"I . . . I have no idea . . ." she replied, as befuddled as Dagan.

The constant line of marching silhouettes showed no sign of ending. Seras even walked the opposite direction of them for a brief period, just enough to see if there were many more silhouettes coming--and low and behind, she found more silhouettes. She, like Dagan before her, attempted to get there attention. She called out to them, walked quickly by the side of one of the large four legged things, waved, jumped up and down, made noise--everything she could possibly do and more, yet they still paid her no mind. It was as if Seras and Dagan did not exist to these things.

Which certainly made them much less dangerous, but . . .

"I . . . sh--"

She couldn't believe she was even thinking this, but it really seemed like the best possible option right now. Actually, it was the only possible option she could think of. If Dagan wound up getting an idea, though, and it was better than this--well, by all means.

"Should we tell someone . . .?"

Dagan followed curiously behind Seras and was surprised by her sudden adventurous streak; he, however, refrained from antagonizing the silhouettes and attempting to goad them into action. It was not fear, but a lack of interest in having to run from or even fight such a large amount of... things. Yeah, no--that, that just was not what he signed up for.

Not surprisingly, these silhouettes remained as passive and as indifferent to their presence as the first one had, which was lucky, but not nearly as exciting as what could have been...

“Tell someone?” He thought about it for a moment, it seemed like a sound plan, but who would they tell? This was some pretty interesting information, to be sure! Attis came to the forefront of his mind, of course, but what if that just leads to a lecture? That was a bit off-putting!

"Y-- yeah, uh," Seras scratched the side of her head, "I, um, really don't know what we should do . . ."

The silhouettes were creepy as sin, but she felt safe so long as they didn't appear to notice them--which they did not. Each one that passed failed to even regard them in the smallest way, not even by turning their head towards them or anything.

"It's just . . . they're, um, going the direction of . . ." Seras said as she pointed at the silhouettes, all of which appeared to be heading one direction.

It was fairly easy to discern where they were going--or, at the very least, what they'd come across during their march.

Dagan let out a sharp whistle as he realized what Seras was getting at; it had not actually occurred to him where their march would lead them. This was ... a fair bit more alarming then he had first thought, actually. Well this pretty much decided it for him, didn’t it? No way could they press forwards like this and not to mention Seras may have ended up being too tired to make her way back to the city if they didn’t head back now.

“Okay,” he turned to face the silhouettes and then back towards home, “we probably should bring this up to someone.”

Dagan paused, thought it over, and then added: “Do you still need to rest a bit longer or do you want to head back now?”

Seras shook her head quickly. "No, I-- I think I'm good."

Now that she thought about it, though, those silhouettes were going at a much quicker pace than she could walk. It pained her to admit it, but they weren't going to make ground at all if they were limited to her walking speed. They were going to need to go faster . . .

"Actually, um," she coughed, not really wanting to suggest this or anything, but it seemed kind of imperative, now. "You could, uh, carry me. It'd be a lot faster."

Though she couldn't promise to feel horribly indignant after the fact (It was a wrath Dagan had once invoked. Never again.), this situation seemed to demand a fast approach.

"Are you ... sure?"

There was disbelief, but he wasn't going to say no; actually, if it was her idea then he was fine with it, but to offer it was another thing entirely!

"Just don't yell at me about it later," he said, "but, ahem, what's comfortable to you?"

Oh, sure, he could just throw her over his shoulder and take off, they would make great time, but probably at the expense of something else. Alternatively, Dagan could get her to decide on which way to be carried and that would be it, it would be out of his hands, and he would have no blame for it. Genius! At any rate, she wouldn’t encumber him at all so it really did just come down to personal preference.

"Umm . . ."

She thought about it for a second. Really, the whole idea of being carried was humiliating to her, and she hated every second of it. Some manners of being carried were more humiliating than others, though, so she could just decide to be carried in the least humiliating way possible.

"How about this?" Seras asked as she stepped around Dagan.

And so, without a second thought, she climbed up on Dagan's back, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and brought her knees up to clamp against his sides--so he could, hopefully, grab under her knees and hold her legs up. This way, she could hold on for dear life, and he could add a bit of extra leverage by holding onto her, as well. Dagan could run pretty fast, after all. Seras did not want to fall off of him . . .

"Does this work?"

Placing his hands behind his back, using them to support Sera, Dagan gave a final readjustment of her weight, and started walking forwards, taking just a few steps before stopping.

“This should be good,” he admitted before continuing his advance. “Just holler if you want me to slow down, alright?”

Starting slowly, Dagan would travel at a half-jog, but increase his speed by increments every so often, until he was just above a normal person’s sprint; although he restraining himself by large degree, they would, without a doubt, reach the city in less than half the time it would have taken had Seras traveled under her own power.

And Seras clung to Dagan for dear life. He may have figured his pacing was fine, but after awhile, they were passing by silhouettes so fast they might as well have been standing still. Seras wanted to scream at him to slow down, but she knew they were kind of in a hurry.

