Patrick was lost. Even though he had only been on Gaia approximately two minutes, he already wanted to toss his stuff down and rush back through that door into his mothers comforting embrace. But no, he couldn't do that. He had made a promise, a promise he was going to keep.
His father had said his Host would be there on the other side, waiting for him. There was so many people, though! How was Patrick supposed to find him - or her - in this crowd? "What do we do, Tycho?" Tycho had, of course, come with Patrick on this fateful trip. Tycho was Patrick's best friend. Tycho was a toy. "We can just wait over here..."
"Maybe if you had listened to the woman when she had called, we wouldn't be in this ridiculous situation!" Ciyan spat, golden eyes narrowed. Wotcher, though he hated to admit it, knew the boy was right. "Fine, next time, I won't be making pudding when the telephone rings. I did catch some of it. Little boy, brown hair, scar on his nose."
"You mean like him over there?" The clawed hand shot out, pointing to a boy sitting on a wooden bench not far off. "Yeah. I think so." Wotcher dug into his pockets, fishing around for the small bit of paper that he had. "Ah-ha!"
"Are you, uh, let's see, Patrick Janson?"
With that single question, Patrick felt his heart rise and plummet at the same time. His Host had found him, but...a boy was with him. An odd looking boy. Were those scales? "I guess so." Patrick finally answered softly, tearing his eyes away from Ciyan.
"You guess? You mean you don't know your own name?" Ciyan spoke up before Wotcher could say anything. "Ciyan, stop being mean! This is a new place for him. Of course he's going to be shy at first." Smiling down at Patrick, Wotcher offered his hand to the boy. "Let's go home."
