"Why!?" Shouted Djurle to the heavens, "Why are there so many *@&#^$# rivers! And why the *@^$ do they all have to go this Maker forsaken city! Stupid, blasted, mother ^&$#)*@ piece of- AUGH!!!"
Djurle smashed the ground, quaking the earth and trembling the waters around him. Birds flew from distant trees, loose leaves tumbling from their boughs. He'd spent the hours leading to sunrise trying to find the path the poachers had taken, and while he'd managed to find one of the four who'd fled, the other three still escaped with the luminite twins.
He rolled to his butt as and sank his face in his hands, sitting for a moment before mumbling between his shuddering breaths, "Maker... I'm so tired..."
He groaned a long sigh and looked up into the cloudless blues above.
"I'm so *(#$^%@ tired of this #$%^... They never listen... always fight... Please, for the love of all things holy, cut me some slack... Just this once, Maker... Just... Just this once..."
A small breeze brushed past him, but the world was otherwise silent.
"Heh... Asking as if he hasn't cut you a mile's worth... ^*&#... Eve would knock your head in if she'd heard you say that after all the times he's bailed you out... 'What do you mean, just this once? Where's your faith? What about that time when- nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh.' Whatever... Tch..."
His head dropped into his stony chest, his eyes stinging from exhaustion and frustration.
"You'd think I'd know better by now..."
He sat there in thought for some time, hoping for some odd motion to catch his attention. The sensations of distant individuals he'd already questioned being the only thing he could sense through the ground. When he finally decided to return to the Thord family farm, retrieve his missing boot, his horse, and make his way back to camp, Djurle trudged through the tents over to Mikail’s, as had become his habit. While he approached Mikail’s tent, the familiar voice of the Klovenite refugee carried on the wind.
"Olden!? Olden!?"
Concerned, Djurle coaxed Crispus over to where he was shouting.
"Olden!? Where are y- Djurle!"
"What's going on?" Djurle asked as he dismounted.
"Olden snuck out last night, I don't know where he is!"
"Blast it, not him too... Alright, I'll help you look for him."
"Can you use your powers to find him?"
"There's too many people in the camp, his tracks would be completely gone by now."
Mikail gripped his head, his face twisting with fear, choked groans escaping him as he trembled and paced. Djurle grabbed Mikail’s shoulders jerking him from his frightened stupor and shouted "Look at me! Only. Me. We're going to find him. Okay? We'll find him."
Mikail nodded, his breathing still unsteady.
Djurle and Mikail swept the camp, encountering and enlisting Morganna along the way. After almost an hour of searching, they went back to their tent to see a messy-haired, bur-ridden, mud-and-dust-covered Olden.
As soon as she saw him, Morganna shouted, "OLDEN INGRESSI WHERE IN THE PIT HAVE YOU BEEN!?!?!?"
It was loud enough to make Djurle jump. Olden cowered as well.
"I'm sorry, ma! I fell asleep by the river."
"WE DON'T LIVE IN FEDUÍN ANYMORE, YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE WHEN YOU WANT!!! WE THOUGHT YOU WERE KIDNAPPED!!!"
I mean, technically-
Nope, shut it, don't say it.
Djurle stepped between the fuming parents and grabbed their shoulders. He kept his voice as soothing as he could manage as he said, "Hey, let's just be thankful that we found him, alright?" He gestured to the boy, saying, "The kid looks like he's had a rough night, and those burs are punishment enough without both his parents tearing him in half."
Mikail and Morganna looked at each other. Olden mouthed a thank you while they were distracted, and Djurle winked back.
Morganna sighed, "You're right, ancestor... I need to get back to work." She glowered at Olden. "You, young man, are not allowed to leave this tent without your father until I get home."
"But-"
"Olden! Listen to your mother."
"Yes, Dad."
"I mean it, Olden, not for any reason. Not even to pee."
"Yes, Ma."
Morganna thanked Djurle as she left, and Mikail sat down on one of the chair-stumps, his nervous energy slowly fading. Olden began to pick the burs off his clothes as he moped.
The amount of times I was that harsh to Truzik... Maker's breath, I wish I'd been a calmer parent.
You should ask Olden where he went.
What? Why would I... Bah, what's the harm? I can handle a couple of stories. Maybe they'll lighten my mood.
"Hey, Olden?"
"Yeah?"
"Be respectful, Olden."
"It's fine, Mikail, he's not hurting my feelings."
"Yes, ancestor."
Djurle shook his head and focused on Olden.
