Voting Open: Round 9A - Scavenger Hunt

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Voting Rules:
~* You can only vote with one LiveJournal account.
~* Do not vote for yourself.
~* Please reply to this thread with your votes.
~* No special category this week.

Deadline: March 17, 2010 @ 6:00 pm EST

Wide Open Spaces (DG, Arthur, and Cain; PG)
DG parked the bike off the flattened trail through the grass and lifted her goggles. The golden grass swayed in the morning breezes as the suns reached over the Great Kells. Not another soul in sight and she sighed in contentment. She spread the blanket over the grass with Arthur’s toys before lifting her nine-month-old son out of the sidecar. Arthur babbled and tugged the goggles on her forehead. She handed them over after she set him down. “Mommy’s toys are more fun than yours.”

Arthur waved the goggles and then held them over his crystal blue eyes.

“You are styling, Junior, yes you are.” She pulled her art supplies out of the bike’s saddlebags. “Auntie Az wants a painting of the Great Kells. Today’s a good day. Not a cloud around for miles. That’s sort of the same as spans.” She aimed the time loop projector to record the mountains while she sketched on the canvas.

Arthur pulled a toy drum between his legs and hit it while DG set up the easel and canvas.

"Your grandmother won't let you be a rock star. But if you're ready to go on tour, I won't tell her." She sang the lyrics she remembered from "All-star" by Smash Mouth along with his drumbeat. The soft pencil lines took the shape of the mountains.

He abandoned the drum. She glanced at him, but he just pulled on the grass stalks. "Sorry this is taking so long. But we want it to look good for Auntie Az. Besides, it's better than listening to Baroness Margolotte, right?" Her blue eyes narrowed at the mountains before she focused on the sketch again. She wanted to get where the plains met the trees right. “When Mommy was a little girl on the Other Side, there was an artist with a how-to-paint show on public television. He could paint a mountain in an hour with just a spatula. I tried it once, but I ruined your Grandma Emily's best cake spatula. She wouldn't let me paint for a whole month." DG laughed and glanced at Arthur.

The blanket was empty.

The pencil dropped from her hand as she scanned the golden grass. No dark hair mingled with them. No crushed blades showing where he had crawled. "Arthur!" He didn't cry back. DG had finally proved everyone who said they needed a nanny to raise their son right. "Arthur Henry Cain!" She plunged into the grass, fanning out from the blanket. Arthur was a fast crawler, but this wasn't the smooth floors in Kiamoko. He couldn't have gone far.

Maybe bringing a guard along wasn't a waste of manpower. Sitting on her kid could be added to their job descriptions. And it would make her paranoid Tin Man happy too.

No one had snatched Arthur. She would have noticed someone approaching. But there were animal predators and he could starve wandering the Grasslands because he was too short to be seen. DG inhaled to not cry. "Arthur!" It felt like the wind was snatching his name and flinging it far from her son's ears. "Arthur Henry Cain!"

The prairie remained silent. How the hell was she going to get a search party down here? Arthur was too little to make trouble-regardless of who his parents were. He should have done this when Wyatt was here and could track him down.

"Arthur!" The ground ahead of her dipped away, forming a bowl in the ground. At the bottom was her black-haired son surrounded by blue flowers. "Arthur!"

He looked up with wide eyes. "Mama! He held a dimpled fist full of flowers in her direction. She hadn't realized how hard her heart was pounding until she saw his smile.

She slid down the grassy sides of the depression that reached up over her head and hugged him. He was fine. Her knees weakened so she sat before she fell. "I never thought putting kids on leashes was a good idea, but Junior, you are making me rethink that."

Arthur jammed the flowers under her nose.

"DG! Where did you go?" She craned her neck. Wyatt reined in his horse and dismounted. His look of relief disappeared into one of concern. "Is Arthur hurt?"

"He's fine. But what are you doing here? I thought they needed you at the tunnel."

Wyatt eased down the side of the depression more gracefully than she had. "Got word that they figured out how to get along and didn't need me. Then Franklin sent a message saying Kiamoko had been invaded by a Baroness who made my wife retreat. So I headed back." Arthur squirmed in DG's hold and she released him. He tottered on his feet straight to his father, holding out the flowers. "Well look at that." Wyatt scooped Arthur into the air, while he shrieked happily.

