dejah_thoris | [M'ways] Room 1001

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[M'ways] Room 1001

It was after dinner and she'd finished up her work for the day. She shook out her hand, stretched the muscles of her fingers, hoping that the tendon would stretch with it. It hurt more and more with each passing day, but she had other things to worry about. Curtis was supposed to meet her after he'd worked out and checked on Edgar.

That was two hours ago. She finally broke down and touched two fingers to her bracelet. It pulsed blue and she got the sense he was in his room. Strange. She touched it again, just to be sure. No, he was there. Alive and attached to the pendant.

She decides to go down and say hello, find out if everything's okay. A few minutes later, she's knocking at his door.

"Curtis?"

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She glances down at her hand, flexes her fingers again, working the stiffness out of it. "It's been acting up a bit, but my hands are always a bit sore after doing precision work. I don't have a full workshop here, so I'm doing most of the work manually."

Even walking at a clip, she reaches out and slips her good hand into the crook of his arm.

"Better in the long run, I feel, so it's worth it. In fact, I think I might be ready for a full trial run. After we're sure Edgar is all right."

"After," he confirms. "Yeah."

Even the allure of the new arm feels dimmed right now. It's like following the light of the engine straight through the whole train: find Edgar first, worry about everything else later.

"Sure you don't want someone to look at your hand?"

She's quiet for a moment, her head down, a crooked smile on her lips. When she does speak, her voice is quiet, as even talking about it seems selfish and indulgent.

"I'm not sure it's to that point yet. I just need to put some heat on it, maybe massage out the sore bits. I'm sure it's nothing."

"Okay." He sounds a little doubtful, but, in lieu of pressing her good hand, lightly bumps his shoulder against hers. "Do it if it does get to that point?"

Last thing either of them need is for Dejah to overwork herself to the point of serious injury.

"All this fuss," she says, nudging him back. "Let's find Edgar and then we can worry about stupid things like my hand."

She fishes in her pocket for the ball of twine, and whistles. A moment and a puff of dust later, Woola is standing before them, two hundred yards from where he'd been sleeping beside the forge.

"Woola. Do you remember Edgar?"

The calot grumbles a little, looking puzzled. He glances at Curtis and back at Dejah.

"Yes, that's right. Curtis's friend. Here, you can smell him here." She offers the calot the ball of twine. He sniffs it once, twice, and then his face splits in a calot grin. Yes, he remembers that smell.

"Find him, Woola. Find him now." Dejah's voice drops low, and the command is unmistakable.

Woola's face takes on a look of grim determination, and he lifts his nose to the breeze. He takes a few steps towards the bar. Nope. A few steps towards the stables. Nope, not there either. When he turns his head to the lake, his entire demeanor sharpens. Before either one of them can speak, he disappears in another puff of dust.

"This shouldn't take long at all," Dejah says, trying her best to sound hopeful.

That...does not help Curtis' earlier worries that Edgar fell into the lake. Can calots track scents through water?

Oh, for fuck's sake, stop it.

At least Woola smelled something. That means Edgar can't have gotten far. He nods, quick and a little jerky, all his attention on the lake.

Dejah doesn't wait. She sets off at a slow trot, not even trying to keep up with the calot.

"He can cover an incredible amount of ground in a very short time," she assures Curtis. "I'm sure we'll find him in no time at all. Come on."

"Yeah, here's hoping," mutters Curtis.

He follows after Dejah, still scanning the lake for any sign of movement: the blur of Woola racing along, anybody who might look like Edgar, hell, even the squid. The squid understands English, doesn't it? If Edgar fell in --

Okay, now he really has to fucking stop it if he's seriously considering enlisting Julia Fruitnugget in the search for Edgar.

Before the thought is even finished, Woola is turning back, a guttural short bark cutting across the water.

"He's found something!" Dejah shifts from a lope into a proper flat out run. "Woola? Where's Edgar?"

The calot shakes his head, and then jerks it in the direction of whatever it is he's found. "What? What do you mean he's not here?"

He feels his face go cold. "Not here like -- not by the lake here? Up in the mountains not-here?"

Helplessly, Curtis drags his hand over his head, pulling his hat back a couple inches. "We're dead, we can't go anywhere -- "

And Woola's shuffling around like he found something, so obviously that means Edgar's around here somewhere. Or something that smells like Edgar. Curtis breaks into a dash toward the spot Woola indicated.

There's a huge section of ground that looks like it's been trampled. Thoroughly.

Dejah's standing there with a puzzled look on her face. "This doesn't make any sense at all."

Woola is darting around in ever widening circles, trying to find the scent again. But it's no use. Edgar is Not Here.

