WARNING(S): N/A

She was here again. He could feel it.

The avatar of Isis herself seemed to dance in and out of his vision, wavering with the heat, her sweet voice making him dizzy... or was that the sun?

Sasuke blinked, wiping the sweat from his brow as he shambled forward.

He was close. So close he could swear he could touch her. Her visage smiled benevolently at him, her arms seeming to reach out so as to cup his cheek.

He leaned into her touch... and promptly fell to the ground, unconscious before he could even feel the burn of the sand against him.

He awoke some hours later to someone humming a tune, a familiar aire that caused him to crack open his eyelids.

The room was blurry with his grogginess, and as he tried to open them more, blinking and struggling to understand just what had happened, he must have caught the attention of the maiden attending to him, because the humming ceased and he could feel a fresh, cool cloth against his forehead.

"Are you alright, sir?" His savior murmured, feather-soft fingertips ghosting across his cheek. "I was so worried you wouldn't wake up... you must have succumbed to heatstroke."

"Wh...?" He tried to speak, but words were slow to come to his tired tongue.

"I brought you to my home." The young lady smiled, gesturing vaguely with her other hand. "Please feel free to rest as long as you need to. If you need me, I'll be making lunch."

Before he could call out to her to wait, she was gone, and he was left to his own thoughts.

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew was the young lady gently shaking him awake and a delightful, spiced scent filling his nose.

"I hope you like veal," she greeted.

Sasuke blinked blearily at her, his addled mind straying as his eyes wandered to the plate of soft, warm flatbread and the spiced meat atop it. There was some kind of sauce - goat milk, perhaps? - he wasn't quite sure.

The young lady helped him sit up, one firm arm at his back while the other helped guide food to his mouth. She was stronger than she looked; her arms were thin, yet he could spot muscle beneath. (Indeed, the sauce was partly made of goat milk. There was also a hint of something tangy that he couldn't quite pinpoint.)

Who was this young woman? And why did she seem so familiar?

She began humming yet again, hints of rosy pink peeking out from under her shawl. Just like the avatar of Isis that he worshiped so fervently, her eyes - green as the verdant grasses of a cool oasis, were attentive and focused as she dabbed at his mouth with a clean cloth.

Sleepiness overtook him yet again, and his eyelids fluttered shut as she helped him lie back down.

"Rest, traveler," she whispered in his ear, and something soft pressed against his temple for the barest of seconds. "I'll be back to tend to you in a bit."

He was asleep before his head even came to rest upon the pillow.

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A/N: Let me know what you thought!