Lost

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 2nd March 2014

Characters: Vell
Description: Vell is lost in the jungle
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 5, day 9 of Turn 7
Notes: Follows Bandits!

Can't go back.

Can't go back.

The thought circled in Vell's brain like a trapped, frightened snake, endlessly looping around itself into coils and knots until it ate its own tail.

Can't go back.

The day was approaching noon and she was drenched with sweat. The stream bed was rough to walk on, a treacherous maze of shifting sand, loose gravel, and stones and roots to trip over. Insects buzzed around her head and nipped at salty skin. Around her the jungle was dead silent. A mass of impenetrable greenery and thorns, studded with silent eyes that watched her pass. Her skin crawled.

Those men-- Holdless, undoubtedly. Every footfall that echoed made her jump, sure that they'd followed her. But they hadn't-- they hadn't had runners, only their feet and arms and horrible faces. They would have-- Vell didn't want to think about what they would have done to her.

The jungle was almost steaming. It was so much hotter here, even though she was only a week's ride from her mountain home. A little over a week. Why was it taking so long? By her calculations she should be at the Sea of Azov already, finding a ship to take her across. She was lost. Lost even before the bandits had chased her into the jungle.

The way back to the road was to follow the stream-- **Can't go back.**

The jungle was too dense to force her way through. And full of thorns and snakes and felines and who knew what else. And that was assuming that she knew her way-- Vell didn't even know what direction she was heading in now. She stopped to squint at the sun, which was nearly overhead. **South,** she thought after a moment. South, when she ought to be going north, or north-east, really. There was a curve in the stream up ahead, but she was fairly certain that her makeshift path would curve south again soon enough.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Tears stung her eyes and she let them fall. There was no one here to see her. She was lost in the jungle and no one would ever hear from her again. Lost looking for her missing husband. **He'll be sorry,** she thought bitterly. **He'll never forgive himself for driving me to extremes to find him, because we're in love. If he loves me, why did he let me do this!?**

**I want to go home.** The tears started falling faster, until Vell had to stop and sit on a rock to bawl. Home-- if only her father were here! Or her brother. But they'd never forgive her for running away. They'd never understand. She'd abandoned her family to find her husband and now she'd been attacked by bandits and was lost in the jungle. Loneliness and guilt and fear and anger tore at her insides and left her breathless. She was utterly, completely, irreversibly alone, and was going to die.

She was going to die.

Itch nudged her shoulder. Vell reached out to rub the runner's nose. He was looking at her comfortingly, as if to say, "I'm here too."

"I'm sorry I got you into this mess," she said through sobs. "It's not fair to you! This is all Yarron's fault! Why didn't he come back to me, Itch? Why did he leave me? And now we're going to die here!"

Eventually her tears dried, and Vell was left sitting on a rock, wrung out and shaking. She felt bruised and scared and alone, but somehow... better. She scrubbed at her wet cheeks and her snotty nose with the back of her hand, then stood. "All right Itch," she said quietly. "I got you into this, I'm going to get you out of it." It was her fault that Itch was lost too. She was responsible for him.

Her stomach rumbled, so she dug the last of the dried mutton that Lembe and Fimma had pressed into her hands. This was the last of her food. Her thirst she slacked in the trickle of a stream, crouching on her hands and knees to suck up the water like an animal. **Yarron would be horrified,** she thought as she drank. So much for the Holder girl he'd married. Travel was turning her into a savage, drinking like a wild thing and fighting off bandits with nothing more than an arrow.

There was no going back-- not back down the stream, not to being the girl she'd been when she'd left her father's Holding. She splashed water on her face to erase the last of her crying jag, and the cool water felt amazing against her flushed skin.

She stood. "All right, Itch," she said to her runner. "Let's go."

They could only keep going.

Last updated on the March 15th 2014

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Lost