Totoka River Now I'm on the outside

Not only did he decline to offer a name, he called her a wench again. Wildfire's nose wrinkled but it was more amusement than anything else. She trotted behind him, wary but curious, her head canting a little when he mentioned swimming. It was an enjoyable past time for her as well, though she wasn't entirely sure why such a declaration was immediately relevant.

Then he began to wade and Wildfire stopped up short, blinking. "Wait," she murmured a bit inanely, looking side to side in bewilderment. Nobody showed up to tell her whether or not to follow, not that she was inclined to do so. In fact, she took a few steps back from the surf, shaking her head lightly. Realizing she had lost sight of her strange escort, she then squinted out across the choppy waves.

She heard shouts and her ears quivered, rotating atop her head like miniature satellite dishes. She scanned the waters, then thought she saw his head bobbing twenty or thirty feet form the shore. He sounded distressed. Wildfire's eyes roved upward, toward the island, wondering if any of his supposed comrades would jump in to save him. If not, should she attempt a rescue?

But when Wildfire tried to locate him again, she saw nothing but the rough seawater pushing and pulling as the tide crawled up the sand. She stared and stared and stared. Yet he seemed to have vanished beneath the waves. Wildfire's throat clenched when she realized what that meant: he'd drowned! The young explorer stood there a long while, hoping he would surface miraculously, but of course that never happened.

Glancing around herself almost guiltily, Wildfire eventually spun and retreated back along the riverbank, unsure of what to make of everything that had transpired in the past few hours. She felt like she should do something or, at the very least, tell somebody. But nobody from the island came looking as far as she knew and eventually Wildfire's hunger and wanderlust pushed her further inland, leaving the strange and tragic encounter behind her.