Quick, we have the ransom

[Anonymous]

Seren LaForet was lost, but hopefully, not for long.

The ice mage wasn't sure how she had managed to escape that beast of a mage hunter, but the most important thing now was that she was free. She looked at her hands, covered with dust, dirt, and grime — her shirt was ripped in various placed, but she was alive, and that was the most important thing. Sure, she was stranded in an unfamiliar part of Featherfall's forests — if she was even in Featherfall anymore — but despite that, she was sure she'd make her way home... somehow.

Was it ironic, for an aspiring cartographer to be completely and utterly lost, she wondered? Laughing to herself, Seren settled down next to a large oak tree, pulling out various maps and laying them out on the grass in front of her — all of then incomplete, all of them sketches that she promised to put more detail into later. Well, that lack of detail had left her directionless; all she had to navigate her way were very, very light sketches that she could barely make out. She groaned, blinking back icy blue eyes — her only talent was proving to be absolutely worthless.

And, what was worse, she thought she could hear something rustling in the forests behind her. She shivered — she truly hoped that wasn't the case. There was a chance that the other presence might be friendly, but it hadn't been the last time. The wind gently blew, stirring up the parchment in front of her, and Seren couldn't help but find the summer wind a little chilly, ice mage or no. But the real question here was: why did she have the feeling she was being watched?

[miss_sanguine]

Boredom. The evil motive for a mischievous spirit's actions, the grounding on which Iktomi's entire existence was based. And, because he was not at this moment doing anything, boredom laced through his entire body, making him anxious and on edge. He needed to move, to run, to roll around on the ground, anything! Anything but sit here in the trees—currently a ring-tailed lemur—and vegetate.

It hadn't even been very long since he'd jumped out at the female narrow-striped dasyure, sending her skittering back into her burrow with a high-pitched squeak of terror. Never mind that ring-tailed lemurs weren't technically predators to shrews; it would frighten anything to have a creature jump out of the bushes and grab it. The memory left him chittering with glee.

Tail curling up over his head like a fisherman's hook, Iktomi scratched at his chin, glancing through the branches of the canopy. There were no other animals around to pester, except for some birds, but they were too easy.

Then a noise from below caught his attention and he quickly scampered down to lower branches for a better look, heart beating with excitement. He blinked bright orange eyes. There, right below him, was a human! A girl.

Well, well!

Part of him wanted to investigate, the part of him that desired a human link; it was always there at the back of his mind, tugging endlessly at his senses. He was incomplete without a link, had gone so long without one that he was beginning to always feel edgy. But then there was the bored part of his mind, the one that demanded instant attention, and it was the one he listened to.

She looked a mess, clothes torn and dirt smudged here and there. She had paper lain out in front of her, all of it nonsensical gibberish to him. They almost looked like maps, except that they were not in the least professional looking. They could have easily been drawings done by a child and not by this girl herself.

In seconds he was a long-tailed langur, hugging tight to the trunk of the oak tree and climbing down with his feet. Before reaching the base, he simply jumped off, landing right on the girl's head. "I'm afraid those maps won't help you much," he said, peering over her hair at the papers again. They certainly were a mess, sore to the eyes. Then he put his face right in hers, head upside-down, and said, "Lost, are you?"

[Anonymous]

Seren let out a loud, girlish shriek of surprise after feeling something jump right on her head. Normally, she was not easy to scare, but after escaping that mage hunter, she was a lot jumpier than normal. She shook her head vigorously in an attempt to get it off, but to no avail — she was too weak to flail around for too long anyway.

To make matters worse, however, the creature that jumped on her head looked her dead in the face, its head upside down, and asked if she was lost. Seren, who had let out quite a scream before, didn't have any more left in her to do so again. She looked on at the creature warily, eyes wavering, mouth turned downwards into a fearful grimace.

Despite living in Serenditpity, of all places, Seren was quite sheltered — she lived a practical life full of practical people and had a practical ambition, and had never actually ran into a talking animal before. Oh, she knew they could exist, but...

She shook, her body quaking, and it seemed almost strange that she should be afraid of this monkey sitting innocently on her head — any other day, she would've smiled and laughed and bantered with him — but today, she sat there warily, unsure of what to say to this little guy.

"I... I am lost, yes," Seren admitted, albeit hesitantly. "Y-You're not... you're not a spy for the mage hunters, are you?" she asked, her voice very small. "Or the familiar to some bounty hunter...?" That beast of a mage hunter had said people like him had sometimes used animals in order to sniff out magical auras. Was she just falling into another trap again?

[miss_sanguine]

Ah, a human scream. And even better, a female human scream. Nothing could beat that. They always had such high-pitches, a noise that could leave a sensitive animal deaf for hours.

He sat merrily on her head, clinging to her tangled hair as she tried to dislodge him, though without much force. Either she had no strength, being a woman, or her weakness explained her disheveled appearance. Perhaps she had been in a fight of some kind and had come out the loser. Pity.

Her fear smelled bitter, burned the back of his throat as he breathed it in, and he scrunched his face in distaste. This was not the kind of fear he'd wanted—this was more than mortal fright. This was terror. Terror could be a fun thing when he intentionally caused it, but he'd only meant to startle this time around.