"He's walking." DG grinned. "So that's how he got over here so fast."

"DG, you didn't misplace our son, did you?"

"I didn't misplace him. He relocated himself." She brushed off her pants as she stood. "Can we go home and shock the Baroness with my motorbike and then leave her out of the family celebration?"

Wyatt made sure she climbed out of the depression first. "Something tells me I'm going to like throwing this one down the mountain," he said with a smirk.

Seek And Ye Shall... (DG; PG)
The days in Finaqua were eternal ones. The whir of grasshoppers in the fields could extend for hours, one long and endless hum; the faint redolence of the marshes past the maze could linger in the meadows on the stillest afternoon while DG lay, slowly turning herself into a suns-baked husk.

She stayed here because she could stretch out in the high, dry grasses and hide. While she hid, she drew. On her stomach with the suns beating down on her back, she chronicled the days as she saw them, watching through clear-sky eyes; Cain's pattern of brood and prowl, her sister's slow opening, her parents' delicate moth-wing romance, and Glitch's small rediscoveries of himself. It was the latter that intrigued her most, filled her pages.

She tried to capture it with stark black pencil, that glow he would carry in his eyes when he managed to hold onto a memory long enough to seek her out, that beautiful clarity in his features instead of bemused complacency.

It was never anything particularly illuminating; the damage was unrepairable and permanent, no way getting around it, so why worry? Don't look so sad, DG, I'm not...

Really.

One afternoon, months after this first, heartbreaking news, DG pulled herself up from the ground, leaving her impression in the meadow grass. It was a slow and aimless walk back to the palace, the kind that Glitch specialized in. She practised alone so that with him, she never interrupted, never grew bored or impatient.

She took a path that wound its lazy way around the lake, sweeping toward the gazebo as most paths around the lake and woods seemed to do. She walked carefully, watching the ground for the smooth, round stones she and her sister had once upon a time coveted. She might have missed the most perfect stone anyway, distracted and off in thought as she was... until there! Gleaming in the dirt, not a stone, but a...

“Hmm,” DG said, bending to pick up the glass disc. It caught the waning afternoon light, tossing prismatic beams into her eyes.

She knew it took magic to sear memories into the glass discs, the kind of alchemic mastery of microcosms that could be achieved through study and sacrifice. Holding it up to the light revealed no secrets. She wondered if her natural magic would allow her to read it, this bit of science and magic fired into one.

She closed her eyes and levelled her breathing. It was almost instantaneous, a loud rush in her ears and her mind was overtaken by the memory of another. She was thrown into a sepia-toned world where the focus was softer, the light dimmer, the sounds quieted.

“You shouldn't draw so much attention to yourself,” a dark and serious boy said. He was laying on his back on the gazebo floor, his hands behind his head and his gangly legs stretched out. On the swing sat a girl, dark hair braided down her back. Neither could have been more than twelve. “It reflects badly on you, you know.”

The girl laughed, unconcerned. “What care you for how I seem to others?”

The memory released her, and DG was left gasping for air. She turned and stared hard at the gazebo, as unassuming as it ever was, its view unchanged since the restoration of Finaqua. The swing had been rehung since then, and she was reminded of the girl perched on it, and the boy completely trusting as she swung back and forth over his head. Her long skirt had brushed over his chest.

DG shook her head, pocketed the disc, and carried her sketchbook back to the palace.

Three days later, she found the second disc completely by accident; her heart leapt to see it half-buried in the silted lake bottom, where the shore was overgrown with bright purple marsh lilies.

“I know this colour,” the boy said, wading in with pants rolled to the knee. The aged light of the memory made him pale. He plucked the marsh lily and held it up to the girl.

After this, DG began to keep an eye out for the vibrant catches of light that signalled another lost piece of the tale. She would find them in the most beautiful, if not most remote, corners of the estate; places often haunted with memories of herself and Az as girls. She would spend whole days with her eyes trained to the ground; when she caught hell later on from her mother or Cain, her mind would be with the boy and girl. Always her mind went back to the gazebo, the lazy swing and the caress of her skirt.

