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Zero was on his way home. His meeting with Själ left the lightning boy with a significant weight off his chest, a realization that Hey, maybe I'm not so alone! It also left him with the realization that he'd left people behind, too, and that wasn't the person he wanted to be. So he left with the decision that he would find Tae and Grusha, and make sure they were okay, and let them be mad at him and promise to take care of them from now on. That was the plan, at least- except that instead of being in the Thistle Meadow, which he was pretty sure he should have reached by now, he was still in a forest; and instead of the new and elated feeling of Oh yeah, I'm going the right way!, the familiar sinking suspicion of Oh no, I'm lost, was beginning to set in

The lightning boy frowned, trying to peer up at the sun from between the dense canopy of trees. Ma had taught him that you could use the sun to figure out what direction you were facing before she... well... y'know; and while Zero found the concept fascinating in theory, in practice he struggled with its execution. He certainly thought he'd gone the right way, which was left, because that was the way the sun was rising and the sun rose in the South because it rose up from the bottom of the world- or was that right? Now that he thought about it he wasn't super sure.

Not that the sun could help him now. It was dawn, and he'd been traveling for a whole day, and he really just wanted to get away from all these trees.

Zero grit his teeth stubbornly and started off in a new direction (somewhat southeast, which, really, is what he didn't know he wanted), positive that eventually he'd find something that would lead him out of the woods. And he did find something - or someone, rather - but it certainly wasn't a discovery that would get him out of the woods. If you know what I mean.

(Y'know, metaphorically. Or whatever.

Oh, forget it.)

"Mesec!" the lightning boy exclaimed, leaping forward through the brush to where the sparking form of his friend had seemingly materialized out of thin air. He hadn't seen Mesec since that night- and Zero's greeting reflected this fact, because the boy was uncharacteristically anxious as he looked at the older stallion, his usual enthusiasm marred by a frantic desperation. It was the look of someone who'd just gotten rejected from nine different colleges, and knew that if he didn't get into this one he didn't have a chance- the look of a child looking in the very last place for their favorite toy, a beggar asking the last person for a dollar. The look of someone needy, and hopeful, and thoroughly prepared to be crushed by the answer, but still unable to give up until they get it-

"Do you know where my Ma is?!" Zero practically begged- because Mesec was that last letter, that final hiding place, that dollar into which he'd invested all his remaining faith. Because if anyone knew, it would be Mesec, and if Mesec didn't know, well...

He didn't want to think so much about that.