Saved and Lost

“Fuck!” Letting go of Colly’s pack and shrugging off of my own I dive into water toward where I’d seen that last glimpse of Colly before she went under. With long, powerful strokes I close the distance. All I could taste was mud. All I could smell was mud. The sound of rushing water is interspersed with the muffled hiss of being submerged as I frantically and blindly search through the brown water. With nothing else to guide me I try to catch the same current that was carrying my friend away. Again and again I paw through the opaque water only to come up empty handed. My urgency grows with each passing second that I saw no sign of Collywaddle. As I swim memories flash in my mind of Colly and I getting into trouble the very first time we’d gone out together and how I had been **** to be the one to give Colly her twenty lashes as a punishment for what had been my transgression. I also remembered how she trembled in my arms afterward. With every memory, with every passing moment, that jiggling green spark of joy was fading further from this world.

And then I feel it. A fleeting contact with something below the surface! I try to snatch at it but it disappears as quickly as it appeared. With a mighty lunge I surge in that direction and throw my arms out at once. My right hand finds a braid! Grabbing onto it with all of my strength heave Colly’s body into me. Scooping her up I find my footing again and rise up out of the water. The waterlogged kobalos clings to my waist, sputtering and trembling and alive!

“M-Mathter!”

“I got ya, Colly.” I pet her wet head. “Hold onto me.”

“I’m never gonna let go!” She weeps.

Just then I spot something else floating past me on the current. Her pack! Without a moment to spare I glance behind me once to make sure the others were still following. I am stunned to see just how much distance the current had taken us from the others but they were getting along fine and so I hurriedly hunch down, shift my sword to the side, and put Colly’s arms around my neck so that I could carry her on my back then I am forging through the water again in pursuit of another portion of our rapidly depleting gear.

With Colly and my blade awkwardly weighing me down it is no small task but eventually I am able to snag the pack once more. With a grunt I lift the sodden mass from the water. Carrying it in my arms and Colly on my back I make me way to a shoal where the water was only shin deep. I let Colly down and pull her into a hug.

“You silly goblin.”

“You thilly Mathter.” She hugs me back, still sniffling. “Thank you!”

There we wait for the others. In the fading light I scan the banks for skulking shadows or any sign of the magical hound that had **** us into this river in the first place, but the cricket’s song eases my fears. Cassie leads Catalus steadily through the water with Rosa safely on his back, along with her pack and the dripping weight of mine as well. I say a quiet prayer of thanks that Cassie had been able to retrieve my pack at least during all of the excitement.

As they near I say in a low voice. “The fork is just ahead.”

All of us **** to get onto dry land again we plod ahead as one. This time I keep Colly’s hand firmly in mine. We slosh up onto the muddy center bank of the Y-shaped junction where the river split in two and don’t stop until we up into dry grass and among the cover of wild shrubs. We find a spot free of thistles to collect ourselves. As Cassie ties our steed to sturdy young tree I take the packs from off of him then help Rosa down.

Rosa’s feet had barely touched the ground when she is reaching out for Collywaddle. Finding the shaken goblin she kneels down right there and holds her close. As quietly as I move to the top of a nearby mound to try to peer out over the bushes to see what I could see with very last of the light. It wasn’t much, but the continued night chorus of toads and crickets tells me the hound was no longer nipping at our heels.

Returning to the group I approach Cassie. “I think we camp here.”

“Agreed.” She says softly as she looks at Rosa comforting Colly. “That was too close.”

“I know! I know. I’m doing my best here.”

“I wasn’t saying you weren’t, Quin.” She lays a hand on my chest. “We’re all doing our best. I was just saying that was too close. Colly’s not a swimmer. Something we’ll have to keep in mind going forward.”

“You’re right.” With another frustrated sigh I kneel down and start pulling sodden items from Colly’s pack to let them dry the night. “It almost cost us Colly but I think that trick will buy us some hours. Maybe even days.”

“Will it even follow that long?” After taking one more look around Cassie slumps down beside me, sitting cross-legged in the tall grass. “We still don’t know even what that thing is or what it’s mission actually is.”

“Okay.” I sigh. “Maybe we should have stood and fought it like you said.”

“And maybe we’d all be dead right now, Quin.” Cassie snaps back with a frustration equal to my own. “I wasn’t saying that I knew any better than you, it’s just…we’re in the dark here. Literally.” She looks up at the first stars of the night. “If that thing finds us in the night we won’t even be able to see the damned thing.”

