Wearing:
xxx
Tag:
Sophelia Ardemark
Jackson reached the shallows just as the serpent turned its attention back toward the pirates. Blaster fire and shouting carried across the river behind him while the creature tore through the water in the opposite direction. When Sophelia held out her hand, Jackson glanced at it, then up at her. A smirk pulled at one corner of his mouth before he gave her a quick wink and planted his own hand against the muddy bank.
"I got it."
He hauled himself out and followed her into the jungle before the pirates could recover from their new problem. Vines dragged at his clothes, branches slapped against his shoulders, and every few steps some half-buried root tried to catch his boot. By the time Sophelia slowed to catch her breath, Jackson was feeling the weight of the crash again too, though he had been doing a decent job ignoring it.
Then she said one of them should climb a tree.
Jackson looked from Sophelia to the branches overhead and back again. He knew exactly what "one of us" meant.
"Right. One of us." The smirk returned as he stepped toward the trunk.
"Wouldn't want you to break a nail."
He let out an exasperated sigh and reached for the first branch, and the movement pulled sharply through his side. Jackson winced and immediately caught his ribs with one hand, holding still until the pain eased enough for him to breathe normally again. Apparently the crash had not stopped being a problem just because the jungle had supplied pirates and a giant river serpent to distract him from it.
Jackson looked up at the tree again, then over at Sophelia.
"Still climbing it." There was enough stubbornness in his tone to make it clear the injury had not changed his mind.
He took a slower breath and started upward, choosing his holds with more care than he would have if his ribs were not protesting every stretch. The lower branches were thick enough to support him, but the canopy above tangled together in a mess of broad leaves and hanging vines that made it difficult to see much of anything beyond the next few meters. Jackson kept climbing until he found a fork sturdy enough to brace himself against and finally pushed through the last curtain of leaves.
The view changed immediately.
From up there, the jungle stopped feeling endless. The river cut through the trees behind them, flashes of red blaster fire still visible near the bank where the pirates had been delayed. Farther ahead, the canopy dipped into a shallow valley before rising again around a cluster of structures half-hidden by the vegetation.
Jackson narrowed his eyes.
"There you are."
The village was not far, but they had been drifting too far east. If they had kept moving in the direction they were going, they would have missed it entirely and probably wandered deeper into the jungle before realizing it. Jackson shifted carefully against the branch and looked for something they could use as a landmark from the ground.
A split-trunk tree stood above the surrounding canopy with pale bark and wide leaves. Beyond it, he could just make out what looked like smoke or cooking fires rising through the trees near the village.
Jackson glanced down through the branches toward Sophelia. "We were close, but we're off." He pointed through the canopy even though he doubted she could see exactly what he meant from below. "Village is northwest from here. There's a big pale tree with two trunks about halfway there. If we aim for that, we should be able to keep the right direction."
He was about to start climbing down when something else caught his attention.
Movement below the canopy, farther ahead.
Jackson leaned slightly to one side and immediately regretted it when his ribs reminded him that leaning was currently a terrible idea. He sucked in a breath and steadied himself before looking again. The movement was gone, but near the base of the split-trunk tree he could see a narrow break through the undergrowth that did not look entirely natural like something had passed through recently.
Jackson frowned.
"Soph."
His voice had lost some of the teasing edge now.
"There's something else."
He scanned the break again, trying to decide whether he was looking at an animal path, villagers moving through the jungle, or something more recent.
"Looks like somebody pushed through the brush between us and the village. Could be nothing, but it cuts almost straight toward it."
That was enough for Jackson.
He started down, moving slower than he had climbed. His ribs pulled again when he dropped to a lower branch, and he muttered something under his breath before finally reaching the last few meters. Rather than risk another hard jolt, Jackson lowered himself carefully and dropped the remaining distance to the jungle floor.
The landing still hurt.
He winced and pressed a hand against his side, waiting until the sharpness faded before looking toward Sophelia.
"Good news, we're not lost."
A beat passed while his smirk returned.
"Yet."
Jackson nodded toward the direction he had seen from above.
"Village is that way. There's also something that looks like a trail, or at least where somebody went through recently." His expression became more serious as he looked through the jungle ahead.
"If Itz made it this far, maybe it's hers."
He started toward the break in the vegetation, slower at first while he watched the ground for signs they were actually following something and not just forcing a pattern onto random jungle growth. A snapped branch hung low over the route, and several broad leaves had been bent back in the same direction. Jackson crouched briefly beside one of them.
"...or whoever found her first."
Jackson Lesan
