Argetlam was frustrated. There was a hole in his head, a gaping hole, filled with a vague memory of the Deep Forest. A flash of something silver-scaled? Was it just the sun? Something must've gone wrong, he knew, feeling exceedingly unsettled by the loss of thought and cohesion. He just knew something important had happened, some important piece for the puzzle had been buried and thrown away. Despite his increasingly desperate attempts to fill in the black hole, nothing came. Not a shred other that a glimpse of shadows and trees. He remembered Aaron, and Rafe, at the red-gem pool. What had he done after? For he had done something. But what? And why couldn't he remember it?

The crafter shakes his head in despair, and continues to shambling pacing, moving back and forth ceaselessly, the roar of the waterfall deafening him. The constant roar of water thundering downwards wasn't helping him think, in any case, but the foam-sprayed rock pulsed with metals, a soothing heartbeat that always calmed him, settled him down, in the same way a mother's lullaby had a foal drifting to sleep. What would Isdira do? "Me? Forget something? Ha!" Argetlam could almost hear her saying, rolling her eyes and turning back gruffly to her work in the charcoal.

Naturally the metal-bender was in near-panic at the loss of memory. It didn't make sense. He couldn't remember falling, or smashing his head against the rocks, and his head didn't throb apart from the desperate attempts to fulfill the gaping hole. Maybe it was a more masculine form of intuition that told him there was something important. Yet if there was something important, it was gone, and what would the herd say to 'oh, I forgot, but something really interesting and possibly bad is going on, so be on your guard'? They would laugh at him in the face. Inexplorably Argetlam thought it might have something to do with Willow and Romani's kidnap- maybe their disappearance was connected somehow. Why would anyone steal them? What did they have in common?

Near hysteria, Argetlam forced himself to calm, lowering his gray stone head to sip at the cool, rapidly flowing water. He needed someone in charge, someone who knew what they were doing. Aaron, maybe? Ailith was someone he felt he could confide in, but she could be intimidating, and he wasn't altogether sure how she would take his urgent sense of something missing. Doubt settled in his heart, draped itself over his eyes, as he gulped down the glacial water, the freezing cold of it numbing his lips, sliding down his esophagus in a surprisingly calming way. He half-consciously followed it's trail of cold winding down to his stomach.

Okay. What could he do? At the very least, he could talk to the herd about it. But then, he wasn't sure it was in his authority to collect them. Actually, he didn't really like the idea. It felt very... presumptuous of him to demand their company. That was a job for Jackal, wherever he was. The dark gray stallion sighed. Isdira would laugh at him for his worry. "Do it! What's the worse that could happen?"

"Foothills," Argetlam finally called, shifting uneasily. "What are we going to do about Willow and Romani?" There was a note of despair in the draft's voice, a slight edge of fear. For one reason, mainly: what if they frowned upon him for calling them? Maybe he should add an apology. "I'm sorry for calling you. It's not really my place, but since Jackal's away, I think we need to work together to figure this out."

[I hope it's okay that I created this thread. I think we should probably just work out some IC stuff about what's happened :3 Anywho, I can always take it down if you guys want]