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_ Lost & Found _

The air stifled so very much. Even on a morning that was not so hot, how difficult it was to breathe came as the first thing to my notice upon disembarking the train.

To walk through the streets, the crowded, overloaded streets, surrounded by so many tall buildings that seemed to squash them ever narrower, was to walk through a sticky swamp. A rainstorm without rain. A heat so unlike that of the deserts of home.

I would not, and could not, raise complaint, however.

With my belongings in a bag on my shoulder, after enduring such an arduous, week-long journey by ship from Tandara, my homeland in Ekrea, I had achieved success.

I had made it to Vodaskal. To the great city of Pilsnec...

To a better life for me, and for my family.

But neither my journey nor my test had ended at the train station.

For you see, what had greeted me, the experience, the sensation, was nothing I could have ever hoped to envision.

These streets, packed with more people, more species than I had ever seen in one place, roared with so many alien voices, sharing words, Velikan words, wholly incompatible with my ears. Words that were quickly suffocated by so much traffic, so much activity, before rising to drown in the humid air.

People bumped every part of me as I navigated the rough crowds, to the point where it fell outside of my notice. Perhaps that came with overfamiliarity, or perhaps it came with my ever-increasing efforts to place and understand even one solitary word amongst many thousands.

The confusion, the disorientation, did not end there at ear and eye level. Downwards, a whole different world existed. A smaller world. One filled with locals standing, walking, cycling and more upon an intricate network of moving paths.

Varying from running at knee-height to within little trenches at the edge of the pavement, in sight to outside of it, they went everywhere the normal paths did, as well as to places they did not.

They offered another distraction. Another sight to witness and to be taken aback by. Smaller persons, the size of those from the Polcian continent, were not a common occurrence where I came from. Certainly not enough to demand... so very many amenities.

It was fascinating, truly. But also yet another reminder of how far from my village I had journeyed, and in ways far beyond simple distance.

I could not allow myself to be unfocused, I reminded myself as I continued my walk from the station. My journey in this distant place was far from over.

Despite so much to be aware of and to avoid, be it around or beneath me, I moved my hand, and my attention, towards my pocket. Within, I would find the directions to the 'Black Star Hostel': the place I had been told I was to be staying at.

A hostel...

I wondered how many others I would be sharing a space with. How many of them I might be able to understand.

For certain, it would be a far cry from home, no matter the case. I would not be with father, nor mama, nor my brothers and sisters.

Nevertheless, I knew this was for the best... truly...

To be alone would be difficult... but in time, and through the work I had come here to perform, we would all be so much better off-

"-Ey!-"

I snapped back to the there of Pilsnec, and the then of my walk through its hectic streets.

Except... the street I was on, or rather, the alleyway I was in, laid empty.

"-Ey, ey!-"

Almost empty, seemingly.

I stopped for a moment. Took a look around.

Ahead, I saw only the rest of this grey alley, before it sloped and disappeared down what appeared to be a set of steps.

To my sides were walls... In which were windows.

Polcian-sized windows...

...Polcian-sized apartment windows.

"Lizard!"

I froze.

For the first time in so very long, I heard... I understood that voice, that word.

A Polcian word.

It came from below. From the ground.

I looked down. All the way to the floor.

To the very stout yet very small grey wolf in a bright orange uniform.

Then, I saw those around him, a broad brown bear and a brawny black bull, all similarly dressed, all standing around my shins, watching from a patch of concrete beside a small pathway running just below ground level.

A patch of concrete... surrounded by tiny cones.

...Cones that I had stepped a long way beyond.

"What... doing?" the wolf said. So quickly. Too quickly for my very limited Polcian ability.

That said, I much preferred attempting to use very limited Polcian over my non-existent Velikan. "...Sorry?"

"What... doing!?"

"...S-Sorry?"

He threw what I thought was a little clipboard to the floor. "...read!?"

"...Read?"

He growled so very loudly, then threw his arm out towards my foot that had landed beyond the cones. "Move! Now!"

I did, of course. So swiftly that I'm not sure I even had to think about it.

My apologies continued to pour out as fast and as automatically as I took that backwards step; apologies that poured only faster once I saw what I had left behind.

The wolf shouted something, throwing his hands to his head.

His coworkers all did similar, joining him, and me, in staring down at a patch of wet concrete.

...And my shoeprint deep within it.

As one, the little workers screamed and yelled, thrashing their arms and baring their teeth at me.

Whether it was better or worse not to understand their words at that moment, I cannot fully say.

"Sorry, sorry," I repeated, again and again, with hands raised the whole time.

"Sign!?" the wolf bellowed. Slow and loud. "See. Sign?"

"...Sign?"

"Yes!" He stomped towards and kicked away one of those small cones.

The others spoke up, too. None of them I understood, beyond how angry they also sounded.

