[FIN] But Getting There is Half the Fun [Harps]

[Lucca]

Mirriam grinned as Joel talked about the ants at the park. Oh...little red bitey ants? She wasn't sure she ever heard of those! "Oh, I've never seen any bitey ants, I don't think! At least not here, there were some back in Avington...they were huge and they couldn't get at you through your fur, but they really hurt if they got in your mouth or your ear! It happened to me a few times when I was trying to get some nice sweet nectar from these pretty orange flowers...apparently the ants actually guard the tree! Like a bunch of little soldiers guarding a Court! Isn't that cool?" Mirriam asked excitedly, barely pausing for breath.

She was also happy to hear there were flowers. Not only were they pretty and reminded her of home, but sometimes they turned into fruits or had tasty nectar! She was fascinated with just about everything in the natural world. "You see this flower in my ear?" Mirriam pointed with a wing claw to the little metal flower around one of her ears. "It lets me control plants! I can make them move around and pick up trash and trip people! It's lots of fun, but it only works once a week." She couldn't really recall the last time she had used to ability though...maybe she could show Joel? The fact that he seemed far more enthusiastic about insects than about plants rather eluded the Bat.

After a few minutes of flying, she halted, hovering. "This park sure is far away," she said in a confused tone, then turned to look at Joel curiously. "Did we miss a turn you took before?"

[Harpsdesire]

"That is cool!" Joel happily imagined soldier-ants, each wearing a tiny sword, marching around an orange-flowered tree with martial determination. Woah. He resolved to visit Avington in search of 'army ants' at the soonest opportunity-- they probably had exoskeletons like a palace guard's suit of armor!

As Mirriam indicated her metal flower, Joel actually stopped walking to peer at the decorative blossom. "Woah..." He was suitably impressed by the small object. A real magic item? Not many kids his age had those! In fact, he couldn't think of anyone he knew that possessed a magic item, except grownups, and they, in his mind, hardly counted.

The boy considered Mirriam's words for a moment. "Uh... Maybe?" He grinned at her sheepishly, but in the back of his mind, the first hint of worry started to prickle. "I was following the butterfly, and you know they fly all... twisty..." He shrugged in an apologetic manner, hoping she wouldn't be too annoyed with him. After all, he sort of owed her for telling him where to find ant soldiers.

.... Awesome Ant Soldiers!

[Lucca]

Mirriam grinned, looking quite proud of herself to be able to tell this boy about something exciting from her home region! It was just like her guardian was always saying...she needed to have pride in her heritage! All Sprouts did, no matter what region they were from. Oh, and that put her in mind of a question... "Hey Joel! Are you a Sprout?" In the Bat's mind, this was a perfectly acceptable question, and didn't need any sort of elaboration. Her ears tilted forward, and she looked interested in his answer. That would be cool if they were both Sprouts! They could totally earn badges together!

"Oh...yeah, you're right, they do." Mirriam stopped moving forward, fluttering a bit higher so she could see over the buildings, and frowned slightly. "I don't really see anything that looks like the park real close," she said, glancing back down at the Deer-Feline. She landed beside him and gestured with a wing claw to the buildings around them. "Does any of this look familiar?"

[Harpsdesire]

Joel's chest puffed out with childish pride. "Yup!" He stated, "I sure am! I just started." In fact, he had joined the Sprouts so recently that he had yet to earn even one single badge. Many of the activities required to earn badges did little to hold his attention, as his interests were firmly focused on his exoskeleton experiments. Still, a good scientist needed to continue learning, even about subjects outside of their primary interest.

At least, this was what Joel had been told. He was willing to accept the intrusion on his research time in the interest of a well-rounded mind... and also because the sprouts seemed to consist mainly of doing fun things with other kids, which the feline/deer would never turn down.

The bat's words hit Joel like a spray of cold water. "Oh... Actually... No." Joels ears drooped as he allowed himself to admit that they were lost, and worse-- it was all his fault! He thought his logic had been excellent, and the failure hit him harder than the realization that he had no idea where he was. "I'm sorry Mirriam. I didn't mean to get you lost."

