Rosewater Oasis The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.

The mirage at the horizon seldom ever lied to him. And gazing out from his favourite viewpoint beneath the fronds of one of the palms, he had been scratching lines into the sand, in categories, when he glanced up to check the mirage as if scanning an ocean for any sign of a ship. He lived on an island of water, after all, in a sea of sand. The stranger went unnoticed for two routine checks, and it was only when Tumbleweed looked up a third time and realized that the pale, beige canine had managed to come much closer than most before he sent up one quick yip! 

In the coyfolk way of letting the others nearby know that another approached. 

He dashed the sand away, erasing the lines where he had been counting, calculating, and stood to approach the stranger, allowing himself to become a living, moving piece of the environment separate from the Oasis. to prove its existence. 

Tumbleweed knew the stagger of the desperate, and it did not seem to affect the stranger, whose path was true and steady. A natural, with sand-legs primed for dunes and for long hard travel over shifting footing. He called out with a chuff, so the man would know he was not being warded off.