"Tandara, from," I said in the best of my bad Polcian. "Velikan, speak not. Polcian, speak little. Ekrean, speak yes. Sorr-"

"Go!" The wolf pointed past my leg so hard, it was as if he had thrown something. "Go, now."

A check back over my shoulder helped me rediscover the busy city I had wandered away from. If being scolded so roundly by these workers had not shamed me enough, then the small faces I soon noticed watching from so very many of the surrounding small windows ensured my humiliation.

"Go!"

I had no need to wait for any further orders.

My head weighed so heavily on my shoulders as I turned from the continued shouts and snarls. Fitting, given my need to avoid any further trouble underfoot, and to keep from meeting the glares of those spectating from within their homes.

The suffocating street, thronged with so many vehicles, so many people, laid a short walk and an even shorter run away. How strange it seemed to feel so much relief approaching the edge of the crowd, its constant roar soon overtaking that of the workers behind.

Only then, when I passed through a gap in two waist-height work barriers, did I fully comprehend my initial mistake.

And only then, when I noticed the signs with bright red words, two of which were Polcian, reading 'No' and 'Entry', did I fully clench my eyes and jaw closed.

I found myself a narrow recess to disappear within at the opening of the alleyway, hidden away from outraged eyes, and the fast flow of those travelling along pavements and walkways of varying sizes.

For certain, I needed to take a moment to pause and to find myself. Emotionally and physically.

Into my pocket went my hand, seeking the slip of paper that had helped me make it to this alley in Pilsnec. With good fortune, it would also guide me on the rest of my journey: to the hostel that, for a time, I would call home.

"...Huh?"

The whole of my body tensed. My heart skipped a beat...

Empty?

I snatched my hand out of that pocket and threw it into the other...

But again, I found nothing except the lining.

"...No."

Back into the first pocket I dove, hoping against hope that I might have missed a part of it. Of course, that was nothing but the most wishful of thinking.

The beat that my heart skipped lingered as I turned cold. Numb.

Somewhere... between boarding and disembarking the train from the port we had sailed to that morning...

I had lost the directions.

...I had lost the only way I had of making it to that hostel.

To the start of this new chance.

This new life.

I collapsed against the wall of my hideaway, the chilling numbness persisting while the manic world raced ever onwards around me.

What could I do? I was so very, very lost in the most foreign of places.

I... had no idea what to do, where to go.

What little money I had would get me little further than nowhere.

...I didn't even have a phone number to contact.

A stabbing ache in my stomach cut through the nothingness.

My breathing got faster, harder.

I doubled over, one hand clutching my belly, the other gripped over my face.

My legs went weak. Somehow I stayed standing.

How could I have been so careless?

How could I have been so stupid!?

To lose those directions. To fail to even think to make a copy...

I screamed out loud, following with words that may or may not have been curses.

As if it mattered.

Not a soul in this city could understand me.

Oh, how far over my head had I got myself...

Stranded. Helpless.

Alone.

"Ahh, my young brother?"

Confusion struck with full force.

Those words... Had I heard them correctly?

"Brother, are you well?"

Another blast of bemusement knocked me all the way upright.

I heard the crunching of footsteps before I saw a figure approaching from the crowded street.

A chameleon. _Another_chameleon.

"Can I help you at all?"

Another chameleon, in some kind of work overalls... Who I could understand!

"I- Have- Do..." My initial reply came out as if a hundred words were all fighting to be said.

In the end, I succeeded in organising at least some of them into a full sentence.

"Yes, please, oh, a thousand thanks to the gods, you speak Ekrean."

The relief I felt upon speaking my native language, and upon it being understood by the chameleon before me, was almost tangible. Like a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

That must truly have been visible, given the smile this stranger presented to me in return.

"My brother," he said, placing a hand upon my shoulder. "Your thanks should be for the fact that few others here do."

That... made little sense. At first, at least.

"I think only sailors could have rivalled an outburst such as yours."

A flash of embarrassment in my thoughts soon paled in comparison to the reassuring glow of this, this most welcome of conversations.

"Well then." He took his hand away, but maintained the warmth in his voice. "How may I be of help?"

It proved so very difficult not to regress into a blurting, unintelligible mess as I laid bare my situation. Namely, finding myself so utterly lost in a foreign land, with no hope of finding my way to the hostel, wherever that may be in a city as vast as Pilsnec.

At the same time, as much as I wished to get all that was upon my chest off of it, I decided to hold back on revealing some of the more..._intimate_details. Namely, the nature of my arrival in Vodaskal, and that of the arrangement that had permitted me to come to this country in the first place.

But, as fate would dictate, I need not have.

"Aha, so you set sail from the port in Hanisah City, I assume," he said in the most hushed of tones. "That is quite the trek... Am I correct?"

