twitched again. "So far out here, in this beautiful place," she spoke toward the sun, "we are quite alone, Master Red."  She turned again, and her eyes, calm and analytical, found their way across his frame, trailing, and just barely widening for a telling moment, across his bared upper arms, where intricate, black-inked tattoos of arcane design banded his sun-kissed skin.  
       With a knowing glance into his eyes, she added, "I think you know of what I speak."  Realization flickered across Red's face, and he suppressed the urge to step back.  She knew.
       "That I do," he responded gravely, and eyed her own tattoos in kind. Inked in sharp, contrasting patterns against the pale skin of her upper thighs and arms, he had glimpsed them the night prior, and sensed their arcane aura. Though the runic patterns were foreign to him, the arcana they bore was anything but. They were the unique tattoos of a master arcanist, the kind of which only one sort of mage created; a Red Wizard of Thay.