Sahara: A Living Fossil

     From the window, the hot winds of the Kubai Desert caressed glass bottles suspended from strings, creating soft chimes that filled the air. Leaning against the window sill, a Xero with orange and red hues and jagged stripes all over her body watched other Xeros going about their daily lives. A typical busy day in the city of B'Haddu includes shopping, conversing, having lunch, and fetching water from the adjacent falls.

     With her head dipping and bobbing, her eyelids heavy and ready for a nap, the Xero was observing people while lost in concentration, her arm supporting her head. Until she was disturbed by a call.

     "Sahara!!!," an elderly voice called from a room below, scaring her out of her daydreaming.

     "Yea grandpa!?," she called back, trying to wake up further by stretching her tail and clearing her throat to contain her yawning. 

     "It's almost time to open up shop! Grandma made breakfast!

     "Thanks!!," she responds, rubbing her eyes and grinning a silly smile.

     She started running for the door as she peeled away from the window sill, but she skidded in place right away. She came to the realization that today was not like any other day or month. This month marked the anniversary of Xero's initial successful creation!

     Sahara then began to search in her closet amongst several green ceramic pots that were filled to overflowing with objects such as fossils, gemstones, and bones. Occasionally, while she looked, her big desert ears twitched from the warm wind brushing against them.

     While looking through her most recent finds, Sahara was reflecting on her own existence. Her grandparents described how that time was a scientific breakthrough for Xeros because their species were descended from extinct animals from Exoplanet X-1118A, even though she wasn't the first Xero formed. When she was younger, she didn't understand it, but as she grew older, she came to understand it in her own way.

     She picked up an animal skull and examined it closely after sorting through her numerous baubles. With her eyes gazing intently into its vacant sockets, she held it between her paws, her retractable claws delicately brushing the jaw while she pondered.

     "We're not so different, ya know?," she muttered, the animal skull responding in silence. 

     In the past, her kind was extinct. Bones, similar to the one she held, were most likely what was left. She wasn't there and didn't know. She was aware, though, that kind people—scientists—brought them back. No quantity of riches in Sahara's collection could match that accomplishment.

     Grinning to herself, she picked up her satchel, stuffed the animal skull and other items inside, and hurried down the stairs. She peered into the kitchen and saw her grandmother preparing a bowl of something floury as her grandfather sipped his cup of tea. Sahara scooted closer to the table, climbed into a chair, and grabbed her dish of toast with Kara berry jam, chewing as she observed them.

     Her grandfather had warmer orange fur and wore small reading glasses, while her grandmother was a more yellow-orange Xero with all of her hair in a bun and wearing an apron. As these were Sahara's paternal grandparents, she inherited the more red genes from her mother's side of the family.

     With a warm playful glance back at Sahara, her grandmother chimed, "Thank goodness you came just in time, I thought your food was gonna go stale." She looked at the lump in her bag tha resembled an animal's skull and shook her head while laughing. "Is your friend hungry too?"

     Sahara joked, "Nah, he's alright," while biting into a piece of toast. "He's just here as a my reminder!" 

     "A reminder? Of what, sweetheart?"

     With pride, she declared, "I'm a living fossil!" Her grandfather laughed and coughed into his drink, prompting her grandmother to scurry to get him some cloth napkins.

     "Of course you are Sahara," he responded, wiping his lips with his arm and picking up some cloth napkins to clean up the spills. "We all are."