If only it had been a simple case of Tiarnan being lost.
Search and rescue were certainly things Seresai was good at, especially when the rescuee would do such helpful things as sending up a smoke signal, flattening grass into messages easily viewed from the air, and overall just yelling his or her fool head off until someone came. All of those not only made her job easier, but made the whole situation easier to deal with mentally. The rescuer rescues, the lost is rescued, and everyone goes home happy and satisfied that the world wasn't such a terrible place.
If only.
Tiarnan, however, was far from lost.
He wasn't even missing.
Of everyone, he had only said farewell to Amarinne, choosing to vanish into the mists of an early dawn rather then wait to hear out Seresai's idea about getting their father, Crousader, to come around.
That betrayal of sibling unity rankled within the slim gold and white wind mare. Sure she recognized that she could, at times, be just as stubborn and hard headed as her sire, but she had been working for Tia's benefit. He was her younger brother, not to mention a future healer that she, as the Elderwillow Heir, strategically could not do without. The sharp spear of abandonment had literally punched a hole through her gut when Amarinne had sought her out to tell her Tia's message the next day. The young stallion had even made his own mother swear an oath not to tell anyone that he was leaving for good, rather then just winging off on a day trip, for at least a day after his departure.
Which, for a youngster of Crousader and Blais's training, would be long enough to make a trail vanish.
Which meant Seres was now winging frantically north, deeper into the Islagiatt mountain regions where few, if any, of the Elderwillow soquili visited these days... but which would still provide some measure of travel security given the Islagiatt border-guards. Tiarnan's very nature, as evident by this little trick, would keep him going along the path of least resistance. No one would question his passage here, and he would be able to make considerable time before he reached the northern borders and finally had to start fighting his way to wherever he was going.
Unfortunately, Seresai was now reaching those northern limits, and she was also fatiguing fast. Adrenaline had gotten her half way here, given that she had taken off without any form of nourishment, and her own stubborness had brought her to this point. Now she had to land and find some water.
Cursing the waste of time, the slim mare angled her wings to fly closer over the tree tops, back-winging nimbly to land near a small spring amid a flurry of wings and disgruntled wildlife.
