King Elk Forest i've been watching you creep

sorry this is awful and long, I wanted to hop in here fast but I'm not quite back in the swing of things yet ;;

 

The ex-soldier tried not to make a habit of letting Mona out of his sight, though most of the time he kept to the background. He was warm with his firebird when he did speak to her, though this didn't strike him as sending mixed signals or anything. Nothing was wrong, to him-- but he was wary of making the girl feel uncomfortable, suffocated under his watchful gaze. He kept an eye on her nonetheless; even if he only possessed about a teaspoon-full of social awareness and ability to hold interpersonal relationships (combined, on a good day) he did care about her.
So when she went missing, Nathaniel had his own sort of meltdown. It was a quiet rage-- fire tucked under glass, a storm outside the safety of walls. He did not allow his anger to touch any, but he did not hide it. Nat certainly wasn't angry at Mona, or anyone but himself, though he did not acknowledge these points consciously. It was unnecessary to clarify to himself; the anger simply existed, born of fear and nurtured by nagging doubt regarding the rock slide.
He had wasted no time in turning the feeling into action. First the ex-soldier had followed her scent-- fading by the time he actually found it. It ended ominously; abruptly her trail had been cut short, and Nathaniel's only hint was one he would never have connected. The metal beast in the sky had gone unnoticed, too far by then for the ex-soldier to pay attention to it.

Later, the call interrupted Nathaniel's relentless search, but he had never been further from minding. He turned without hesitating to find the source, his firebird, at once filled with relief and worry and a strong sense of urgency. The ex-soldier barely noticed Anatha when he arrived-- and gave no sign that he had at all. As soon as he saw Mona, he hurried towards her, immediately invasive with his sniffing and worrying. She smelled... different, and he did not fail to notice the shining object wrapped around her neck.
Mona. Nathaniel spoke quietly, drawing back just slightly when he found she was not wounded. He didn't know what this was around her neck, but in his life he had come to know many things. The scent of humans was one.