The discs collected as weeks passed. Whether found in wood (“These trees are as ancient as the land we stand on.”), or field (“Five more minutes, please. Don't make me go back yet.”), or maze (“Don't be silly, the shrubbery is not laughing at you.”) the memories told a story of peace, adoration, and friendship. Something familiar called to DG, something that always brought her back to the gazebo.

She wandered there on days when all the searching through meadow and maze turned up nothing. The dull echo of her feet on the platform comforted her; the creak of the swing as it carried her weight lulled her. One afternoon, as the suns were sinking ever closer to the mountains, streaking the sky with blazes of colour, she gave herself a gentle push. She closed her eyes and leaned back, imagining a dark haired and quiet companion lounging beneath her...

Her eyes popped open as she stopped herself. She slid off the swing, to her knees on the platform. Without hesitation, she stretched out. The wood was warm against her back as she stared up first into the beams above, and then closer, at the smooth, white bottom of the swing. She ran her finger over the letters carved into the wood.

A + L

Lost, Found and Trouble Making Princess’s (Ensemble; G)
Dg stood up from where she was leaning over a trunk and stomped her foot like a child that had not gotten her way. Which wasn’t the truth since after begging; whining, complaining and finally moping her mother had given in, allowing her to return to the other side to retrieve her belongings.

“I know I freaking packed it.” She mumbled to herself and went back to searching inside the trunk.

She over the edge and began rummaging around inside it once again. When the queen, her mother had agreed to let her go back she gave her the one trunk, smiling she told her she could bring back anything that would fit inside. Dg started to argue that she couldn’t fit much of anything inside such a small trunk, but was stopped by her sister covering her mouth, pulling her out of the throne room before Dg could work up a stem and start arguing with her mother about the size of the trunk.

Once they were outside the room and on their way back to their own rooms “Listen for a moment” Az told her “Just take the trunk and go before she changes her mind.”

“But Az.” Dg started to say, Az stopped her by holding her hand up.

“Remember it’s bigger on the inside.” she replied before smiling and walking off leaving Dg standing there stumped. Now after the trip to the other side and back she knew what her sister had meant.

She had been careful to pack everything neatly, but the bumpy ride through the travel storm to come back had made that a waste of time. Half her body was swallowed up by the trunk the other half hanging out her legs kicking the air as she searched for the one item she knew she had packed. This is how her sister found her when she walked into Dg’s room when her sister had not answered her knocking. The sound that escaped the usually prim and proper princess caught Cain and Glitch’s attention where they had been talking.

She was laughing so hard she couldn’t answer the questions Cain was asking her and just pointed at what was causing her to laugh so hard, it took everything in the normally stoic tin man to not join Azkadellia and Glitch in their laughing fit, he rolled his eyes at them and walked over to pull Dg out of the trunk that was trying to swallow her whole.

“Princess you need a hand?” he asked leaning down to make sure she heard him.

“Nope” she answered “I know exactly what I am looking for I just can’t find it right now.”

“What exactly are you looking for?”

“I will tell you in just a minute cause I think I have it.” She answered “Woohoo!!” she exclaimed as she tried to pull herself out of the trunk.

Cain stood up and grabbed her around the waist pulling her out of the trunk. She blew hair out of her face that had fallen in the way and mumbled thanks to the tin man.

“What’s up with Ed and Shinza?” she asked

“Who” Cain questioned not knowing who she was talking about.

Dg rolled her eyes hating she had to explain everything “Az and Glitch.”

“I think it may have something to do with you trying to go swimming in the trunk there, you were going to tell me what you were looking for her.”

“Oh this” she exclaimed holding up a box “I knew I had packed it just couldn’t find it.”

“What exactly is it?” Cain asked as she walked over to her desk sitting the box down before opening it and pulling out what looked like a stick.

“Guess that explains you grabbing a stick to go after longcoats doll” Glitch said from beside her joining them because he was too curious about what she had.

Dg glared at him “I have so wanted to try this.” She said backing up putting distance between herself and the two men; she raised the stick around “Accio hat.” She said and watched as Cain’s precious fedora flew off his head into her hand.

