Desert Foundling [Maatija]

[Jenn]

Maatija’s Initiation Challenge

Some humans don’t take the idea of being stuck here on Izarn very well. The days are so different and everything is strange. One human, a young woman named Cecilia, ran off just the other day. We don’t expect she’s gone far, but she may be in danger. We need you, Maatija, to find her and bring her back to the guild. She’ll probably be quite upset, so expect to need to console her.

OoC Requirements: This challenge should be done in the form of short story, and should be posted in the Journal Entry board. It needs to be 1000 words minimum, and contain the following information:
- Cecelia was trying to escape, and had started to wander toward the desert.
- Cecelia is going to be very emotional and upset, and will need a soft hand to convince her to return to the guild.
- Cecelia is only 16, and has already had a bad run in with the euclides. She is branded and currently has a broken arm.
- Cecelia had a very loving family back on earth, including her very beloved little sister, which she wants nothing more than to return to.
- Please leave the ending of the entry open. Rather than describing the actual return to the guild, state something along the lines of “Maatija then made his way back to the guild, hopefully with Cecilia in tow.”

Word Count: 2304



"Henis," Maati greeted his old friend with a smile. Neck extending down, he brushed cheeks with the jackal. "I had a great deal to consider before formally committing myself to a guild. A few loose ends to tie up, things like that. But you know I wouldn't have the heart to join any other guild, not when I'm so needed here. Your crew always puts my abilities to best use."

His eyes strayed to the east ward, where the sounds of breakfast and the smells of humans reassured him that all was well. As well as it could be. "And you... well. You know I can't stay away. Not from them." Sometimes he thought he needed the unique, fragile creatures as much as they needed him.

Returning his attention to the guild master, he listened as the man explained the latest complication and his initiation quest. His expression fell slightly. "Cecilia... isn't she one of the young ones? Straight from Earth, too, isn't she? More recently?"

If he was remembering the same girl, he had been present for her arrival some eight months ago. They called him in because she arrived with a small group of three others, all found in the same place. Unrelated, unfortunately for them, but they had been protecting one another. One of the men had nearly lost a leg.

He remembered wide brown eyes, a dirt-smudged face, and little else. Doubtless she had changed. Hopefully she had changed.

"Of course... yes, yes, of course. I'll be back with her, hopefully quite soon. Thank you, Henis. Do you have any idea which route she took out of the city?"

He listened, gathering as much as the jackal knew. Then, saying his farewell and casting one last look back towards the direction of the santuary, Maatija left in search of the runaway.

---

Yes, people in the city remembered seeing a human trying to sneak through the streets. The girl may have wanted to remain hidden, but she hadn't developed the natural aptitudes for stealth and the shape of her figure was quite noticeable. She didn't behave like a normal person. If anything, she had the shape-change ability and she'd done something wrong. The old canine who offered the most useful information hadn't been especially surprised to find out that she was a true human after all.

Now he ventured into the Sedani Desert to continue his search, not best pleased that she had made it this far and worried for her well-being. This wasn't the sort of environment for anyone to tackle lightly, not without enough provisions and preparation to last.

She probably didn't even know the extent of the predators that wandered the dunes, and that scared him even more. He didn't travel the desert lightly, and he carried with him some measure of natural defenses to protect him. This girl had less than nothing, with her delicate human skin and her unfamiliarity with the world.

Casting about somewhat aimlessly at first, he managed to pick up scraps of a trail that guided him in the general direction she must have traveled. First was a scarf, fallen carelessly to the ground. Then came the smell, assaulting his nose and stopping him in his tracks.

He knew that smell. It smelled like burning. Like charred, burning... flesh.

Stomach twisting in sudden fear, he increased his pace and headed in the direction of the smell. He moved quickly but did not abandon caution - whatever had caused that smell would likely still be in the area. Luckily for him, he did not run into them. Unluckily for Cecilia, she had.

A human sandal and several torn segments of cloth littered the ground at the base of a small, rocky outcropping. The reddish soil was stained redder still in one place and he stared in mild horror at the remnants of what looked to be a campfire.

Had the girl moved towards the fire, hoping to find a meal and someplace to stay the night? Could she really have expected a friendly welcome?

But he couldn't forget... she was young. Inexperienced. Likely still very unfamiliar with the ways of Euclide and their attitudes towards humans as an amusement and a food source. He couldn't see any remnant bones, but that meant little with some of the kinds of teeth and jaws they possessed.

She looked to have gotten away. He could see a trail of broken bracken leading out, back towards the barren, featureless desert. He followed the trail several dozen yards until it disappeared and then stared out at the vast expanse of sand, his hopes for a clean retrieval flickering like a timid candle. How badly was she injured? Had the Euclide simply grown bored with her, or were they actively hunting her?

He walked on for another hour in the direction that made the most sense to him, encouraged by small signs that he was moving along the same path. Seeing another roughened patch of sand protected temporarily from the wind worried him, and when he found the girl's canteen sitting amidst the sand, still half-full, he couldn't stop the wretched feeling in his gut.

There was no way she could survive without water. Not here. He had to find her soon.

---

The setting of the alien sun cast weird shadows across the sands, an earlier day than she would be used to even yet. At least the Murdons had blessed them with something akin to normalcy in the lights that would rise not long after the sun had set, prolonging the day for several more hours before at last succumbing to night.

It was another rocky patch where he found her, tucked into what may have passed for shelter beneath a rough stone outcropping. Her strange shape had at first put him in mind of a Euclides and he had moved slowly, watching for movement. When it became clear what he was seeing, a sense of profound relief washed over him. She didn't even realize what sorts of things lived in those little shelters, did she, the stinging insects and the poisonous snakes? He loped slowly foreward, grateful when the ground changed from the uneven footing of a dune to the much more stable and hard-packed red earth.

