As Nate trudged his way past the pond, his blood ran cold. No cattails. It wasn't the same pond. Which meant he was lost. Oh so very lost. Which way to Syliras? He didn't know. It had always been his sisters that were good at navigation, they teased he could get lost turning in a circle. Hey, circles were hard, OK? Besides, you get dizzy turning in circles. Not a fair test.
Anyway, he needed to find something to lead him home. Fortunately, he wasn't too far from Syliras, he was quite sure. He'd been mostly traveling parallel to the tree-line, so he wasn't going deeper into the forest so much as traveling along it. If he could find that first pond again, Nate was sure he could work his way back home from there, but he had no idea how to get there. Ooooh, this was bad. This was quite bad. No idea where he was, no pelt to bring home, and to top it all off he was getting hungry. Eating weeds and pollen wasn't exactly the makings of a good meal.
As Nate continued to wander, his ears picked up the gurgling of running water. Good! Running water was good. Running water always ran downhill, if he could find this stream he should be able to follow it out of the woods. Once outside he could then follow the treeline toward Syliras... assuming he was following it toward the citadel city and not away from it. Which knowing his luck, he probably would be.
Nonetheless, Nate followed his ears, and soon discovered the gurgling brook that had generated the sound he'd been hearing. The water danced and jumped over small rocks and gullies but the stream itself seemed fairly small, barely ten feet across. Nonetheless it was moving right-to-left at a fairly decent clip, and so Nate followed it downstream to see where it would lead.
As he followed the stream, Nate noticed that it seemed to be getting wider, and after about thirty chimes the "stream" had joined a few other streams that had flowed from different parts of the forest to form a much bigger flow of water. Not quite a river, but certainly not a stream anymore. Nate shrugged; this was good, right? Meant he was getting closer to the tree line.
Following the water a bit further down, Nate paused abruptly as he saw something he did not want to see. Rapids. Rapids that had what looked to be sharp stones and large sticks lying about, and the water foamed as it wound its way back and forth between them in a zig-zag pattern. It fortunately was not a waterfall, or Nate would have had to scream at Lhex for his twisted humor, but nonetheless the rapids posed a problem.
Did he try to climb down? Or did he try to go around? Going around was certainly the safer option, but also much, much slower. And he didn't even know if he could find his way back from wherever "around" would take him. So he got on his hands and knees, turned around, and backed his way down the small ledge.
It was a dangerous thing, what he was doing, and Nate was well-aware the slightest slip would have him tumbling down headfirst into the foamy water, where he would likely bash his head against one of the many rocks underneath and either get some very nasty cuts he couldn't treat other than to bandage and hope for the best, or else bash his skull open and just flat-out die. His heart began beating quickly, as he clambered down, and the gravel shifted beneath his feet.
He took another step forward and the entire rock beneath him slipped as it slid across the rock underneath it, the two were not connected as the running water had made it slick and Nate found himself struggling to stay upright, arms circling as he fell backward, feeling a sharp pain in his left arm as it fell onto some rocks and tore open the skin. Swearing, Nate lay on the cold stones for a few ticks, just absorbing what a huge mistake he'd made. He was not Lea, he had no idea how to climb. Instead of saving time, he'd injured himself. Lovely. This was just the best day.
