Regardless of whether or not @Naira was going to catch up with him or send another soul with him on this search for @Datura, Mapplethorpe was advancing forward. Whatever it took to quell Naira's worries and bring the golden prince home, the rugged Advisor had set out to do it. Heading south, the Nomad man had long since left the Red Fern Forest at his back, his senses all on high alert. All through the air here it seemed like something was not right. If Red Fern Forest had not seemed welcoming or inhabited, these mist-blanketed woods were the opposite. Wide yellow eyes took in his surroundings, moving about haphazardly until a peculiar scent came to him.

Immediately he pressed his nose into the damp, chilled soil, snuffing about loudly until... there... There! And, there! The musky, masculine scent that belonged to the Aquila boy filtered into his sense of smell, but he was quick to realize just how old it had been. He inhaled deeply, combing through the aroma of wet mud and other wandering wildlife to discover eventually that the boy had not gone along this way alone. His tawny hackles rose protectively, the paternal instinct within him awakening with such vigor that a growl lifted from his throat and chest.

Nothing of the young girl, whose scent trail seemed to walk alongside and over Datura's own path, told him about who she was or where she had come from, but Mapplethorpe's gut was telling him to hasten his search. For all he knew, this young girl, an age-mate perhaps if his assumptions were correct, could have whisked him away to his death. Once he had taken a moment to stretch his aching limbs, he was off again, tail high in the air in the spirit of the hunt. One way or another, now that he was right on track, he was going to bring his Queen's first-born home... and he was going to make sure the rogue girl who had taken him farther south would see the extent of his wrath.