a collection of tales [[ chronocompass writing ]]

Teeba hadn't had a break from life for a while. With so much going on, he had been looking forward to a quiet day out and about, with some friends and some of the many ducklings that dwelled in Salvus. He, his dragon Law, and two of his friends had gone to lead the ducklings through a corn maze. It was really a beautiful day - from the sun shining through the light clouds above, to the corn weaving in the wind, Teeba grew absorbed in the moment. 

So, when the ducks wandered away, through the grass and yellow stalks of corn, neither he, nor Law, noticed.

. . . .

One of his two friends, Drittle, did. She was the only one not so captivated by the scenery, more interested with the maze and trying to make a map in her head. Looking down per usual got her to see the lack of yellow, and immediately took note of what just happened. "Hey, uh..." was all she really said in response, hoping that grabbed their attention. Junguru was asleep, dozing off on Drittles back.

. . . .

Teeba jolted a bit at Drittle's words, and at first thought that it was going to lead into a fairly normal conversation. Then, when he turned around, he noticed the absence of several fluffy friends. "Oh," he said, reaching up to scratch a spot on his face with one metal arm. "Oh dear, did they wander off?" 

Law grimaced upon seeing that the ducks were gone. "This is not ideal. I said that they were not to go out on their own. Do ducklings not know how to listen?" the brightly colored dragon asked, a frown on his face. He stomped a few times on the ground, kicking up stray bits of grass and dust. “Bah."

. . . 

Junguru, the second friend, was asleep on Drittles back, though not for long. Drittle bent down to find any hints of the disappearing ducklings, making him slide down to her neck, bumping into the cushioned scarf. as the words did nothing to wake him, the scarf did, making him jump and tumble down onto his four feet, scrambling to wake up and get up to speed. "WhaUAh! Wh- Where are the yellow puffballs??" he says, skittering left, skittering right, with no ducks in sight. Drittle watched his frantic wakeup call, grabbing his attention afterwards to catch him up. "Hey, they're probably just curious. everyone is when they see something new." she said, directed towards Junguru. "I wanted to get a general idea of this 'maze' anyways, so this works. Though.." she paused in thought. "how many were there to begin with? I wasn't keeping track." Drittle asks to Teeba and Law.

. . . .

"Uhh..." Teeba said, at a sudden loss for words. He really had thought that he had counted, but the number had slipped his mind. He took out a book from his pocket and began to flip through it, scribbled notes and schematics on each page - but no mention of ducks, unfortunately. 

Law puffed out his chest. "It's a good thing I'm here, then! 15, exactly! Unless they've gone and duplicated themselves, the scheming songbirds." He could see it now - the ducklings, wandering off into the distance to get into every sort of trouble. Well it wouldn't be happening. Not on his watch! "Curious or not, I'd imagine it's up to us to find them again!" 

Teeba sighed, flipped through another page in the book, and looked at the vast expanse of green and yellow surrounding them. "Yes, but in which direction?”

. . . .

"I'll find them!" Junguru said heroically, slipping in a random direction past the corn, being the only short member here that isn't yellow. Drittle yelled back at the quick response, going "Hey!" to grab his attention once more. it was too late, as the dragon had wondered off in search to rally up 15 ducklings by himself. 

Drittle mumbled to herself afterwards, adding 1 more to the mental counter of disappeared ducklings. "Junguru's going to mistake fallen corn for chicks.. ugh" she noted, quickly thinking on what to do next. "I'll try going on a path to his general direction, you two figure out the other side, ok?" she said, looking ahead at a split, intending to go right.

. . . .

Splitting up? In a maze? What a wonderful idea! Law was skeptical about it working out, but he wasn’t going to object, especially not after Teeba nodded in agreement. “Can do, Drittle. If you find them, yell, yeah? I bet we’ll be able to find each other that way.”

 As Drittle would go left, Teeba headed right, Law meandering on behind. “So are we just wandering in here until we find the ducklings?” he asked. 

Teeba laughed. This was a bit of a worry, with so many ducks gone, but far less intimidating than other, present problems in his life. It was a brilliant change of pace. “Well, I intend to make a map of where we go,” he said, waving his book in the air. “Can’t be much harder than designing a new metal mechanism, right?”

. . . .

"I hope so." Drittle adds, hoping Junguru is safe as well. she walks past them, heading to the split. 

"good luck out there." she said, before turning past the split and heading right, only her hoofsteps being head among ground from the two.

. . . .

It wasn't long before Teeba and Law were in the middle of a completely different section of corn. While Teeba was attempting to jump every so often to get glimpses over the corn, Law had his ears perked for any sounds of quacking. It was, thankfully, only a few minutes before he heard a sound. Only a singular sound - maybe from only one duck or two, but one duck was better than none!

 Law mentally nudged Teeba, and he grinned. "Ah, now that's something." The two started trying to make their way through the maze, towards the sound - though neither one was sure exactly which way would take them there.

. . . .

While Drittle was elsewhere making a mental map and looking for a certain dragon, Junguru is quickly spotted by Law and Teeba, chasing after one noisy duckling through the inbetweens of the maze. This alone shows just how much free reign he and the ducklings have as corn doesn't impede their path. soon enough, the singular duckling is cut off by the spectating duo, seeing Junguru just behind, looking in the wrong direction for where the duckling went.

. . . .

Teeba and Law halted and watched as Junguru and a duck appeared and then vanished again through the walls of the maze. "Well that's just against the rules," Law said with a sigh. His eyes flashed colors briefly, but he decided against chasing after the duck - he was sure to fall behind, not being able to crawl through the walls of the corn. 

"Junguru," Teeba said, a warm smile on his face from observing the hilarious duck chasing scene, "They went the other way. Do you have any plans beyond just running after them?" He had been flicking through the pages of his book and pondering if he had anything else in his pockets that could help, but nothing had come to mind so far.

. . . .

The little slimy dragon takes notice of the larger dragon and Teeba. "Oh! iuhhh was thinking of just uh.." Junguru paused, actually stumped as he realized just how little he planned this out. "I dont know actually." he says bluntly, looking at them with a giddy stare.

. . . .

Teeba closed his eyes in thought. "Well, you can get between the sections of the maze, and the rest of us can't. So what if we all started at different sides of the maze, and kept moving the ducks further towards each other, until we had them surrounded? Your rider, Law, and I would probably need to follow the paths but you could get any ducks that don't go that way." 

"And then once we surround them we give them a stern talking to about listening to directions?" Law asked hopefully. 

"Well, I suppose."

. . . .

"Ill go look for Drittle then! Oh she'll be happy to be on a hunt like this!" He responds, leaving without another word, but with happy hums of an unknown tune.