Her head snapped up when she heard his hoofbeats, body subconsciously tucking further into itself in fear and a horrified sob ripping its way out of her throat. The action caused her to wince in agony and he stopped a good distance away, trying to assess her condition from a distance.

Much was hidden beneath the remnants of her clothing. The 'burned flesh' smell lingered lightly in the air, turning his stomach. He took a careful step forward and she flinched back, causing him to stop once again.

Slowly, he lowered himself to the ground and forced himself to relax. Dark eyes regarded him with a haze of fear, wariness, and pain through a curtain of tangled brown hair. After a moment, he could see the recognition flash across her face. Also the hope.

"Cecilia."

Hearing her name brought up another small sob. She rubbed the edges of her eye with one dirty forearm, smearing more sand and red earth across her face than had been there before. Not too dissimilar to when he'd first seen her, then, was she? The poor thing.

After another moment, she slowly began to uncurl as hope won out over fear. She crawled foreward out of her shelter, pain making her movements slow. He noted that she kept one of her arms out and away from the ground and she rose with some difficulty. She stood, using the rock as a brace, and stared at him for a moment in silence.

He remained still, watching her, expression soft. Whether she knew well enough how to read his expression he didn't know, but humans could be delicate creatures and often picked up on intent when they were at their most stressed.

This seemed to be what she needed. "You're the unicorn from the city." With a small whimper escaping her parched lips, she stepped away from the rock and staggered in his direction. He very carefully didn't move until she had come close enough to reach out a timid hand and brush it against his cheek.

He leaned his head into her touch and smiled. "Yes, I am. You can call me Maati, if you'd like. I came here to find you. I was worried about you. Would you like a drink of water?" She nodded hesitantly. "I found your canteen a little earlier. It's right at the top of my pack, if you'd like to retrieve it. The clasp is just a simple toggle."

The child mumbled a thank you and moved to gingerly unfasten the pouch one-handed, the fingers of her right hand trembling while the left remained at an awkward angle. It looked broken, if he was any judge. After she had struggled with the clasp, she managed to get the top off of her water and had a long, greedy drink before taking a grateful breath and putting the top back in place. Then she set it back down on the ground.

"May I see your arm?" he asked in a slightly worried tone, his voice making her jump. Poor thing would probably be spooked for a while yet, wouldn't she? "You know I'm a healer. That looks like it hurts. I could help, if you'd let me?"

"O- okay. Yes. Please." She nodded and turned her body so that the injured limb faced him. With an inclination of his head, he slowly lowered his horn until the tip pressed against her arm. At the same moment as it pricked her skin, she gasped and her eyes widened. Her expression became more alert, her eyes no longer dulled with pain, and the bones of her arm seamlessly re-knit themselves. At the same time, the branded wound he could now see exposed on her side disappeared, replaced by a patch of flawless skin. Burns from a day of relentless sunlight and scorching winds smoothed away as though they'd never been.

She stared at her arm in wonder, and then back up at him. "Oh... oh, thank you. Thank you!" She leaned forward, one hand reaching out to his neck for balance, and pressed her face carefully into his mane. At the same time, he wrapped his head around so that his cheek rested against her back, neck pressing her closer.

Then she cried.

In amongst the wracking sobs and the gasps for breath, he made out some measure of her story. She hated this place, with all its strangeness and its alien landscape. She didn't know any of these people. She wanted to go home, to her family and especially to her sister, who would all be worried sick for her and wondering if she ran away with someone or was kidnapped or who knew what else. She didn't want to live in a world with monsters who would torture her and looked like talking animals. She wanted to go home.

He remained quiet and still while she cried, tears and snot and spit soaking into his fur. He would need a proper bath later and he couldn't have cared less. The sympathy he felt for this young girl overwhelmed him.

After she had quieted, she mumbled an apology into his neck. He let out a quiet snort, the air whuffing gently out of his nostrils and blowing at a bit of her hair. Embarrassed, she sunk lower against him and kept her face pressed into his shoulder. He left his head and neck around her, the position awkward for him but the closest he could manage to the embrace of a family she desperately missed while in his natural form. Horse-shaped unicorns always seemed best when handling humans. The side of his jaw rested on her shoulder.

"Cecilia... I'm sorry. I am sorry that I can't give you what you want. Your family likely misses you as much as you miss them. If I could send you back to Earth on the next Murdon ship, please believe me that I would do that. Any of the Searchers would. We love your people and we love you, Cecilia. That's why we try to help you. It's why we do what we do. We want, more than anything, to see you happy. But we can't work miracles, and the Murdon can be very difficult creatures to understand. The Euclide even more so."

He felt her stiffen at the word 'Euclide', her fingers tightening in the strands of his mane she still clung to. It hurt, but only a little.

"I'm guessing they're what found you. We try to keep them out of Eneis as best we can, but the deserts keep their own counsel and we can only do so much. We've made the places in our city safe for you, so that you can stay there without fear and try to move on with your life here as best you can. It is unlikely that we will ever receive the opportunity to return you to your old life. Your family. But you can keep them with you in your heart, Cecilia, and maybe someday things will change. In the meantime... will you please come back with me? To the sanctuary? Master Henis was worried for you - it was why he sent me in the first place, for fear you may have run to the desert."

She turned slowly to look up at him, her eyes still bright with unshed tears and her expression one of grief. His heart broke for her. Still, he smiled and pulled his head back enough to regard her more fully.

"Cecilia... have you ever ridden a unicorn?"