These chapters will be switching back and forth between Haddock's and Tintin's point of view.
Thanks for the Reviews! Gives me the ol' warm and fuzzies...
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"Captain?"
"Captain Haddock? Sir?"
"Archie!"
From where Tintin lay on the couch, he could just catch a glimpse of the older man by tilting up his head.
He had woken up warm and dry, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, lying on a couch in front of a fireplace whose fire was now just reddened embers. How he had gotten there he hadn't a clue. In fact, the last thing he remembered was running down a flight of stairs, the Captain behind him, hoping to catch a train and be away by morning. He could still recall Snowy barking urgently ahead of him.
Moving a bit, trying to untangle himself from the coverings, Tintin suddenly winced as his head came in contact with the arm of the couch. It took a bit to extract an arm so he could investigate why the back of his head was so sore.
"Ouch! Oooohhh," His fingers had found an incredibly tender spot. Investigating carefully, he was sure he could feel the remains of dried blood flaking off his hair. Had he been hit, had he fallen down the stairs, had he been grazed by a bullet? He tried to remember if the castle's guards had been alerted to their sudden departure, but events' surrounding their rapid getaway was fuzzy at best. Tintin frowned – he hated not knowing things.
Once more he began to fight his way out of the coverings that threatened to eat him alive, vowing not to give in. Finally free, he sat up and instantly regretted it, as the cabin tilted and swirled. Closing his eyes as wave after wave of vertigo crashed over him, Tintin was just about ready to sink back into the comfort of all those blankets when he felt a hand on his arm.
"Lad? You alright there boy? Here, I think you need to lay back, you've got a nasty bump to the head there."
Agreeing to the suggestion, Tintin laid back, feeling his older friend's hands draping and wrapping him back into the snug confines of the blankets.
"Thank you, Captain." He murmured, eyes still shut, but now that he was lying down, things weren't swirling about quite so much.
"Captain? Where are we?"
He could hear the other man moving about, and caught the sounds of the fireplace being replenished, feeling the resulting increase of heat.
"Not quite sure lad. Some cabin, somewhere in the woods. Found it last night after stumbling over every blasted root and banging into every troglodyte tree during that thundering typhoon of a rainstorm. Though lucky for us there was that rainstorm, kept those freshwater guards from capturin' us."
Tintin followed the sound of the older man's voice as he moved about the room, and caught the noise of cupboards and drawers being opened.
"Aha!" he heard the Captain exclaim, then heard more rustling and another gleeful cry of discovery.
A moment later and the older man was back, carefully slipping his hand behind Tintin's head and gently lifting it. "Here lad, open your mouth" Tintin unquestionably obliged, and was rewarded with sweet liquid which he quickly and happily swallowed. It was so refreshing that it took a minute for him to recognize the taste.
"Captain? Is that…corn?"
"Aye lad, the juice is sweet and will help replace your sugars, now you just drink up. I've found a whole cabinet filled with cans and jars and tins, so I'll find a pot or two and get a nice stew cookin'."
Tintin could feel himself dropping back into sleep, the minor efforts of the morning having exhausted him. He tried to fight it, he had so many questions, but his head was beginning to ache and he was really tired. His hand subconsciously began to search for something missing...
Suddenly he opened his eyes and tried to sit up. The Captain turned from where he was re-arranging the fire and pressed him back.
"Whoa lad, easy there!"
"Snowy, Captain! Where's Snowy?"
The other man regarded him with a look of utter sadness.
"Lad… I don't know that either."
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