After King Carlyle and Jacob the frog had vanished into the white water, John and Benjamin the mouse had spent hours trying to find them. They went up and down the river bank, calling out their names.
The rabbits, Starrof and Klangor, followed along, although they were blatantly unconcerned about whether or not the others were found, and seemed to find the whole thing terribly funny. They mostly made snide remarks and laughed to each other. John finally lost his patience with them. “What?” he snapped. “What is so funny?”
The rabbits just looked at each other, in a slightly confused way. “You do not find this amusing?” asked Starrof, who sounded genuinely confused.
“The look on the frog king’s face when the cat dropped him into the water?” said Klangor. “You did not see it?”
“You did not think it was funny when the frog disappeared into the water?” asked Starrof.
There was a hint of concern in the rabbit’s voices--as if they were seriously worried that John was not making the connection between what had happened and the inherent humor in the situation. John almost wondered if he should take this as a sign that the dragons were concerned with his well-being, but maybe that was going too far.
“Never mind,” said John. “I’m sorry I asked you. Just please, less laughing, and more help. We need to find King Carlyle.”
“We do not need him,” Starrof said.
“I need to find him,” said John. “And I’m not moving until I do. So if you wish to continue to travel with me, you will help me look for him.”
They kept travelling down the river bank, but they could not find him.
John didn’t know this, but they initially did not go far enough in their search for King Carlyle. John and Benjamin (the rabbits were not helping) did not realize how quickly the water had carried Jacob and King Carlyle downstream, and initially didn’t go far enough in their search. But when they finally did start to go farther, then they went too far, and walked right by the place where King Carlyle and Jacob were. But how were they to know that King Carlyle and Jacob were in a hole in the side of the river bank? They could never have seen it from where they were.
So they continued down the river. Much further than they should have. And then, when they still didn’t see them, they came back. Up and down they went, searching for King Carlyle, and calling his name, but never finding him.
The rabbits complained the whole time, until at last an exasperated John told them that they didn’t have to follow him. They could easily leave and go off by themselves. But they mumbled something about how they needed to stay with the group, and then just kept following. (The truth was that the rabbits were still hoping to get to the land of the fairies, and have their spell reversed to become normal dragons again. But they couldn’t find the way there themselves.)
At last, the sun started to go down, and they had still not found King Carlyle or Jacob.
“What do you want to do?” asked Benjamin the mouse.
“What can we do?” said John. “We’ll just have to sleep here for tonight. Maybe in the morning we can try and find him again.
“Maybe,” said Benjamin. “But we also might want to think about continuing without them.”
“We can’t leave them,” said John.
“But I don’t think we’ll ever find them,” said Benjamin. “It’s a big forest, and there’s no telling where they might be. We already spent the whole day looking for them. I don’t think we’re any closer to finding them. We may have to just continue.”
“Continue where?” John said. “We had been going to seek a cure for all 3 of us. But now we lost King Carlyle. We lost Midor. Am I to go to seek a cure just for myself?”
“At this point,” said Benjamin. “You may as well continue to the land of the fairies. We’re almost halfway there. It’s as much trouble to keep going as it is to turn around.”
“Do you know the way? asked John.
“I think so,” said Benjamin.
“Please, take us there,” said Starrof.
“We’ve wasted enough time looking for the frog king,” said Klangor.
John sighed, then said, “We’ll spend the next day looking for King Carlyle and Jacob. But if we can’t find them, then we’ll have to go without them.”
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