"Onwards we must go, dear guardian. Can you point us in the wrong direction?" Artois said, raising his tusks mightily into the air.

"Aren'th we shupposed tcho juscht go anywhere?" Asked the newly christened Feather, slowly acclimating to his new form and name.

"When one walks the Random Road, Pitiful One, it is often more useful to know the wrong direction, than to know where any one direction may lead. Are you satisfied? Good. Guardian, if you please."

Grumbling, Feather instead focused on gaining the full control of his limbs, and more importantly his mouth. He was still thinking like a human, and it was hindering his speech.

"Yoouu shoouuld avooid the shadooows out here," said the ox, shaking its head lazily back and forth, "There are daark things beneaaath the saaand."

"What kind of thinsch," Feather asked.

"Pancaaakes," the ox answered, its expression as serious as a grave.

"Pancakes?" Feather said, his tongue getting tied correctly around this time.

"Pancakes indeed," Artois hummed, nodding his majestic head with all the gravitas of his royal composure.

"Sand pancakes," the ox elaborated, without really adding any useful information whatsoever.

"Sand pancakes will do you in, if not careful. Take heed, Feather, this is what's important on the Random Road."

Looking from one giant animal to the other, Feather resolved that he would never understand this strange world.

Seeing as there was not a shadow in sight, Feather was not really sure what to do with the ox's information, but when Artois insisted he choose a direction to go, and be 'careful of shadows', he finally flicked his tongue and chose as straight as possible.

What had at first been an orange-tinged landscape, quickly turned out to be an endless sea of sand dunes in all sizes and forms. Walking up one was as good as walking up the next, and the little lizard soon found his new size both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing, since he would not have been able to endure the trek or the heat in his very ordinary form, and a definite curse since his small size made even the smallest dune into a relative mountain.

From above, something approximating a sun baked down, although it looked more like a egg on a pan, sunny side up, than a celestial orb formed eons ago by a powerful gravitational implosion within a nebula.

"Why isn't it just changing, you know, like it did before?" Feather finally asked Artois, after cresting another dune and being reminded of his own insignificance in this grandiose environment.

The floral white warthog looked at the lizard, like a king would a peon, and said, "The only way to walk the road--"

"--Is to be 'random'; yes I get it. But why, when I have been walking in an ostensibly 'random' direction for what seems an eternity, am I not getting anywhere?"

"That depends on you definition of 'anywhere'. We are moving, thus we are 'getting'. The fact you cannot identify the 'anywhere' does not mean we are not already there."

"That makes no sense..." Feather said, relishing a sudden cool wind blowing across him. Getting out of the sun for a while sure was nice. He might just pause here for a while and get some rest. Looking up, he marveled at the sudden black spot upon the sunny-side-up-sun, seeing it grow a little bigger.

And bigger.

"Is that a shadow?" He asked, confused. Did it count as a shadow if it came from the sun?

"No, I'm afraid that's a pancake," Artois answered matter-of-factly.

"A what?"

"A sand pancake. I suggest you move. Quick as you can."

His small eyes widened for all they were worth, as the oncoming shadow grew to the size of a building, and only growing bigger. Leaping with all of his lizard grace, Feather scrambled to get out of the shadow. The sand beneath his little feet provided scant friction for his frightful leaps. Whatever agility he had gained in the transformation was all put to the test, as the wicked sound of something massive coming right down at him became louder and louder.

"Artois! Save me!"

"Absolutely not. You cannot expect a king to perform the task of a villein." The warthog nimbly moved away, in several graceful leaps, and was out of danger. Feather screamed as he ran, sensing he would be too slow. In a last ditch effort, Feather jumped for all he was worth, as something gently passed by the tip of his tail.

He landed safely. A hollow boom. Then an eruption of sand sent him flying into the air again. Still screaming for all his little lungs were worth, Feather landed down the slope of the sandy dune and made several summersaults before coming to a very sudden and painful halt.

Staggering, he got back onto his four feet, raising his head come face to face with the most massive pancake he had ever seen, gently folding itself over the very top of the dune. He tried to say something but words failed him.

After a long moment, the pancake began cracking up; its surface shattering and shredding apart. Over another minute, it further dissolved, turning into smaller and smaller pieces until it was finally just sand.

Looking from the spectacle and back to his supposed 'companion', Feather was having a hard time controlling his jaw.

"That..." He finally said, gaining control of both himself and his jaw, "The ox said it was beneath the sand, not up in the damn sky!"

"It said beware of shadows first. You should learn to listen, Feather, it would suit you."

"No, but the danger was supposed to come from beneath the sand, not from above!"

"What part of the Random Road are you still not getting?"

Feather screamed in frustration. This was incredibly stupid. It was wrong, this place was wrong, these things were all wrong, and he was being encased by another shadow...

"It's not fair! It's not fair! It's not fair!" He screamed and ran despite knowing it was absolutely hopeless. The pancake hit him like sledgehammer.