He doesn't see it right away. The mud and grass along the lakeshore got churned up a hell of a lot by whatever happened there; to the untrained eye, one smashed, reedy-looking plant doesn't look too different from another.

But there's a ball of them that looks a little more together than the rest. Like somebody wove it.

Like a picnic basket.

The chill sinks lower into Curtis' gut, washing through his arm and chest. Slowly, he sinks to a crouch next to the ruined basket, reaching out to touch what used to be its handle.

Dejah puts a hand on his shoulder. "There's no blood. Whatever happened here, he was not injured. But Curtis, look at these. These look like thoat tracks to me. If I had to read the ground here, I'd say he was knee deep in the mud here," she pointed to a soupier bit of the muck.

There's more disturbance in the mud a few feet away, and she points again, "And something tried to trample him. Something large. But something small -- a juvenile thoat? Issus this is strange. It looks like a juvenile thoat stood between a prone Edgar and a larger thoat. And then they both ran that way."

That way being where Woola is standing in the grass, his nose lifted. A moment later he comes back to Dejah, a decidedly dejected look on his face.

This close to the lake, he thinks, no blood might not mean much. The water eases back and forth over the shoreline all the time -- it'd be easy to wash the blood clean.

But if some tracks are stil intact, maybe it hasn't been that long.

And did she say --

"Thoat tracks?" He looks up, shock and worry parting under the sharpness of his gaze. If she's surprised to see them, and there's only one other Barsoomian who could've brought some kind of native Martian animal to Milliways -- "Does Tars keep any here?"

If Tars did anything to Edgar, Curtis will fucking end him.

Dejah shakes her head with a dry laugh. "He is a Jeddak, not a thoat master. He rides one, and I've seen it tied outside the stables before. But that doesn't explain the little one. Here. And here."

She's pointing to the clear marks in the dark soil above the bank. "I may not have been hunting for many moons, Curtis Everett, but I can still read sign. Especially in ground this soft and wet. Whatever happened here, Edgar got away unscathed."

And then disappeared, if that woeful look on Woola's face is anything to go by.

Curtis lets out a long, long sigh, plants his hand in the mud, and heaves himself back up. Edgar isn't hurt. Wherever he is, he isn't hurt. He's just...going to have to be grateful for that, for now.

He scrubs his muddy palm against the top of his thigh, cleaning off as much of the gunk as he can, and doesn't look at Dejah.

"Hey," she touches his arm, fingers light as a feather.

"We'll find him. You've said it to me time and time again. This place is strange beyond the kenning of it. And Edgar is a warrior in his own right. If he has been taken captive, you should pity whoever made that poor decision."

Several beats go by.

Then, the side of Curtis' mouth rises. "He'll rip 'em a fucking new one," he agrees.

"Absolutely," Dejah smiles at him, her own expression far more subdued. She's never seen him so worried.

Woola came over to Curtis's side and gave a sympathetic growl. It's very clear, he's up for kicking whoever's ass is responsible for this.

"Come on. Waiting out here won't do us any good. Let's go back to your room, and I'll leave a note for bar to keep an eye out for him."

Curtis' smile, though still faint, evens out. He offers his hand to Woola.

"...You think we could check the infirmary again first?"

He's telling himself, as firmly as possible, that there's no point to doing another sweep outside if Woola didn't turn up anything. Inside? That's another matter. In his head, inside and outside still don't quite connect; they feel as far apart as Earth and Barsoom.

Woola awkwardly nudges his broad brow under Curtis's hand, still rumbling his disapproval of whatever has his charges so upset.

"Woola, inside. Garage. Library. Everywhere."

Woola's face screws up in confusion.

"Go!" Dejah's voice takes on that hard edge again.

Woola gives Dejah a short gruff sound and disappears, heading back to the bar.

Dejah turns back to Curtis. "Yes, we can stop by the infirmary. Have you eaten yet this morning?"

Curtis hesitates. Uncertain, "I think I did?"

He must have, somewhere in there. Right? He doesn't feel hungry, anyway, so it's not like it matters.

Dejah's chin drops and her eyebrows rise.

"You need to eat, love. Come on. Let's get something from the bar. I can leave a note with the bar and then check in with Woola while you eat. But you need to eat."

"I'm not hungry." He scrubs his hand over his hat, trying not to scowl. "I'm fine. Can we not do this now?"

She sighs and gives him a long look. "All right," she says, quiet. "But when you're a bastard later, I'm going to lock you in a room with a sandwich."

She tries for a bit of lightness. Something to break the dark spiral she can see him slipping into. She offers her hand to him, blue eyes searching his face for -- something.

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