“Oh my god” that actually worked she exclaimed placing the hat on her own head before grinning and taking off out the door before anybody could stop her.

A Place to Relax (Raw, Ahamo and DG; G)
Raw walked rather quickly down the hallway of the palace in Finaqua. The place was too big and made him feel uncomfortable. Due to how everyone was able to spread out, he couldn't hear their thoughts, which made him lonely. He'd become so used to having at least someone nearby that, on his own, Raw didn't know what to do with himself.

As the Viewer neared the Queen's study, he stopped at the doorway and listened for anyone before he leaned around to look inside the room. There was a calm feeling, but tense at the same time. It was an odd sensation for Raw, so he took the chance to peek around the opening. The Queen was sitting at a large, oak desk, reading over stacks and stacks of papers.

Raw leaned back, knowing that the woman was busy at work and needn't be bothered. Stepping back, Raw was back in the middle of the hallway and he continued on, as silent as he'd arrived. As he passed one of the libraries, Raw stopped short as he sensed joy. It was so sudden and sharp that he smiled and stepped back.

Glancing into the large, bright library, Raw was surprised to see that the feeling had come from Princess Azkadellia. There was an open book on the chair next to her, and Azkadellia was sitting sideways, learning forward as she flipped the pages. Raw smiled again and continued on his quest, knowing that the elder princess didn't need do be distracted, either.

Raw reached the grand staircase and eyed it apprehensively. Up or down, he wondered. There really was no reason for anyone to be upstairs, he decided - the suns were shining outside and it wasn't an hour for anyone to be sleeping - and chose to go down one level. Glitch had taken over one of the smaller studies and had been reading everything he could find, from the history of the Outer Zone to the documents the Sorceress had kept.

The former advisor was adamant that he was going to remember everything he'd forgotten, and then some. Raw approached the door, which was closed, and had raised his hand to knock when two sets of thoughts could be heard. Neither felt happy, he noted, but one was more from aggravation. As Cain hadn't been to visit in a while, Raw knew that Glitch was fighting with himself.

And Raw had learned that that was not a fight he should get involved in. Letting out a quiet but heavy sigh, Raw lowered his hand and stepped back from the door. Perhaps he would just have to suffer the loneliness, Raw decided. As he returned to the staircase, Raw's attention moved to another person coming up the stairs.

"Ah, Mister Raw," Ahamo said with a wide smile, "how are you today?" Raw simply gave him a nod and the slightest smile. Raw never was quite sure how to act around the Queen's husband. Or, around the Queen, for that matter. DG treated the man nearly the same as she did Cain, but... even Cain scared Raw.

"Well," Ahamo stepped around Raw and turned back as he continued up the stairs, "I'm going to try and steal my wife away for a late lunch. Because I'm certain she didn't eat earlier." He flashed Raw another smile and turned, taking the rest of the stairs two at a time. Raw watched Ahamo until the man disappeared from view at the top of the stairs, then turned and looked down to the entrance hall of the palace.

Perhaps he would go outside. There were birds and bees, butterflies and field mice. They may not have much to say, but Raw wouldn't mind. They did have an interesting chatter, after all. Raw pushed on the heavy door and stepped out onto the balcony. The suns were much brighter outside, and he had to wince before his eyes adjusted to the light.

There was a warm breeze and, already, Raw could sense life. Lylo told him once that the abilities of Viewers was connected to the ground, the trees, the animals, the air. Raw stepped down off the stone and into the dirt, then paused and closed his eyes as the sensations moved through him. It may have only been for a moment, but he was feeling better.

"Raw!" The voice on his left actually scared Raw, and his eyes opened to reveal DG, waving at him from outcropping just past the edge of the palace. She was smiling and continued waving, trying to get him to join her. Raw smiled and moved toward her with a quick shuffle. "Just the person I was hoping for," DG said as she pushed up from the blanket Raw could now see lying on the ground.

DG threw her arms around Raw as he neared and pulled him into a hug, then let go and grabbed his hand. "I'm relaxing," she announced with a sigh. "And it is fantastic!" she grinned. "Come and join me," she continued, pulling Raw toward the spot she'd claimed. She dropped down to the blanket and looked up at her friend. "Come on," she urged, waving him down.

