Chapter 3
The sun was shining brightly in the morning when Emily woke up. M.K. turned to see her walking into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing her eyes.
"Good morning little bird," said M.K. with a smile.
"Morning," mumbled Emily with a yawn. M.K. got her daughter breakfast, and went upstairs to wake up Ben. He came down a few minutes later, yawning and looking half asleep as he stumbled into the kitchen.
"Where's dad," he asked sleepily.
"Your father is already up and he went to help Ronin with a new trainee that got stuck somewhere," M.K. replied.
"Was it the same Leafman that Cloud had to get out of a snake," Emily asked.
"Yep that's the one," said M.K. chuckling. That had been very interesting. The new recruit had been working on tracking, when he was ambushed and eaten by a snake. Cloud had been keeping an eye on him so when he got eaten she had to wrestle the snake to the ground, pry open its mouth, and pull out the Leafman from somewhere in the snakes throat. He got a through scolding from Ronin and from that day on was more aware of what was around him.
After M.K. got him breakfast, she told them that she was going to Leafman training and that they would have to entertain themselves until lunch.
"Your father left already, and I will be back at noon so be good and entertain yourselves until I get back alright," she said pulling on the last of her armor. She gave them each a kiss on the top of the head and walked out the door. They each got dressed and Ben suggested that they play outside. So off they went into the trees.
"Let's play hide and seek," said Ben, "you go hide and I'll find you." He then turned and started counting while Emily hid in a nearby bush. After he had finished counting he searched high and low for his sister until he found her. "Found you, now you count." He then went scurrying off while Emily counted.
Little did they both know, a horrible thunderstorm was brewing and was coming toward where they were. The extreme heat that they had had the past few days had caused the storm, and this storm was coming with a wrath that it was going to unleash.
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"Come on let's go back to the house, its almost noon and Mom said that she was going to be back at noon," Emily said to her brother. She looked up at the sky and saw the dark clouds that were swirling across the sky. "And I think it's gonna rain."
"Yeah," said Ben looking up at the sky, "I think it is, come on." On the way home the wind picked up and it had started to rain hard. The rain came down so hard that they couldn't tell which way their house was. So Ben pulled his little sister into the forest and under the thickest brush that there was to try and keep the both of them dry.
They huddled together under some large leaves hoping that the storm would stop soon. It didn't. It only stormed on. Emily tried to get a sense of where they were, but instead caught sight of a nearby river that was about to flood its banks. She alerted her brother and they climbed up the nearest tree.
Brown water swirled underneath them as they huddled on a branch together. I wish mom or dad or somebody was here, Emily thought.
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M.K. arrived at the house to find the kids gone. She was a little worried but figured that they had probably just gotten caught up in a game. She became more and more worried once the storm started and they didn't come back. Her heart lifted when she heard the front door open but it sank again when she saw it was only Cloud.
"Geez, it's raining rabbits and badgers out there," she said shaking water out of one of her ears. When she looked at M.K. she could tell something was wrong. She then realized that she couldn't hear the kids anywhere throughout the house. "Where are the kids," she asked worriedly.
"I don't know, they went out to play while I was at training and they haven't come back yet and now it's storming," said M.K. worriedly. Cloud walked over to M.K. and hugged her tightly.
"We'll find them, don't worry," she said comfortingly. When she pulled away she looked out one of the windows. "Ben is a smart kid, he'll know what to do to keep the both of them safe." M.K. nodded and knew that she was right.
"When the storm lets up we need to look for them, do you think you can sniff them out," M.K. asked.
"They don't call me Little Wolf for nothing, big sister," said Cloud with a half-smile.