"A spy?" he asked, head tilting as he continued to hang upside-down in front of her. "For a mage hunter? Pah." He made a motion as if spitting on the ground in disgust. "I'm much too clever to work as a emissary for a bumbling mage hunter, no. I am wholly Iktomi."

As if this settled matters, he climbed down from her head, using her hair to keep himself from falling. When he stood before her, he stared up into her face, little hand on his chin, black eyes gleaming. "What has happened to you?" he finally asked.

[Anonymous]

It seemed like the little monkey rather liked being atop her head, and her attempts to remove him were all for naught. She sighed, ceasing her futile efforts, and instead sat very still, hoping he wouldn't squirm around very much on her head. Seren wasn't sure if she particularly liked having a monkey hanging upside-down on her head, after all.

He wasn't a spy, he claimed — and scoffed, as if such a position was beneath him. He was Iktomi, apparently, but the name didn't make Seren feel any better. After all, she'd never met a talking monkey before, despite everything, and still wasn't sure if she could trust the little creature.

Granted, he was very cute, and even had the decency to get off of her head. She clasped her hands together at his question, trying not to relive the memories, but to no avail. "I was... kidnapped," she muttered, her voice still very quiet. "It was a mage hunter, I think. I'm not even a very good mage, but he was going to take me somewhere... I'm still not sure where, or why." She shrugged, shaking her head. "I managed to escape, of course, which is great, but now... I guess I'm lost."

She could not tell the little critter that she was actually aspiring to be a cartographer. No, that'd just be the icing on the irony cake.

[miss_sanguine]

Pain crossed her features as she began to talk and he understood her reasons for behaving the way she had with what she told him. She'd been through a trial, a large one by the sounds of it, and had gotten away unscathed--at least physically. Her mentality was a different story.

Pesky mage hunters. Ruining lives. He remembered his run-ins with them on many occasions over the centuries.

Not one to linger on unhappy moments, Iktomi nodded in understanding and then said with a hint of irony in his tone, "But how could you be lost, with such an exemplary map before you?"

He sidled forward on his haunches, tail balancing him, and glanced more closely at the map she had on the ground. Crude, unhelpful.  A child's work at best. "Who drew this, anyway? A frail old woman? A sickly child?"

[Anonymous]

Ugh, he had to bring up the maps. Seren furrowed her brows at the furry creature, puffing her cheeks out. "Hey! They're not..." she started to defend, but thought better of it, changing her argument. "They're sketches. I was going to finish them later, to be, y'know, more helpful, but I was rudely interrupted." She shook her head at the drawings – right when she needed a good map, it figured that wouldn't have one around.

She regarded Iktomi curiously. "You wouldn't happen to know the way back to Featherfall, would you?" She doubted it, but it was worth a shot. Anything was better than feeling sorry for herself in this dreary part of the woods.

[miss_sanguine]

"Aaah. Sketches," he said, nodding in understanding, still peering down at the map as if to decode some secret meaning behind it. In reality, he took in the intricate little details he hadn't noticed before, them showing that a practiced hand had made these sketches, however elementary they first appeared.

She was not new to "sketching" out maps, he saw. Which led him to wonder why she was lost in the first place. Of course, mortal panic tended to cloud the mind and all the senses one needed when they needed them most. A drawback on the making of humans, whomever it was that had made them.

At her next question he looked up at her. "Me? Know where Featherfall is?" He grinned at this, a grin he could not hold back on when acting his tricky self. "I might. What's in it for me?"

[Anonymous]

Seren stared at him, blinking back blankly, wondering what in Kia's name could she possibly offer towards this little creature. She held up her hands, as if to demonstrate that she literally had nothing worthwhile on her person that she could offer up in exchange. And besides, what could a creature like Iktomi even want, anyway? Money? No, what would a monkey do with money? And what could she offer a monkey that would be useful?

"Well, I don't have anything on me at the moment," she noted, furrowing her brows. "What could you possibly want?" She crossed her arms over her chest, thinking. "I can make maps, I suppose, but I don't know what you'd do with one... And my parents have a little money they could give you, but I don't see what you'd even use it for." She shook her head, exasperated. "I give up. What do you want? Maybe I can help you out in return, somehow?" Seren doubted the little creature needed help, but, hell, it was worth a shot.

[miss_sanguine]

Jokes always sat at the tip of the spirit's tongue, and here would be the perfect opportunity for one, what with her holding out her hands as if in offering. What could I possibly want with your hands? he could say, or he could just grab at them with his little monkey ones and say what a great gift they were.

But he didn't. He didn't. Something that should have amazed the girl if she only knew what a feat it was. What was it about this girl that had him so intrigued? She had a smell to her. One familiar only to him due to past acquaintances, and he still didn't understand it. She had no smell of experience to her, of adventure, of any outward strength whatsoever. But of inner strength . . .  

"You've nothing? Nothing at all?" Without thought he went to his fox form and pushed his wet nose into her face, sniffing her hair, her ears, her neck. "Maybe nothing physical, no. But that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a human, and I think I might have just found myself one. The one."

Something about her. Something in the way she smelled, told him all that he needed to know. His decision was made. Now he just had to do what needed to be done.