Deserted

Honestly someone should confiscate my keyboard, but no one has as of yet so here, have some angst! And fluff, always fluff.

This piece happens a little after the party gets to the Southern Isle. Dameon gets lost and *someone* has to find him. You'll never guess who… or will you?

Normally Dameon was pretty observant. He wasn't about to tell Lars, but that was part of his training as a healer. Warriors— Rhen, especially— had a stubborn way of ignoring their injuries, so he had to notice for them. So normally he would have been paying attention to where the rest of the group walked, and he wouldn't have lagged behind, and he wouldn't have gotten so hopelessly lost.

But he had been thinking of his father, and for once Dameon had been able to picture his face without seeing blood, without hearing the harsh sounds of his parents fighting each other, killing each other. He had been remembering how proud his father had been when he first discovered his magic. He'd been thinking of that small smile on his father's face when he showed him that first spell, which had taken months to perfect.

He had been pondering over whether or not his father would be proud or disappointed with him— he had so rarely been proud, but Dameon was stronger now. And he had wondered if his father would like Rhen— of course he would, Rhen was so forthright, and capable, and everything Dameon wished he could be—

He had been lost in thoughts like these, and now here he was, in the desert, in the middle of the day, with the sun pounding down on him and the sand getting into every corner of his immortal soul, and without any clue where he was or where anyone else in Aia was. He felt like he had been walking for years, but it couldn't have been have been more than an hour or so because they'd only left the skudder late that morning.

What he hadn't been taught, as a healer, was how to get unlost. If he remembered which direction they were going, or even where they had come from, he could have followed the sun. But he couldn't remember, and he and the sun were not on speaking terms right now because it was hot, and he was miserable.

He had promised Rhen he wouldn't get in the way. That had been her one condition, when he started travelling with them, "Just don't get in the way." He thought he'd done pretty well, until that morning. But now they were going to have to go out of their way to find him, and that was a lot of walking around in this burning sunlight that they shouldn't have to do— wouldn't have to do, if he had just stayed in the Sun Temple, where he was supposed to be.

He had been lost once before, as a small child. He hated to remember those days, but they followed him always, like his own shadow.

He had run away. He couldn't remember why, but— there had been raised voices, and angry words, and he had been upset.

He'd only meant to go to his usual hiding place, a twisted tree just a little ways from the Tear Shrine. But he must have gone past it, because he hadn't been able to find it, and soon he didn't recognize his surroundings. So he'd tried to turn back, but then he couldn't find the Tear Shrine either—

He pushed the memory away, forcefully. He needed to find the others, before they had to search for him. And before he died of sunstroke— and wouldn't that just be a perfectly ironic way for him to go?

He could have sworn he'd seen that cactus before. But everything in the desert looked the same. Just like in the Dreamworld. Maybe he was going in circles. Or maybe the desert just never ended, and he would wander through it forever until his bones turned to sand and his soul became lost like those disembodied cries he kept hearing in the wind— like some forgotten spirit calling out for something, something that wouldn't come because Dameon was the only one around to hear.

It hadn't been like that in the Dreamworld. He had known that the screeches belonged to the shivens. The horrible cackling came from the dream witches. And the low, rumbling whinny— that was a nightmare.

He remembered the chill that had run through him as he realized it. His father had warned him about the nightmares. They would take his soul, and twist it, and turn him into a night monster— he had been too young to really understand, but the fierce look in his father's eyes was enough to instill an eternal terror in him, and he'd promised, promised, to stay away from them, to stay near the Tear Shrine, where he would be safe.

He recalled the sick, twisting feeling in his stomach as he'd realized how awfully he'd broken that promise, and how dreadfully lost he was. He remembered crying for his parents and thinking that they wouldn't come because they were angry with him, and they didn't, couldn't, love him because he had been so bad—

No. Dameon pulled himself from the memory, sharply, and tried to focus on his surroundings. He scanned the horizon for something, anything, that looked like a town, or a person, or maybe a road. Anything that might indicate he wasn't alone in the desert— but there was nothing.

He ground his teeth and would have liked to cry, but he wasn't a child anymore. He could take care of himself. He could get out of this— this— desert. He didn't need to be rescued anymore, like he had then—

The nightmare had found him, and charged at him. He'd scrambled out of the way but soon he was trapped against a glowberry bush that he'd tried to hide in, and the nightmare let out a terrible cry—

That's when his father had appeared, and the whole world had suddenly been on fire— bright lights, colliding and exploding and shaking everything, shaking Dameon's very being— and the nightmare had screamed, and retreated, and Dameon had run to his father, his hero—

Dameon angrily dashed the tears from his eyes. It had been so long ago. It shouldn't matter anymore. It shouldn't be painful. But—

His father had looked at him so coldly. Dameon knew he had disappointed him. He had crouched down on the ground in front of his rescuer, and tried to apologize, and promised to do better, to be better—

Dameon tripped in the sand, over nothing, and caught himself on his hands. He didn't try to get back up— he had failed. He hadn't done better. He was lost again, and his father couldn't save him this time. He deserved his fate. He deserved to die out here alone in the desert, with no witness but the burning sun— and if he cried it was only because he was weak, he was a coward, still, after all these years—

"Look, over there!"

"Is it him?"

"Dameon! Dameon!"

He looked up, and there, running towards him, was Rhen, with her braid swinging and her eyes sparkling. She was throwing her sword and her shield to the side, almost hitting Elini and Lars, who were behind her— and Galahad was there, too, and Te'ijal. Dameon tried to stand up to meet them but Rhen flew into him, and knocked him to the ground again, clinging tightly to his neck—

"Dameon! Where have you been? We thought the coyotes got you, or— or Elini was saying there are demons out here!" Her little hands were pushing his hair back into place, and wiping his eyes, which were still wet, and all he could do was stare up at her— "Dameon, you are so sunburned, why didn't you stay put so we could find you? You scared me half to death! Just ask Lars—"

"It's true," Lars said dryly, rolling his eyes. And Elini was pushing a waterskin towards him, and Rhen was taking it and guiding it to his mouth, and Galahad had brought cheese— cheese, of course he had, he was from Sedona—

And Dameon should have known that Rhen would find him. She was always there, when he needed someone, and he should have known, by now, that he could trust her, that she was strong enough and brave enough to do whatever was necessary, that she was kind enough to be gentle with him. She had saved him, again. And he really believed, in that moment, that she always would.