Raw watched her for a moment and wanted to laugh. How could he have been so foolish? It was impossible to be uncomfortable or lonely with DG around.

Free to Good Home (DG and Glitch; G)
It had been happening all day. Whispers around the palace, excited grins quickly hidden from sight, and a nervous tension in the air. Something strange was going on, and DG only knew that it involved Glitch.

She had seen a rather dazed Jeb exit Glitch’s office earlier that day with a small bundle in his arms. Raw was discreetly pulling random people aside and sending them to see Glitch, a thoughtful look on his face that meant he was feeling for something specific. Even more disconcerting were the string of servants, advisers, and city merchants making their way excitedly to her friend’s rooms on their own time.

No one would tell her what was going on, though. Her mother and sister just smiled and replied, ‘You’ll see.’ Her father began to laugh when she asked. He couldn’t stop chuckling long enough to answer.

Cain’s reply raised more questions than it answered. “The search is on. Glitch is screening potentials,” he had said. “Not this time for me, thank the suns.”

“Screening for what?”

Cain stopped his purposeful stride and truly looked at her. “I sometimes forget you weren’t raised here.” He told her as succinctly as he could, and promptly left the palace. He seemed quite relieved to be away from it all.

It was just after tea time when DG herself was pulled aside. She entered Glitch’s office with a bit of trepidation. If what Cain told her was true, she didn’t know how she’d keep from laughing. Glitch was sitting behind a large oak desk which had only two papers and a pen on it. He glanced up at her entrance.

“Have a seat, DG. This will only take a moment.” He seemed distracted by something at his feet. “Do you like hot apple pie?”

“I prefer it cold.”

“Mmhmm. What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue, I guess.”

“How do you feel about the disestablishment movement in the Guild in terms of the economic impact on the Southern farmers?”

“What? I didn’t even know there was a disestablishment movement. What are they trying to disestablish?”

“Oh.” Glitch sounded disappointed. “If you could be a tree, what type of tree would you be?”

There was a small noise from under the desk. DG couldn’t help it - she laughed. “Cain was right? That’s what this is all about? I thought he was joking. Well, I didn’t think he could joke, but I thought he had to be pulling my leg.”

Glitch glanced at her, his eyebrows drawn in annoyance.

“I can’t believe you’re serious. Actually, I can’t believe you are searching for the right people using those questions. Are you going to ask me if I bath at night or in the morning next?”

“DG.” Glitch sat up straighter and stared her right in the eye. “This is a very serious event in which we find ourselves. My position has been passed down from generation to generation only to the most deserving of people. We must exercise keen judgment, an eye for compatibility, and most of all - most of all - a sense of propriety.”

“Glitch,” DG replied, equally serious in tone, “you are screening potential owners for a litter of kittens.”

“The correct term is ‘minder’. One never owns a cat,” he said in his most regal voice.

“The official name for your position is High Lord of Kittenry. Which, by the way, I didn’t know you held until today.”

Glitch preened slightly at the use of his title. “So?”

“I just don’t get it.” DG threw her arms up in frustration.

“Alright. Let’s put it this way. Have you ever heard of the Cat Who Came Back? Or Felix? Puss in Boots? Then of course there is that cat with the absurd hat. And no one can forget - ” he lowered his voice to a whisper and shuddered slightly “ - the Cheshire cat.”

“Um. Don’t we all know of them?”

“Good. So you know what happens when kittens are born without an apparent minder. Or worse - a minder was poorly chosen. Who knows what a cat like that can get up to. Even the Sorceress employed a High Lord of Kittenry. You can’t fool around with this sort of thing.” He nodded once in certainty.

DG sat in silence to let it all sink in. The palace’s daily routine had been disrupted because a few kittens needed a good home? Wait… Jeb got a kitten?

“I’m afraid there isn’t a match for you this time around, DG,” Glitch said as soothingly as possible. “I’m terribly sorry.”

He then lifted a cardboard box from near his feet onto the desk. Mewling filled the air. As DG left, he reached into the box and began to pet the newest members of the palace.