Exactly correct. Correct enough to have me tense up all over again, and leave me wishing to find someplace even deeper to hide away within that recess. "...Hanisah?"

His smile had never faltered throughout the entirety of our conversation thus far. Though at that point, I began to fear the nature of it.

Never mind this hideaway, I started to consider pushing past this fellow chameleon and disappearing back into the bustle of the city.

Flight or flight, I never got the opportunity to make that non-decision before his next words changed everything.

"I made that very same trip when I left Tandara... Nearly five years ago now."

Those calming words sent a second wave of relief washing over me. I gasped for air, the hot, humid air, and savoured it nonetheless.

At last, I could step out of my refuge from the city, and speak free from fear. "In that case, I hope the seas back then were not as rough as they were for me."

"Oh, your hope is very much misplaced," he replied, sharing a short laugh with me before continuing. "Never could I have believed that I would be so grateful to be bundled out onto a dark, dirty dockyard in the smallest hours."

Standing in place at the border of the alleyway and pavement, I suspect we both desired a moment to share more of our own journeys from our homeland. Nevertheless, under the circumstances, and with such a large potential audience, to skip over it was only prudent.

"My apologies, young brother," he said, his volume raised back towards normal. "The place you are trying to find, what was its name again?"

"Oh, yes..." I straightened myself and cleared my throat, sending up a silent prayer that this man might guide me from lost to found before I confirmed, "The 'Black Star Hostel'. That is where I have to go."

He took a quiet moment to watch me. Dare I say, to observe me.

I wondered what I might have said to garner such a reaction.

"Do you know of it?" I asked, glancing towards the passing crowds, then back to him.

"Yes, yes, I know it," he replied, hurried, almost as if I had rushed him.

Upon hearing his 'yes', a spark of positivity threatened to ignite within. Not just yet, I insisted upon myself. "Do you... know the way?"

Once more, he fell silent, recasting that analytical eye over me.

"Sir?" I asked with the utmost softness and care. "May I ask, can you tell me how to get there?"

That final question proved sufficient to break the steel of his gaze, and to draw from him a reassuringly upbeat, "I can."

"Fantastic!" I clenched my fists and shook them for all I was worth. "Thank you, sir."

"'Black Star' is a place where many newcomers of all sizes stay when they first arrive. Until they are ready to go their own way."

I had already ascended halfway to the heavens by the time he sent that fact to follow me.

He knew the way! I wasn't lost any longer! Surely, I would make it to where I needed to be...

Then, that fact about the hostel finally caught up with my elation. "Uh... All sizes, you say?"

"Have you not had the pleasure of dealing with those smaller than us before?" he asked with the most knowing of smirks.

"...Not before today," I said, thinking better of looking into the alleyway again. "Few, if any, of them live where I live... Lived."

"Hah!" He returned his hand to my shoulder and gave me a brisk shake. "Take my word for it, this is something that will change, and change quickly. Prepare your neck for how much you will be looking downwards."

"O-Oh, I don't doubt... I will do so."

My newfound guide reclaimed his hand, considering something with a rub of his chin and a watch of the ever-moving city. His expression was so very far removed from one suggesting he knew of where I needed to go.

In fact, it left me no choice but to wave a hand between his face and the street and ask, "And so... the hostel?"

"Yes, the hostel, yes," he replied at a quickfire pace. "It is in the Kosnerka district, of course."

"...Of course."

"Or 'Little Ekrea', as some like to call it."

"Oh? That sounds-"

"From here, the trip is really quite long... but on the metro, it is not a difficult one. If you are able to pay for it?"

"Yes, I can, I- I knew of the metro, and I have money for this at least, but... the route, the details, I no longer know."

He smiled, nodded, and gestured for me to follow him fully away from the alley. "Come. Let me show you to the station. It is not far."

"Ah, thank you so-!"

"And watch for the little walkways."

I shuddered to a halt and whipped my gaze downwards... finding nothing but the dusty concrete of the alley and the pavement it connected with.

"Just a test," he said with the flash of a grin.

As much at ease as at any time since arriving in Vodaskal, I followed my fellow Ekrean, fellow Tandari, fellow chameleon, back into the rush of Pilsnec.

Amid the bewildering haste, between the oppressive towers of brick and concrete, I no longer suffered that same sense of confusion, nor that same sense of being so completely out of place.

And as for 'Little Ekrea'? My word, I held on to so very much hope that it might be even half of what I began to imagine.

I was so far from home, and so nervous for what might unfold or befall me in my attempts to succeed in Pilsnec, in Vodaskal... But perhaps, I might not have been as alone, as isolated, as I first feared.

Perhaps, this truly _would_be the start of a better life.

And perhaps, one day, I might get used to living with such... small neighbours.