Lost and Found (tag fassa)

[Avon]

Nathan was bored. The Weyr was fun, but he could only stay in one place for too long. After his time in probation, he never wanted to go back to being tied down to one spot. With a skin of water and a Brown flitt on his shoulder, he left the weyrbowl, seeking entertainment. He had a map and he headed in what he thought was the direction of the river. It was past noon, so it wasn't unbearably hot, but it wasn't starting to cool down yet either.

Ruby provided plenty of that, scaring up little rodents as they walked and showing off her aerial acrobatics. Watching her, Nathan forgot to pay too much attention to the map aside from making sure he was going in the right general direction. When they reached the river, Ruby dove in and Nathan soon followed suit. There wasn't anyone around, and he probably wouldn't have cared if there was, so he skinny dipped.

After a while he found a shady tree to lie under and dry off, and he fell asleep.

He was woken by the change of temperature. The air was cold on his bare skin and he reached for his clothes before realizing how hard it was to find them, because it was dark. He groped around and found his clothes, quickly pulling them on. He could make out Ruby's glowing eyes, but not much else.

Nathan almost tried to make light before remembering that he couldn't bend reality anymore. He wasn't immortal anymore, either, so he was fair game for any ravenous beasts that came along.

Shit. He really should have brought a glow.

[fassa]

It doesn't get any easier than this, Dean thought, following Robin's lead.

Some kid had ventured out in the direction of the river, and hadn't returned in hours, he'd overheard. Of course no one thought it was a bad idea at that time- an unfamiliar Lost in an unfamiliar terrain - not even to the guy the kid had casually told until he recalled this hours later to find that the kid hadn’t come back.

Naturally, he poked his nose into the conversation and volunteered there and then to look for this kid. They gave specific directions on how to get to the river, and he was to go there, grab the kid, make their way back. Some sightseeing on the way maybe.

Piece of cake.

Tracking people was similar to tracking monsters - you looked at their modus operandi, their frame of mind, their intent, and their basic behaviour. So far all he knew of this kid was (i) he was headed for the river, and (ii) he was a kid, which meant that he wouldn’t have much of a reason to stay away from the weyr this long - probably only there to take a swim or something.

So here he was armed with a glowbasket thingy in his hand and a short sword by his side, following the river in the dusky glow of the sun that had dipped completely into the horizon. If the kid was smart in any way, he'd stay close to the river and followed it upstream. The air was still warm; he should aim to quickly find Nathan before it got much cooler.

He briefly thought about ‘05 - when he got to do his own gig, tracking and hunting on his own. If he closed his eyes he could pretend he was back there again, but he didn’t. Thinking about home right now wouldn’t help what he had to do.

“Don’t go too far,” he said to his flitt, who was led by an unwavering sense of inquisitiveness and fervour to their mission. Dean was pretty sure firelizards didn’t have a keen sense of smell like greyhounds do, but having the extra pairs of eyes and ears helped.

To Robin, this was pretty exciting. He hadn’t had an opportunity like today to be out in the wild this late. He wasn’t at all anxious to find this strange human Dean wanted to find, but it was a challenge he’d like to complete efficiently. He tried not to stray too far, lest something attacked them. Robin had to keep his human safe after all.

Then he heard her - another firelizard in proximity, a little faint but he heard her. Robin chirped, flapping his wing excitedly

Dean paused, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword, looking around. His glowbasket flickered. “What? You find something?”

His firelizard responded shrilly, and sped on ahead. Dean sighed, picking up his pace to close the gap between them. “Dammit, Robin- Not too far!”

Robin saw her first when the glowbasket’s light reached her, recognised her to be from the same clutch. With an excited screech, he launched right at her, before barrelling away to the side in the last moment before collision, whizzing past her instead.

[Avon]

Ruby was circling around aimlessly, sensing her bonded's distress but not sure what to do with it. If Nathan had trained her better, she might have had the sense to go back to the Weyr to get help, but as it was she was just confused and not entirely sure why Nathan was just sitting there being scared. The dark was kind of fun, actually, maybe they could explore more...

Suddenly, there was another flitt speeding past her. Ruby responded with a screech of her own and twirled to the side, tumbling straight into Nathan in the process. She pushed off her human and flew after Robin, trilling excitedly. Did he want to cuddle?

Nathan mumbled an incoherent mix of English and Pernese swear words. "What the..." Then, he saw a faint glow up ahead. "HEY! Over here!" he called, waving his arms. Maybe he wasn't doomed after all!

[fassa]

Robin flew back to Dean brimming with pride -- he had found his sister and she had a human with her! He did good- no, he did awesome. Dean raised his arm out for his flitt to perch on but Robin landed only briefly before he took off again, sensing his crazed sister's attempt at a cuddle. He hissed in annoyance - he didn't want one!

With a series of sharp turns and a drop to the right, Robin maneuvered himself away from the brown, halting then in midair to face his sister, hissing a threat to nip her if she kept this up.

Meanwhile, Dean moved ahead in the direction of a voice, hoping no beasts would be drawn to such a ruckus. Whoever he was wouldn’t have posed much threat or Robin would have gone into defensive aggression. When his face was illuminated within the glow's radius - Dean was sure he had seen him before, or at least that distinctively tousled hair … from the drunk kid from the kitchen with his face down on the table?

"Nathan?" he asked anyway, pro-forma even though he knew that he was definitely Nathan. "I'm Dean. You alright?"

In a glance, Nathan didn't look hurt, looking more relieved than anything. He didn't have much but the waterskin looked good for a few hours so the kid must have just grossly miscalculated or lucked out on finding his way back.

"Come on, Huckleberry, let’s roll," he continued, gesturing with the tilt of his head to behind, waiting for Nathan to approach.

Dean anticipated the return to be uneventful. Usually, Dean would be semi paranoid, the I’ve got a bad feeling about this feeling weighted in his guts, but if Pern didn't have angels and demons and witches and ghosts (that he knew of from his adventures in text with Castiel), that left the native creatures - which shouldn't be as hard to fend off. Didn't mean he wanted to leave that to chance though, and a few weeks here wasn’t enough to wash out a lifetime of being cautious - a lifetime of life throwing lemons at him like confetti.

He raised the glowbasket to look in the direction of their way back. - if he followed the landmarks (there weren’t many) he had committed to memory and his own tracks, they should be back at the weyr in an hour. Maybe he wouldn't have to use his weapon at all.

Easy enough, he thought to himself.

Except he didn’t count on being jinxed; the glow chose this moment to dim and crap out.

Dean pursed his lips, gritting his jaws in silent frustration as the darkness swallowed them. Even with his eyes adjusting to the it, it was hard to make out his hand in front of his face.

“Nathan?”