Tashi wears thick boots to protect her feet from the scorching sands of the Si Wong Desert. She wears a jilbab that covers her from throat to ankle, pale as the desert sand and decorated with currents of air. She embroidered it herself, making the clothing that shielded her from the merciless sun lovely.

She wears a sand-pale headscarf to cover her hair so that not a bit of it can be seen. Under the scarf, she wears her dowry - gold and silver, fine stones and charms woven from wool taken from the pony-goats that belong to her.

Across her face, she wears a fine orange veil. It is the only thing of color that any one can see. Her mother scolds her, her sisters disapprove, her brothers argue. She will never find a husband with such brazenness, such attention-drawing. Men will take her for a whore.

Her father says nothing.

The djinn sweeps into her father's tent, his clothes the orange of a people long dead. He dresses as all men of the desert must dress, but his skin is too pale, his eyes too fiery.

He is not of the desert.

Tashi smiles behind her orange veil and blows a breeze, soft as lamb's wool.

The djinn whips around, eyes widening, and the winds whirl up the sand into dustdevils all around him.