Somewhere I Belong (Wyatt and Jeb; G)
It’s been almost an annual now since the Outer Zone was saved from the Sorceress’s plan of total destruction. Even though it was a victory and we should be happy, it was bittersweet nonetheless. For a lot of us, our lives would never be the same.

I’ve been living with my father in a proper home with a roof that doesn’t leak. Living in a cabin and staying in one place for long periods of time was foreign to me. With mother, we were always on the run and I had very little in personal belongings. I could only keep what I could carry.

Then after…

I stayed with the Resistance group that found and freed me. My home became a place made of cut wood turned into poles, a roof made of camouflaged canvas to hide us from Mobats and my bed was a blanket covering the dirt and leaves, which are now only a nuance to sweep off the porch.

Reconnecting with my father hasn’t been easy - for either of us. We both were restless, feeling like we had to do something, paroniod behavior like constantly looking over shoulders or peering from the windows looking for the enemy that wasn’t coming for us anymore. He was once a Tin Man, but not anymore. I was just a boy when he was taken from me, but not anymore. We were both Resistance Fighters, but not anymore.

Who were we now and where do we belong?

Those are questions we’ve been trying to find the answer to for a long time now. I have a feeling, we’ll be seeking those answers for the rest of our lives. It’s not easy to reinvent yourself after you’ve spent the last eight annuals in a war or locked up in an iron suit. We can’t pick up where we left off. We had to make a new beginning and in order to do that, we had to discover who we are, now that the fighting is over - mostly.

During this process of self-discovery, I was so angry with father one day, I shouted, “I wish mother were here!”

I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. My words were like a knife that cut through his already fragile heart and deep into his soul.

I saw his eyes - which had had anger in them - begin to fill with remorse. Grief pushed the anger from his face, and softened his features as he bowed his head.

How could I be so damn selfish? Dad must wish that mother was here every single day, every waking moment and possibly, even in his dreams that haunt him during the night. There are nights I can hear him calling out her name, sometimes in distress and other times, in sorrow.

I reached out and pulled him into an embrace. I didn’t need to say the words, my embrace conveys my apology. His body jerks as the tears flow and my own tears follow. I guess those hurtful words needed to be said so we start to heal and be able to move on to the next phase.

Yesterday, the Royal Messenger delivered some letters. Father received more letters from DG, Glitch, and Raw. DG’s letters always contain a drawing of some kind, either of the O.Z. or the Other Side. Father always reads Glitch’s letters second because it’s usually him explaining what DG said in her letter about something he did or forgot or any Glitch related glitches. I watch father nod as he reads Raw’s letter. Apparently, he’s returning to his people. Looks like Raw is finally starting his own search.

In this batch of letters, there’s one from the Queen, making her usual offer to father about returning to duty as the Chief of Police in Central City. Father sighs as he sets the letter on his lap and gazes at the fire - without the blue smoke.

Before we left the Tower, she asked him to head security for her family. Without hesitation, he turned her down - graciously of course. “I found my son, he’s the only family I have left, I won’t abandon him again.” I don’t think I’ll ever forget his words. Mostly because it surprised me, I thought he would accept it. But he chose me over the Royal Family. Family is most important.

I know what he’s thinking as he stares, mesmerized by the fire. He’s trying to put together the right response denying the offer. With DG, it would be a simple ‘No’. But this is the Queen and a simple ‘No’ would not be adequate.

Truth was for now, he’s content to work around the cabin, help our neighbors, spend time together by the lake fishing, and tending to the crops he planted. Father is taking this ‘retirement’ phase of his life seriously.

And me, well, I’m trying to not look back, but to look forward, and to realize that I don’t have to be Jeb Cain, the Resistance Fighter anymore. I’m just, Jeb Cain.

I pray that the gods will help me find where I belong in this world. I’m broken, father is broken and we have pieces missing from our lives. Our search to find those pieces is a daily effort and it can be both satisfying and tiresome because we shout, we cry, and then we hug.

We forgive.

We search some more.

We heal some more.

We both know, that’s what mother would want.

Voting is closed.