Out of the Shadows: Part Two

     A week after their encounter with the possibly mutated Acara, Maijitesa and Meseni returned to the Haunted Woods. They checked in with Mephaira, who invited them to supper at her house. "Find Ticherai and invite him too," she said. "I haven't seen him in a few days."

     Knowing that this meant "find him, I'm worried about him," Maijitesa nodded and promised to bring Ticherai back for supper. Mephaira stood in her doorway and watched as they departed; Maijitesa could feel her eyes on his back. Sometimes Mephaira knew things, though she had never outwardly mentioned being able to see the future. She mostly called them “feelings.” He wondered if she'd had a “feeling” about Ticherai.

     Ticherai had many nests, scattered in different areas of the Haunted Woods, and he could be in any one of them. There was no rhyme or reason to which nest Ticherai preferred at any given time, at least none that Maijitesa had ever been able to determine. The best way to find him, Maijitesa thought, would be to search methodically, starting at the nest closest to Mephaira's shack and working outwards from there.

     The closest was also his most-often used nest, and the place where Maijitesa had first encountered him all those months ago. It was a bower hidden deep in the trees, the nest itself lined with feathers, grasses, and bits of fur and fluff from who knew where (Maijitesa preferred not to think about it). Ticherai wasn't in residence, but Maijitesa saw no cause for alarm. There were other places to look. He had other nests...

     ...he was in none of them.

     Maijitesa stood outside the last nest and frowned up at the canopy. Now he was beginning to worry a little. "Perhaps he has a nest we don't know about," he said to Meseni as they began walking again. “The Haunted Woods is a big place." He'd thought Ticherai had shown him all his nesting sites, but it was entirely possible that there was one the bird himself had forgotten. Ticherai could often be forgetful. Even Meseni seemed concerned, perched between Majitesa's ears, holding onto his horn with one arm and shielding his eyes with the other paw as he looked around the forest.

     They searched for hours, carefully walking the narrow paths through the trees and searching for any sign of the Lenny. As the sun began to set, and just as Maijitesa had decided to go back to Mephaira's to see if Ticherai had perhaps made his way there on his own, Meseni squeaked in alarm from atop his head. Maijitesa froze, one hoof half lifted off the ground.

     Meseni jumped right off Maijitesa's head, using his horn to push off and fluttering his tiny wings madly to slow his descent to the ground. Once there, he rushed into the underbrush and emerged with a feather. It was brownish gray in color and unmistakably one of Ticherai's tail feathers. He held the feather out toward Maijitesa, both paws clasped around it, eyes wide with alarm.

     "Were there any more? Or just that one?" Maijitesa asked. If the bird had actually been attacked, there would be more feathers scattered about. Maijitesa leaned down and sniffed the proffered feather delicately. It smelled strongly of Ticherai's distinctive acrid odor, and only faintly of the earthy scent of the forest floor, which meant it was a recent loss and not one that had been shed some time ago.

     Meseni put the feather down and scurried back to where he'd found it. Maijitesa could hear him rummaging in the leaves, but after a few moments he came back empty-pawed. He picked the feather back up and held it tightly.

     "We mustn't get ahead of ourselves and worry needlessly," Maijitesa told him. "We'll find him. He could be fine, and if we panic we might miss something."

     Meseni gazed up at him for a moment, then looked down at the feather. He sniffed it as Maijitesa had done, then sniffed the ground at their feet. He walked a few steps forward, and sniffed again. He repeated this several times, pausing often to sniff the feather to catch the scent again. Maijitesa followed him at a few steps' distance, not wanting his own scent to confuse his petpet's senses. It would be slow going if they had to rely on Meseni's nose to lead them to Ticherai, but what other choice did they have? Maijitesa didn't think his own sense of smell was sensitive enough to find him with all the other smells of the Woods. Meseni, however, was lower to the ground and had quite a sensitive little nose. Maijitesa trusted him to find Ticherai, slow though their progress might be.

     It took perhaps another hour, as the sun slowly sank below the trees and twilight deepened the shadows beneath the trees. Suddenly, Meseni froze. He lifted his head, inhaling deeply, then took off into the underbrush once more. After a moment he came back, making urgent croaking noises. He danced around Maijitesa's hooves for a moment, then took off again. This time, Maijitesa followed.