“I know, I know, I know!”

“Quin.” Rosa says softly. “Cassie.”

Just then Colly moans. “I’m thorry! I shoulda been more careful.”

“It could have been any one of us.” I say to her as I am wringing out her spare tunic. “On the bright side we kept the packs. We didn’t lose anymore of our stuff.”

Feeling around her body Colly says. “Awww! I lotht my toe brush.”

“We’ll get you another.” Rosa pets her head. “A better one.”

“Yeah, but…okay.” Colly sighs, saddened by the loss of the gift given to her by her old master.

“If all it cost us is a toe brush…” I stop a moment…then frantically begin feeling around my own tunic. “Wait. Oh no. No, no, no, no!”

“What’s wrong?” Cassie stops pulling wet items from my pack to turn to me.

“Gods.” I whisper, grasping and feeling around every inch of my clothes. “I was carrying Rosa’s bracelet! I tucked in my inner pocket.”

“Rosa’s…” Cassie’s voice cuts off as the gravity of what I was saying hits her. “Quin!”

“Fuck.” I feel down my legs, hoping beyond hope that maybe it had somehow fallen into my breeches. “She had me hold it after Tiro’s.”

“Quin, that was Rosa’s best magic item!”

“I know, Cassie! I am well aware of that!”

“I’m thorry! I didn’t mean…I shoulda been more careful! I’m thorry, Rotha.”

“Colly, just…not now.” I pull off my sandals and feel around, hoping for a miracle. “Damn it!”

“Quin, without that bracelet Rosa can’t…” Cassie punches the ground. “Rrr! I mean, what would we have done with the harpies if she hadn’t had it? Or the minotaur. Or…damn it! That thing and what Rosa could do with it was worth more than the rest of our stuff combined, and I’m not talking money.”

“I know!” I groan as I think about all of the amazing and creative uses Rosa had found to do with it over the months.

“It’th my fault it’th gone. I’ll find it, Mathter.” Colly says, her voice trembling. “I promithe! I-I’ll thearch the bankth…”

“Colly! You stay away from the banks.” I say. “That’s where that thing will be searching.”

“But…”

“Everybody, please…” Rosa’s soft voice is drowned out by the rest.

“It’ll be at the bottom of the river, Colly. Maybe carried miles from here.” Cassie says. “After all that I don’t think you want to be diving for it.”

“No.” Admits the distraught Colly. “I’ll…I’ll uthe a line and fishin hook. Maybe…”

“A fishing hook!?”

“Everybody!” Rosa’s snarl, low but crackling with authority, splits the air. “Enough.” The group falls quiet a moment before Rosa speaks again. “Come to me. Now.”

“Rosa…”

“Come here, my boy.” By her tone I knew it was not a request.

With a final sigh I bow my head. “Yes, my Lady.”

“Come here, my girl.”

“Yes, my Lady.” Cassie does the same as me, not even bothering to rise as she crawls to her mistress on hands and knees.

Rosa’s tone softens as she pulls Colly back into her arms. “Hold us, Cassie.” Cassie sits behind Rosa and leans into her back as she wraps her arms around the other two. “Quin, hold us.” I sit to Cassie’s left and hunch to wrap all three inside my big embrace. Rosa closes her eyes, pulling at us all to hug tighter, then whispers. “Breathe, my loves. Just breathe. Colly is safe. We are together. The creature has not seen us. Quin found us safety in the wild where Sylvanus may watch over us tonight. Focus on that. On what really matters.”

“Yes, my Lady.” Cassie and I say as one, the tension in our bodies slowly subsiding as our Lady’s tender hands stroke our cheeks.

“Good girl. Good boy.” She croons. “I am so proud of you both.”

I kiss Rosa’s head as Cassie nuzzle into her shoulder.

“And me?” Colly mewls.

The rest of us smile as we pet and hug our goblin friend, grateful that she was still here among us. Rosa pats her head and says. “Especially you, brave Collywaddle.”

My goodbye to my family had been spoiled, we were wet and cold in the dark, we had some eldritch hound on our trail and the Altentum had just claimed the most powerful item we owned in trade for the life of Collywaddle, yet inside this hug, inside this companionship, inside this family, we found comfort and were reminded what it was all for.