#stranded event 11

It was a quiet, peaceful morning at the farm. Already the rumbling of the Labyrinth had set off painful tension in Harry's jaw that foretold that the day was going to be long and hard. She busied herself while few people were up to make it worse. The farm was always a place of refuge to her, the soothing task of pulling weed by weed. But this morning Harry was motionless, on her hands and knees amongst the crops. Her fingers dug into the rich, damp soil as Harry closed her eyes and focused. She slowly churned the soil underneath the plants, increasing their drainage. 

She felt footsteps approaching and so she stopped, glancing towards the intruder. "Tommy," she grunted, sitting back on the heels of her feet and brushing the dirt from her palms. "G'day. Crops are looking good," she commented, using her chin to gesture to the fresh growth. All recovering from the drought that nearly spelled a famine for the island, but for Tommy’s hard work. "How's the seed store?"

Kaz was closer to the path towards the fisher’s hut. But able to watch the workers stream around the high farm, like lines of ants passing in their two way highways. The monk fussed and fluttered around in the long fabric of his robe, doing who knew what. When Joaquin passed a small fire set up for communal lunch, a gust of wind fanned the flames high. A pot over the campfire shot up and off the coals too. Embers spread wide and set fire to the surrounding area. 

Kaz walked curiously closer to see the action. He could’ve called out. Better still, sent a message directly to Joaquin’s ear. Neither of those happened. 

After his conversation with Tamyra, Mik had wandered around South Beach in a daze. The edge of his hoodie had started to smoke a while back, so now he was wandering in soaked, dripping clothes, shivering at the cool Easterly wind. He needed answers, he needed to find someone who had banished his baby to the Labyrinth and shake them senseless until he could understand what kind of sick fuck would do that?

Up ahead he saw a familiar face, someone who Tamyra had mentioned. Mik rushed towards Wren, gripping her by the shoulder as he looked intently into her face.

"There was a baby, a little kid on North Beach," Mik began, releasing one hand to slip his phone out of his pocket. With shaking hands, he held the picture of baby Nova out to Wren, gripping her tight in place. "Do you remember her?"

She was all turned around. Which wasn’t uncommon once you left the safety of the beach, but the more unfamiliar the area got, the more scared Wren got. She knew that getting anywhere near this place was a bad idea, but the deeper she went, the closer she got to the Labyrinth, the harder it was to find her way out. This feeling was all too familiar to her, it reminded her so much of her experience running in for the first time. The panic, the confusion, with a hint of optimism that maybe she’ll manage to find a way out of there soon. If this was going to be another year long journey, Wren wasn’t ready for it.

While she wallowed in her self pity, trying to find any sort of indication of where she was, Wren looked out and noticed someone standing out among the trees. The sight of this figure caused Wren to jump, not mentally prepared to see someone...or something out here with her. “Hello?” she called out to them, taking a hesitant step forward, keeping her guard up just in case. The figure didn’t seem to scurry off at the sound of her voice and she couldn’t fully tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Are you stuck in here too? I’m trying to find my way out, are you able to help me?”

“Thank you for being so obliging,” Ned said, for the second time since he’d convinced Madi to take this trek with him. He didn’t want to sound as though he was being patronizing; in her current state, Madi was likely to be sensitive to the way people spoke to her. Interpreting both scorn and pity the same way. So Ned stepped carefully with his words. “I know it’s rather far off the beaten path, but in the end that may prove to be a good thing instead of a trial.”

She was a sturdy lass, at any rate, and he didn’t expect she’d have any compunctions about making a bit of a trek for what he was about to show her. The soil was sandier here, especially along this windblown stretch of the Alphonsus Range, and Ned led the way to a tall, somewhat misshapen palm tree, patting its trunk.

Lina didn't know many people around here personally, but she felt like she did. The things she overheard all across this beach was enough to give her the confidence to go up to anyone and feel like she had a bit of an upper hand. That was how she felt when locating Mik out by the forge. She hadn't met him yet, but she had heard his name around, heard about him and the boyfriend that had also washed ashore before him.

It was her version of fun to play around with people's heads. Plus, it helped that Mik was a good piece of eye candy for her while she had her fun. So she sauntered by, looking around at this primitive looking structure as though she was impressed rather than confused. She didn’t know what this was or how it worked, but there was Mik using it to do whatever he was doing so that was all she needed to step in. "Well hi. You look pretty busy out here. Watchya working on?"

“... waking up.”

Another time, and it would’ve been a minor mishap. Wet, porous stones began to pop, dance, and shoot out of the flames. Kaz helped it along with a aimed push of a whipped wind already driving across the farm. The boiled hot stones became projectiles firing off, missiles of intent headed towards Tomas nearby. 

“Tomas! Watch out!” Kaz shouted and waved his arms, perhaps a few seconds too late.