"You like to adventure, right? Tell me about some of your recent escapades."
"Oh? Well, uh... Where should I start?"
"Why not start with how you got in the city? Your dad told me a bit about it but I want to hear your side."
The boy looked at his father before he spoke, “Okay, I guess. Sure. So, uh, at sunrise last week, I left here and went to the river to go and hang out with some of the guys. We don’t have much to do in camp, so we like to go swimming. We swam for about a half an hour before Mosely bet me two copper that I couldn’t get inside the walls of Thruf. I didn’t want to do it, but he called me a chicken, and I hate being called a chicken! So what I did was I talked to one of the adults who were fishing, and he let me borrow his cloak-”
“-Which you still need to give back to him.”
“I will, Dad, I promise!”
“You’d better.”
Djurle chuckled to himself before asking, “What happened next?”
“Well, I borrowed his cloak and covered up my arms. The hood was extra big, so my head was also covered, and I could only see the ground right in front of me. I tried to walk past the checkpoint, but they had me take my hood off. When they saw my face, they sent me away. Then I saw a little runoff to the side. Even though I’m pretty big, I knew I could hide in it. I left my cloak hood down and ruffled up my hair to look like dead grass and crawled on my belly sideways like a crab until I knew they couldn’t see me anymore, then I jumped into a wagon that passed by, and it took into the gate a few minutes later. Everything I saw was so pretty. The people all had dark skin and curly hair, and the buildings were so much cleaner than the ones we had back home. I just had to see more of them. So I looked around until I saw this big fountain. I went and looked at my reflection in the water when a cold wind took my hood off of me. Some di-*ahem*, sorry. Some big, mean baldy with too much arm hair saw me and shouted at me before I could put my hood back on. I tried to run into an alley to get away, but it was a dead end. The man caught me by the cloak and started to beat the craaa-uuud out of me. Then, a guard saved me. He gave me this hanky and asked me my name. I told him my name, and he told me his was Tecovis.”
"You met Tecovis!? &^!# me, I should have asked you to tell me this story sooner, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.
"Do you know him?" Olden asked.
"I do, he's the son of a friend of mine, I'd been looking for him for a while. Thankfully, we found each other."
Mikail nodded along, having heard the story already.
“Okay, so he gave you the hanky, what next?”
“Well, after that, another guard with dark brown skin showed up. They talked for a minute about some stuff. Tecovis told me that they knew each other, and I went with him back out of the city. He took me all the way back here, and Mosely gave me the two copper pieces on the way back.” Olden pulled them out of his pocket as proof of his winnings.
Mikail chimed in, “It was Zebulon who brought him back.”
"Really? You know all my friends, don't you?"
Olden laughed.
"What about last night? You had to do something interesting to be covered in all that mud."
"Yes, Olden, why were you by the river?"
Olden shifted uncomfortably at his father's tone, but said, "I... I couldn't sleep. Back home, when I was awake at night, Ma would take me on the roof to look at the moon and the stars." The corner of Olden's mouth raised as he spoke of his memories, "She told me stories about them until I got sleepy again. Since Dad was asleep and Ma was still at the sick tent, I went to my normal spot near the tree to look at the moon when I saw ice in the river."
Mikail’s face scrunched. "Ice? This far south at this time of year?"
Djurle leaned forward, his thoughts an absolute flurry of what-ifs.
"It's true Dad, I swear! I even grabbed some. Anyway, I saw the ice and thought 'huh, that's weird' then I looked up the river to see where it came from and saw these two weirdos who definitely weren't there before. I got curious, so I followed them."
"Olden, what have I told you about following str-"
"Hush, Mikail, let him talk."
Mikail looked at Djurle, bewildered.
Olden was also surprised, but he continued. "Uh... I followed them for a while up the river and hid in the grass to keep from getting seen, I don't remember being there when we were coming to the campgrounds. They kept going for a while until they got to a wrecked tree, and then they turned away from the river completely. I watched until I couldn't see them anymore and decided that I'd see if they came back."
"Did they?"
"I don't know if those two did, I fell asleep while I was waiting. But another guy crawled out of the river and went the same way maybe an hour later, and some others in a wagon came from that way when I woke up."
"How many?"
"About four, I thi-."
"-Did they head to the camp?"
"No, they went upstream. They looked like they were in a hurry."
Djurle immediately stood straight up and said, "Can you take me to where you saw them!?"
"Uh- I mean, yeah? Why?"
Djurle snapped his feet to face Mikail.
"Mikail, I know you shut him in, but I need to borrow your son!"
