Pan felt a tugging to return to his home. For some time now, he’d tried to stay away, visions of the horrors from before dancing behind his eyes every time he tried to sleep. Still, there is a desire for him to return to his cave, to check on his treasures and possibly collect a few more to keep with him. He missed it – the hush of the river as it skipped over rocks, the dampness in the air and the crisp scent of water against rock. Rapax River was his home, and whether the borders were closed or not, he knew he had to go back. Something simply pulled him there.
The boy is afraid, a sensation that he seldom experienced, but he gulped down the fear and tried to stay brave as he followed the water back northward. Time and time again, he would stop and reconsider, his lips twisting into a scowl and a concerned sort of look crossing his face. But Pan continued despite the hesitation, mustering bravery as he sang a quiet song to steady himself, steps half as lively as usual. As he neared Delumine, the scaled boy stopped to rest, unwilling to enter the land during the night. He wanted to know what was coming, to see the land washed in the warmth of sunlight, and so he slept beneath the stars just outside before continuing.
He found the cave at first morning light, an overwhelming sense of joy washing over him as he danced toward his bed of animal skins, laying upon it and enjoying the comforting scent that washed over him. Collecting as many baubles as he could carry, Pan flicks another sad glance back, knowing that someday he could return here and live back within the comforts of his cave… but it couldn’t be today. There were still dangers lurking in Delumine, and he needed to stay away for his own safety.
Still, something eggs him forward, and for a moment Pan allows himself the whimsy of searching for pink dolphins in the river. Though he’d yet to see them, the boy had never given up hope. Scouring with his seafoam eyes, he looked hard… but no dolphins appeared. Strangely though, his gaze fell on something else entirely, something quite familiar. For here, in the center of the rushing water, a brown otter twisted this way and that, collecting little stones and washing them on his belly.
Pan can only watch the strange creature, feeling a tug of familiarity even as Oliver turns and offers him a playful sort of smile. Something clicks within the boy, within the otter too, and the sleek brown creature makes his way quickly toward him. Racing from the water’s edge like a brown arrow, Oliver chatters to his long lost friend, winding his way up Pan’s leg in a familiar sort of gesture and settling on his withers. The otter rubs himself in Pan’s mane, grooming him for a moment, before diving into the satchel as he’d done a thousand times before. Starstruck, Pan struggles to remember, but he knows he’s seen the playful creature before.
Oliver? His question is met by a series of chirps as the otter rummages through the bag, making himself quite at home as he chuffs to his scaled friend. Satisfied that he’d remembered at least the otter’s name for now, Pan glances back only once at the river and his home, before turning back to Terrestella, determined to leave Delumine once again until safety could be had, his new friend in tow.
@Random Events
