Quoted By:
>Grand return
Indeed! And what you shall do is... not bring him into camp! Rather ingenious, if you say so yourself. You swing off of Earl and plop to your feet in a convenient patch of seagrass. "Earl? Earl? Hey, buddy, we're stopping here. Stop. Here. And I'm going to go ahead, but I need you to stay— did you get that? Stay."
You pace back a few steps and watch him carefully. No foward movement, but he is trembling a little. "I'll be back really soon, okay? Really soon? I'm going to get you help from somebody, and then I'll be back. But I need you to stay here. Right at this spot, so I can find you. <span class="mu-i">Stay.</span> I'll come back."
A few more steps, and he's still where he is. That's as good as you're getting, you guess: you turn and fast-walk away, releasing a held breath once you're out in the open and there's no huge crashing noise behind you. Camp! Maybe not "home," exactly, but the closest you have at the present moment. The sunlight, clear and piercing, washes the battered canvas of the tents white. The sand glitters. Even from here, the whole places hums with the little sounds of people living.
Yes. It's not where you're from, but it's where you are right now. And it sure beats any crummy hole in the ground.
>[+1 ID: 14/14]
Too bad the only people out in the glare of mid-afternoon are gruff, thick-skinned, boring types; precisely the neighbors you know and care the least about. You receive some glances, but nothing more than grunts. Did they even realize you were gone? <span class="mu-i">Missing in action</span> after you risked your life for their stupid second-in-command? Why couldn't Gil be loitering conveniently in the middle of the pathway? Is he even back at camp? Maybe you were wrong, and he's still in Hell. Maybe he's still asleep, and doesn't even know you were gone, and this was a load of trouble for nothing at all. For more trouble. Wait, no— positive thinking! Positive thinking. Gil <span class="mu-i">is</span> here... and he's been waiting for you eagerly... and...
Oh, but you can't just go and say hello and then ask him to <span class="mu-i">magyck</span> a gigantic man-beast in the woods, can you? What if he's mad at you for vanishing? You'd only make him more mad. And what if he was scared about you? Then it'd just be awkward, wouldn't it? You don't need Richard to tell you that. You don't want it to be awkward.
Change of plans. Change of plans. Didn't you see Branwen around here recently?
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Hatefully, none of the stupid jerks you talk to seem to know who "Branwen" is, or where she might be, or why they might care. It takes far too much teeth-pulling before a jerk (coincidentally with several missing teeth) volunteers that he saw "some old bitch in overalls" with Madrigal just a little while ago. Good enough.
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"Shit!" Madrigal vocalizes: you have stuck your entire head through her tent door. "Charlotte!?"
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