     Ticherai lay between the roots of a large tree, panting raggedly. One wing hung limply, clearly broken. His legs and neck were covered with numerous bites and scratches. Maijitesa rushed to his side. "Ticherai!" he cried, but stopped short of actually touching his friend. He had to be in a lot of pain, and Maijitesa didn't want to risk making it worse by touching him.

     Ticherai looked up at him, and it seemed as though even just raising his head took all his remaining strength. "You came, Maijitesa," he whispered. "You came."

     "Of course I did, my friend.” He touched his muzzle to the top of Ticherai's head. “We would have scoured all of Neopia to find you. Just lie still. What happened?"

     "That... Acara," Ticherai gasped haltingly. "She... found me. Attacked."

     "She just attacked you? Unprovoked?"

     He nodded. "I didn't... do anything. She's so fast, Maijitesa. And strong. She hit me like a tornado. I never even saw her coming. My wing..."

     "Yes, I think it's broken. We have to get you to Mephaira. Can you stand?" He didn't really want Ticherai to try to move at all, but he didn't want to ask Mephaira to come all the way here. She was old, and they were far from her shack. He considered it luck that Ticherai hadn't forgotten himself and tried to fly or thrash about, injuring himself further.

     Ticherai swallowed and took a deep breath. "If you help me."

     "Of course." After a moment of consideration, Maijitesa went around to Ticherai's uninjured side and knelt down. Using Maijitesa as leverage, Ticherai slowly climbed to his feet. Once the Lenny was standing, Maijitesa once again slowly lowered himself to the ground. “Get on.”

     “Get on?” Ticherai was clearly confused. “You're going to let me ride you?”

     “Of course. What kind of friend would I be if I made you walk all the way to Mephaira's while injured? It is a considerable distance.”

     Ticherai hesitated for a moment, unsure how to proceed, but eventually just flopped himself, rather clumsily, across Maijitesa's back. It jarred his broken wing and he cried out, but Maijitesa stayed very still until his friend could situate himself. Then he straightened, very slowly. Ticherai's legs hung awkwardly on either side of Maijitesa's body and his broken wing hung limply, but Maijitesa hoped walking wouldn't jostle him too much.

     “This feels strange,” Ticherai said.

     Maijitesa chuckled. “For me too, my friend,” he agreed. “But you are hurt. It is better than walking. Just stay as still as you can.” He started moving, making his steps as slow and smooth as he could. Even so, he could tell the natural motion of his gait was uncomfortable. After a moment, he looked down at Meseni. "Meseni, this will take a while. Can you run to Mephaira's ahead of us so she knows we're coming?"

     Meseni nodded. He looked up at Ticherai and put a paw on one of the Lenny's talons. It will be all right, he seemed to say. He put Ticherai's lost feather in his mouth, no doubt to act as an aid in communicating their situation to Mephaira, dropped to all fours, turned and scampered away.

     What could have been going through the Acara's mind, to attack Ticherai without provocation? Maijitesa wondered as they began the slow, laborious trek toward Mephaira's shack. And where had she come from, anyway? If a dangerous creature like that had been living in the Woods all this time, all three of them would surely have known about it. Why did she look like she did? He knew of potions that could mutate pets as easily and effectively as that toxic pool, had that been what happened to her? There were too many questions, and far too few answers, and the only way to get them would be to speak to the Acara herself. Somehow, Maijitesa didn't see that happening.

     He could feel how tense Ticherai was, how labored his breathing. He had never seen his friend in so much pain, even after the clinging vines had burned away chunks of his feathers and lacerated the skin beneath. All he could do was walk as slowly as he could and try not to jostle him too much. They kept to the better-traveled paths through the forest, wider tracks with no overhanging branches or protruding roots. Ticherai was too focused on keeping still to speak, and Maijitesa kept his comments to the occasional encouraging murmur.

     After what seemed like a very long time, Maijitesa caught the smells and faint sounds of the Gypsy camp. It wouldn't be long until they reached Mephaira's shack.

To be continued...