The boy's massive shoulders slumped a little, and he began to feel a little afraid. For all his size and swagger, Joel was still just seven years old. What had he gotten himself into? His parents where going to be so mad! That is, if he ever found his way back to them...

[Lucca]

Mirriam grinned widely at the prideful admission by the other child. She'd thought so! She had a hunch about him, just looking at the way he was so eager to learn and to be in touch with the world around him! The qualities of a good Sprout, her guardian had told her often. "Me too! My, uh, guardian is actually the one that started the program. He's a King of Diamonds so he's pretty important I think," the Bat said happily, no pride really in her voice, just a sort of honest eagerness to share all the information she hoped Joel would find interesting.

Mirriam's ears drooped, and she frowned slightly. Lost...she'd only been lost a few times before, and it usually led to adventures...well, not always good ones. "It's okay...at least we're together!" Mirriam said, ears perking back up again. After all, usually when she got lost she was completely alone! It was almost exciting to have company on one of these little adventures. She frowned, though, to notice that Joel looked kind of upset. "Hey...it's fine! We can find our way back. Just watch out for any rat-vulture things we may see roosting in trees. They're kind of mean." She gestured with a wing claw to the long scar running from the bottom of her jaw down along her neck. It was partially covered by the fur around it, and it looked completely healed, but the wound must have really been something when fresh.

[Harpsdesire]

"Neat!" Joel expressed his excitement with a large and rather toothy grin. "You're the first other Sprout I've met!" The mention of the King of Diamonds seemed to go right over his head: as a child living outside the courts, the concept of rank and title was still somewhat fuzzy in his mind, and far less interesting than the rest of what his new playmate was saying.

Joel was pleased that Mirriam didn't seem upset about being lost. In fact, she seemed almost excited about it, which cheered him up considerably. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad... at the worst, they would have to live as wild children and hunt for food and never take baths and stay up past bedtime. "I'm glad I'm lost with you." He smiled bravely, pushing thoughts of wandering around the city for the rest of eternity out of his mind.

"Woah, cool scar!" He stopped for a moment to admire the now-healed 'battle scar', which he hadn't previously noticed hidden beneath the bat's fur. "I bet that hurt a lot." Like most little boys, Joel appreciated a good scar, particularly if it came with a story involving blood and/or guts.

"I'll tell you if I see any of those... I've never seen them before though." He looked around a little nervously for a second, but a brief scan of the very few trees in the area revealed no mean rat-vultures whatsoever, and Joel quickly forgot to worry about it.

[Lucca]

Mirriam halted as well when Joel did, perching upside down on a railing and arching her neck to show the scar off and grinning right along with the boy. "Oh, yeah, it did hurt a lot! I nearly cried." In fact, she had cried, a lot, but that wasn't really the part of the encounter she remembered the most, and she'd bounced back fairly quickly from the experience with the typical exuberance of children.

The Bat's expression turned serious for a moment. "You never, ever want to meet them. They're worse than sharks, rabid Bandersnatches, and being sent to your room without dessert all put together! They'll kill you as soon as look at you!" She shook a wing finger menacingly, giving Joel an 'evil eye'. Ironically, this statement was more true than Mirriam knew, considering she'd actually met a somewhat tame Jubjub Bird. A wild one really would have killed her.

Not able to focus on serious matters for long, though, Mirriam smiled again. "But don't worry! If you did ever see one, you'd know because the grass and stuff around it would all be dead from its horrible aura! Plus, I fought it and lived, so you could too! You could hit it with your hooves!" This idea sounded good to Mirriam, and she stopped worrying about 'rat-vultures' for the moment.

[Harpsdesire]

Joel twisted his body and neck awkwardly until the little bat again appeared (more or less) right side up. It was a little uncomfortable, but the sight of right-side-up Mirriam standing on an upside-down railing struck him as funny, and he giggled.

