Lost

His feet were dragged over sharp rock and sand; his arm hurt from where his captor held him, sharp talon-like nails digging into his flesh as he was pulled behind someone much taller than he.  He could feel some of the rocks sticking to the soles of his bare feet or stabbing into his rapidly callousing flesh.  

The temperature around him was radically different from what it had been.  Before, the weather was temperate, almost cool with a gentle breeze that carried the scent of wild-flowers to his nose.  Now, however it was hot and humid with a sharp, acrid stench that filled his lungs, making it difficult to breathe.

His was a world of complex senses, heightened beyond what would be considered normal in order to compensate for the lack of one.  His ears heard the kickback of echo from those that spoke around him – two distinct voices, both male.  His skin was slick with sweat from the heat, yet the rock beneath his feet, while sharp and painful, was surprisingly cool, creating a strange dichotomy to his young mind.

"Have you completely lost your mind?" one of his captors hissed in a stiff, low voice.  Each syllable echoed back to his small ears like whispers on the wind as he tried desperately to keep up so he would not be drug over the stone.  "You know you don't have the knowledge yet to attempt what you're about to do.  What happens if you fail?"

"Then we try again later," a second voice replied, this one more baritone yet softer somehow.  "Learn by doing, Tobias; learn by doing."  

"Then you will learn without my assistance," the one named Tobias answered.  "I will not take part in your absurd experimentation.  This is beyond the scope of mere study and you know it."

He suddenly felt panic rise in his throat; something that wafted over him in a subtle wave though its source remained elusive.   He could feel excitement and a thrill of fear from the one that held so painfully to his small arm; concern and jealousy from the one named Tobias.  But, those feelings only served to confuse him further, adding to his own fears and worries.  

"You worry too much, Tobias," his captor said almost whimsically.

"And you not enough," Tobias answered.  "You work alone on this one.  Try not to kill the boy - - or the rest of us."

A loud pop was the only sign that the other had gone, leaving a vacant spot in the air; a spot that seemed to tingle and sizzle with energies that were felt and smelled like the air after a lightning storm.  

Child…

"No…" he managed to croak out, his own voice barely a whisper to his ringing ears.  The panic he felt was suddenly understood.  It was not just his own but that of the beautiful Voice that spoke to him.  It feared for him, filled him with a sense of dread that only seemed to grow stronger the further he was taken through the cold stone corridor.

He suddenly had more fear for the Voice than he did for himself.  Something so brilliant and pure should not have to suffer with him but he had no way to convey that thought or emotion other than to add more fear to the growing, proverbial, pot.

We feel your fear.  Why?

He couldn't answer because he had no answer.  He had been taken from all that was familiar and thrown into a world full of grit and sand, stenches that made his nose wrinkle and sounds that made him weep with his hands over his ears.  The same sizzle on the air that he'd felt moments before, had brought him to this unknown location of acrid, stale air and humidity.  But the 'why' of it all had never been explained to him.

"S-stop…" he whimpered though he was unsure to whom he spoke – the Voice or his captor.  "S-stasi…"

"No whimpering out of you, boy," his captor grumbled.  It was then he felt himself swinging forward, barely having enough sense to put his small hands out before falling to the jagged floor beneath him.  There was a different kind of warmth that touched his face, something more soothing than the wretched humidity.  Sharp stones and rocks stabbed into his palms and knees, neither one working very well to keep him upright.  His stomach twisted in painful knots from hunger and thirst that he had tried to ignore.  His body, he realized, shook from a different kind of thirst that only his kind suffered.

Child…

"Please..." he whimpered again, feeling the sting of tears at the backs of his eyes.  The feelings of dread and worry grew stronger, making the tears roll down his gritty-feeling face.

"Quiet," his captor barked.  The words he heard shifted from harsh commands to an almost gentle crooning though it was not directed at him.  The worry and fear that filled him tripled in intensity, making his head hurt and stomach turn with nausea.  The soothing warmth turned, slowly, to agonizing heat that burned his face and arms.

Child!!

"No!" he cried, his chest wracked with sobs and heaving breaths as the fear turned to pain, the pain to anger that slowly boiled until it consumed everything, twisting it to something ugly and horrible – twisting him to match; forcing him to share its pain.


* * *

"Jaysen!!"

The name echoed through the small forest that surrounded their village, each one of the search party calling out for the lost boy.  Guilt filled the air, exuding from every person that called for the young child they had all ignored.

"Jaysen!!"

There was no answer, no sign, no hint of where the boy had gone.  His inadequacies made it almost impossible for him to wander too far, yet not even the large hounds they kept at their side could find trace of him.  While none would voice it, every single member of the search party wondered if it was really necessary to treat the small child as a stain upon their village as they had been doing.  If they had, perhaps, simply allowed him to exist among them as the other children did, as part of the community, would they be searching with guilt-filled hearts and worry-filled minds?

His birth had marked a dark time in their society for he was not the only one born with inadequacies during that summer's Period of Creation.  The others, sadly, had passed mere hours after their births, their bodies too weak to sustain the life they should have been blessed with.  Jaysen, alone had survived - - a living reminder of such a terrible omen to have befallen them.
He had been cast aside as a result; shunned and almost hated for things that were out of his control.  His sire was banished and his mother forced to care for him alone outside of the traditions of their people until her unfortunate – but not unexpected – death.   The horrors of the Terrible Births had yet to reveal themselves but everyone knew they were coming, making them all pretend that if they ignored the boy, they could circumvent what would eventually come to them.

"Pallas! Here!!"

The attention of the group was called to the voice that shouted into the air.  That was how they lived, how they moved – as a group.  Pallas moved with the others, stepping lightly and swiftly over the moss-covered ground.  He sent his prayers to the Trinity and the Avae to protect the child they had lost, to let the concern in the voice that had called to him be nothing more than emotional disturbance caused by exhaustion.

But the closer he got, the more certain he was that this was not anything the gods would be able to fix – the start of the horrors they had all been dreading for years.  Blood stained the green verdure of the forest floor in a bright crimson that was still slick and fresh.  The large hounds that coexisted with them crooned painfully around them, each of them stopping to mourn the loss of one of their own, not barely more than a cub.

"Jaysen?" Pallas asked as he knelt carefully beside the corpse of the fallen, this time sending his thoughts along to the Avae that the creature's soul might find its way to Azrus, the Harbinger, for guidance to the afterlife.  

"Only his staff," Ligeia answered sadly, her pale skin reflecting the fading light of the sun in soft shimmers.  He noticed, then, how her white hair fell over her left eye; noticed the discoloring of it.  Guilt hit him two-fold then.  Other inadequacies existed within their society.  Why, then, were Jaysen's treated so harshly?  Because of an unforeseen omen?  Because of ancient fears rooted deep into their very souls?

But he could not find the words to voice his questions, holding the small wooden staff lightly in his own hands.  He could feel the same guilt from the others followed by something else he was not expecting – relief.  They had given up, accepting the boy for dead along with the poor cub that had died protecting him and hoping that, finally, the lingering gloom around their people would dissipate.

Regardless of what the truth may have been, their search was now over and Jaysen would be forgotten, forever lost to the mercy of the gods.