Found!
- Darren / Aerianne, Odyssa ; on the way to Osea
-- Day 2- some hours before dawn of day 3
by Lum

It took them some time, but finally the crewmen of Maryanne's Treasure managed to repair the fairly sizeable damage the fierce storm had done. They were professionals, after all. Hudson had long gotten out of bed and was now congratulating his workmates for their work, he himself being unable to help, due to his injuries.

The storm was now much calmer than it had been hours ago, and their ship was able to restore its steadiness once more.

It was very late at night- or rather, very early in the morning- when the ship returned to its original pace. Darren was busy delivering damp towels and drinks to the exhausted crewmen when Odyssa, the spirited purple-haired princess, came hurrying down the corridor with Aerianne following calmly behind.

"Have you seen Tristan Marcus, brat?" she called before she halted to catch her breath.

The said brat- Darren, turned. "Tris? No. Why?"

She gasped. "We couldn't find him anywhere!" Her tone was panicked.

Darren's face took on an slightly confused expression. "What?"

"As a matter of fact," Aerianne stepped forward, her eyes deeply serious. "They're not on the ship," she said evenly.

Darren, however, almost dropped his handful of towels at that calmly announced remark. "They *what*?!"

"They're not here on the ship; their Scents have disappeared. You should've been able to notice that, Darren. Anyway, my guess is that they probably were tossed into the sea when the lightning struck us."

Crimson eyes widened to their natural limits, and Darren stood dumbfounded for an instant before the towels dropped from his hands. "The SEA?!" he cried in horror. "How can you be so calm about this?!"

His cry managed to attract all the crewmen's attention. The ship became very noisy at that point.

Darren burst out onto the slippery deck in panic, but Aerianne grabbed his arms and stopped him abruptly before he could go any further. "Where're you going?" she demanded.

The red-haired devil tried to shake off her hands, but the grip remained stubbornly iron-hard. "Please, Aerianne!" He was almost pleading. "I can fly! I have to find Tris and Rodan!"

"Yes, we have to. But I'm not about to let you fly off into the darkness not knowing where to look for when there's a more effective way," the Lyannerae replied calmly.

Somehow the rich voice of hers put quite a considerable grip on the intensifying fear of his friends' safety in him. He rubbed his eyes. "What do you have in mind?"

"You're a devil, aren't you?" The corner of her lips lifted slightly when Darren nodded. "We have certain advantages which humans don't. One of them is the ability to identify each individual by their Scent," she explained, then she frowned at Darren's perplexed expression. "You *do* know about this, don't you?"

The visibly embarrassed devil youth tilted his head and searched through his brain. "I have some faint ideas," he admitted.

"You should pay more attention to your studies," Odyssa accused.

"Why you..." The red-faced boy started, but Aerianne fiercely interrupted:

"There's no time for your little brawling games!" she almost snapped. Odyssa and Darren looked at her like two guilty puppies, and immediately pursed their respective mouths. "We need to do this as fast as possible. I'll teach you how to identify a person's Scent now, Darren, since it's not very difficult. Of the three of us, you know Marcus and Coll the best, so it'd be easier to let you handle this."

Darren nodded gravely. Aerianne spent the next several minutes explaining the whole procedure to him. The devil got it pretty quickly, due to the fact that he *had* been practicing with his "talent" for several years now.

"There's more to it," she concluded. "But that's basically the whole concept. Now try it." Aerianne could be very stern when she chose to.

Following the instructions she had given him, Darren gathered his inner energy at one specific point. Then, very carefully, he spread it out in all directions. Eyes tightly closed in dead concentration, he frantically searched for his friends' locations in the fluctuating waves. It was much more difficult than he'd expected, and he started  to sweat.

To be honest, he had doubts about whether he'd be able to recognize Tristan's and Rodan's Scent, since he had only knew them for no more than three days, in addition to the fact that this was his first try at this...

"Keep your mind concentrated!" Aerianne barked.

Odyssa sweatdropped.

He didn't so much smell them- as one would so obviously expected with the word 'Scent'- as he actually *felt* them. There, somewhere to the southwest, were two definite Scents floating. They were very weak, but undoubtfully alive. He knew they were their friends' as soon as his mind "touched" them; the Scents were clearly identifiable.

"I found them!!" He almost jumped in a sudden surge of joy mingled with relief. He turned around, and gave Aerianne and Odyssa each an embrace. Both women seemed more than a little startled by his genuine act, though, especially Odyssa.

Darren rubbed at his eyes again, wiping away something that looked suspiciously liquid-like, and broke into a radiant smile. "Can you believe they're actually not dead?!!" It probably wasn't the best way to put it, but Darren- being Darren- was like that.

Odyssa sagged against the wall in relief, smiling as well.

"Where are they?" Aerianne asked.

"Somewhere southwest. They weren't moving, though."

Aerianne frowned. She turned to Hudson, who was among the other crewmen, waiting anxiously for their findings. "Are there any island around here?" she asked.

Hudson nodded. "The Igan Isles," he replied.

"Could they have actually reached an island? Thank God!!" Odyssa exclaimed happily.

The beautiful half-demon mused for a second, than she turned back to Darren and instructed, "Darren, try again. This time see if you can communicate with them."

It was much easier once he knew the general direction, and Darren soon found the two unique Scents of his friends again. He carefully poked their minds with his own, and mentally called out their names. Nothing happened. He tried again, only to encounter a dull emptiness.

He gave up in frustration, then. "They aren't responding," he reported, scowling.

"Maybe they're unconscious?" Odyssa suggested.

Darren nodded. "And there's something else, too," he added. "I could also felt a very, very vague Scent near them, but I couldn't identify it."

"Rescuer," Aerianne surmised.

"From Igan?" Hudson sounded incredulous.

She shrugged. "It's a guess."

Darren was looking restless. "Now we know where they are, can't we go find them already?" he demanded, ready to spring into the damp air to his friends' side.


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here you go. Hope it wasn't too bad...^^x;;
Who's taking it up next? Who? Dare? Who??


Lum