At her colorful description, he returned to his normal posture, surprised. "Whoa... that IS mean!" Joel sounded more impressed than frightened, since he really had no concept of how dangerous wild jubjubs (or sharks or rabid bandersnatches, for that matter) could be. In fact, his grasp on the idea of danger in general was somewhat nebulous, as his lithe feline body and unusual strength had so far kept him from any accidental injury and made him an unappealing target for bullies. Even his frequent clumsy tumbles had never done him any harm beyond minor scrapes and bruises.

He nodded in an attempt at gravity, although he hadn't the slightest idea what a 'horrible aura' was. Maybe it meant a reeeeally stinky smell? At any rate he wasn't willing to admit he didn't know, so he just tried to assume a knowing look, while at the same time testing the air for any especially awful odors, just in case. He was glad to note that there weren't any, and even more pleased Mirriam's confidence in his untested fighting abilities. "I would SO hit the rat-vulture with my hooves! And wrestle him!"

Joel was good at wrestling, and of course assumed it was his athletic prowess (as opposed his superior bulk) at assured him the victory over every other little boy he took on in a playful tussle. "I could pin him down, and then you could fly down and dive-bomb him! Pow!" The boy made some explosion sounds and cuffed the air with his front paws playfully. "We could make a super fighting team! We could even have a super-cool team name! Like... um..." Joel started walking, again in the presumed direction of the park, as he thought. ".... The Green Team! Because we are both kind of green!" He mimed some 'karate' moves as he walked, nearly losing his balance as he performed an especially exuberant kick.

[Lucca]

Mirriam nodded sagely, sure that her impressive list of bad things was enough to give Joel an idea of -just how bad- that horrible creature had been. She'd never seen a shark in real life, but she HAD seen a Bander, and that had been bad enough to make her slightly wary of the creatures. But the rat-vulture had dealt her a much worse injury.

Truth be told, Mirriam didn't exactly know what a 'horrible aura' was either, but she'd read the term in one of her comics and thought it sounded cool, so she made sure to use it as often as possible. Though she'd fallen back on that resolution after the odd looks she kept getting when she insisted it was the 'horrible aura' of the lima beans she was supposed to be eating that made them unhealthy for her, contrary to what they fooled everyone else into believing!

"Yeah! Yeah! We'd make a great team!" Mirriam agreed, letting go of the railing and flying after Joel again. "The Green Team, fighting evil and always getting dessert! Espeically if it's fruit tarts!" She grinned, though her stomach gave a small gurgle at the thought of those yummy pastries, reminding her that she hadn't eaten in a while, and also reminding her of their situation. She stopped, hovering.

"Hey, hey Joel? I thought we were lost. I think...I think there was something in the Sprout Handbook about being lost. Do you remember?" She fluttered to another perch, since she always remembered things better when hanging upside down.

[Harpsdesire]

In the heat of the moment, Joel had completely forgotten about the whole "lost" thing. He had an attention span and energy level typical for a boy his age, and staying still to plan was usually out of the question, unless his Corvie interest was involved. "Ooh, dessert!" It suddenly occured to him that he was really rather hungry. Lunch seemed forever ago... in reality it had only been a few hours.

When Mirriam stopped, he sat on the sidewalk below. He was getting tired of walking, anyway. "Yeah, you're right! There is!" His little forehead wrinkled in concentration. "Something about the moss being on one side of the trees... maybe the n-north side?"

There was only one tree in sight, a small decorative one growing from a mulch covered cutout in the sidewalk. His face fell when he saw that there was no moss of any kind on any of its sides. "Maybe that's not it. Um..." He struggled for a moment to overcome his frustration and recall something more useful. After a brief pause, he quoted from the Sprout Handbook, "Find a safe adult if you get lost or need help. Look for someone in uniform like a... like a policeman!" He grinned at Mirriam with considerable pride.