"Wh-- where are we gonna go?!" she cried loud enough to be heard.

They had options. Attis, the Seeker, the Maestro--or they could even try to get an audience with their king. Each one of these people would have been good to inform.

Unfortunately, they were all--and equally, too--elusive as all hell.

Where were they going to...? Huh, Dagan was stricken with awe for a moment: He had not actually thought of who to hunt down first; in fact, his first and only thought after they decided to go back to the city was to go back to the city. This sudden realization almost made him stop completely, but he pushed on, regardless.

“There’s Attis,” he shouted. He was probably who Dagan trusted most, at least, and that made him the first choice, didn’t it?

“Let's tell Nike, too!”

The fact that Nike would be of little to no help in this situation was entirely lost on Dagan, of course, but of everyone he knew, he considered (and couldn’t be faulted for it) those two to be the most trustworthy. When it came to decisions of importance - rather, logical decisions -Seras was probably the most fit for the job.

"Y-yeah!" Seras exclaimed, "Okay, sounds good. Attis can . . ."

Alert the city to danger, she was going to say. She was going to discuss Nike, too, and how it might be valuable if he took up arms as well. She was going to talk about a lot of things--then she saw that they'd cleared past the last shadow, the one marching at the forefront. It . . . consistently amazed her, how utterly unreal Dagan's limitations were . . .

They reached the city in no time flat, cleared the gate and stopped when they were standing in the street. This was where they had to split up.

"Okay, let me down," Seras said, "I'll go get Nike--you go get Attis. We'll meet back here, okay?"

After they came to a stop, Dagan helped Seras down from his back and stretched a bit. Unlike Seras, Dagan did not marvel at how fast they had arrived at the city, but mostly only because he had thought they were going pretty slow, for her sake. If she had brought it up, he would have probably felt kind of bad for not going slower . . .

“Attis? Alright,” he acknowledged and looked around, thinking on where he might find the other man. Seras had it easy with Nike, they were all close friends so finding him was a piece of cake, but Attis was a different case entirely, he thought.

Regardless of whether or not Seras had already left, Dagan begun to wander away, thinking on just where Attis would spend the majority of his time. There were a lot of buildings in the city, many of which didn’t seem to be in use, some looked important, others not so much, but there was a part of the city that had the ‘important’ look even more so than any other part of the city.

To Dagan, Attis seemed kind of frugal and he also always seemed kind of busy, too, so maybe that was where he’d spend most of his time? It made sense in Dagan’s head, at least; after all, Attis was always busy, he always dressed nice and didn’t seem to like things going to waste. Maybe he didn’t want an important, nice looking building to go unused then?

It couldn't hurt to look there, at least!

Dagan's guess was . . . oddly accurate, actually . . .

Though, as Dagan approached the stairs to what appeared to be a hall of justice, he'd find himself greeted on the stairs by the very man he sought, except that man was in a bit of a hurry. Such a hurry, in fact, that he wasn't even dressed that well. It was a warm day in the wastes when a person saw Attis in anything less than a two piece suit, but today, rushing down the stairs, he was barely dressed at all. He had his shoes and white slacks, but his shirt wasn't even buttoned up and his hair wasn't even combed. He looked as if he'd just woken up.

It actually took him a moment to spot Dagan on the stairs. The second he did, Attis came to an immediate stop, nearly even fell dow upon the concrete . . .

"D-- Dagan!" he couldn't contain his sense of urgency.

Why was it he always ran into Dagan whenever he was going out to search for him or something or someone related to him? He was . . . really easy to find, admittedly.

Huh, Dagan seemed taken aback for a moment, staring up at the rushed Attis, the man he had been looking for, but it wasn’t at how easy it had been to find him - no, it was ... something else. Was he pretending to be Dagan today? His hair was a mess and he was half dressed, he was hurried and bothered; it was an odd sight, Dagan concluded in thought as he pressed forwards and closed the distance between him and the other man.

So surprised by how unusual this was, Dagan momentarily forgot why he had even been searching for Attis in the first place, and, instead, seemed more concerned by whatever it was bothering his friend.

“What’s wrong? Is something happening?” He asked, removing his hands from his pockets and folding them across his chest. “Do you need help with something, maybe? I can help."

"That's . . . exactly why I was coming to look for you, actually," Attis replied to that last question, visibly nervous by this affirmation.

And again, he found himself suddenly feeling incredibly awkward. He didn't generally enjoy telling Dagan about serious issues--not because Dagan was inefficient, as he was anything except that, but Attis simply hated stressing anyone out. If he could have solved problems on his own, he would have, and he'd have left everyone to their own devices. He'd have let them all remain happy.

It took a second for him to regain his courage, whereupon he stood up straight again and faced the facts: he couldn't solve this problem alone. If he could have, he'd have never been alerted to it. The Seeker would've taken care of it long ago.

"We can't find Nike," he admitted, "Anywhere."