I'm participating in Lexember, a month-long challenge to come up with a new word for my conlang every day for the entire month. I try to follow a theme, so this year's entries are all related to describing desert magic.

Lexember 16: uichifogu

Pronunciation

• uichifógu: /ɯ.i.tɕi.ꜛɸo.ɡɯ/

Noun

uichifógu

1. The moment when someone first emotionally connects to their spirit and uses magic.

   • Sand and Blood 10

     He caught a hint of movement again. This time, he didn’t stop but glanced over without slowing.

     It was a bird racing him, just a few paces ahead of him and to the right. The avian glided across the sand on long legs. Its three-toed claws didn’t leave a trail behind it or disturb the sands with the breeze of its passing. It kept its short wings tight to its body as it ran. A brown-and-white speckled pattern ran from its crest down to the end of the long feathers that formed the tail. It was a shimusogo dépa, the dune-runner bird Shimusògo took his name from.

     Startled, Rutejìmo slowed down, and between one step and the next, he lost sight of the bird. Desperate, he tried to maintain his speed while looking around but the dépa was gone. He slowed down further, peering over his shoulders for the bird.

     As he came to a stumbling halt, all the joy fled out of him. In one moment, he was experiencing a high and in the next it was gone. It wasn’t until it was missing that he realized he was experiencing it. In its wake, a longing burned inside him. He wanted to run, something he had never felt before, and the urge sang through his veins.

     Rutejìmo frowned and turned in a circle. The dépa was gone and Tsubàyo and Karawàbi were quickly outpacing him. The need to run burned hotter. In the back of his mind, he knew that if he just ran fast enough, the dépa would return. The knowledge, however, frightened him since he had never had an urge to run before, nor had he ever seen a dépa while running.