Cart Conundrum [ Jala & Damaris | Private ]

    What had he done to deserve this kind of punishment? By now the young stallion was growing frantic, and sweat had started to bead
on his ruddy brown pelt and cling to his scruffy mane. Back and forth he paced relentlessly around the street, up and down the slope,
frustration clearly written in his face and his hasty trot.

Jala had returned with a stomach half full, and he had that much that he was proud of since he could keep the pervasive thoughts of food
off of his mind until he had finally returned home for the day. But, he returned the alley where his cart was once parked to find it now gone.
He could have sworn, he could still make out the now empty outline where it once stood.

It was an impulsive thing for him to do, really. Jala was still mentally kicking himself for having made such a poor decision to leave it there,
even in an area he thought was safe and inconspicuous. Perhaps he was acting too much on his necessities to have been thinking clearly, or
maybe he should have just sucked it up and carried the weight of the cart along with him when he went to fetch himself a small meal. All he
could think of was what he could have done to prevent his dilemma.

He had to find that cart. He hated that he did, but the teen had ultimately put himself in a lose-lose situation. Jala's leave for the day would be
ultimately delayed while searching for that little delivery cart, but losing it would mean losing a customer and a potential pay.

Maybe he shouldn't be doing this alone though? Some unspoken pride had kept him from that thought for a while now, but the more he paced
around the street, the less Jala looked like a composed "adult" and more like a lost foal. With his height and his physique, there was always
a chance a random mare might ask if he had lost his mother.

The embarrassment would be too great to risk, he decided. At last, the stallion began to speak up. "Hey, hey!" He'd call to passersby. Some
would brush past him, and others he'd have to avoid to prevent getting run into. "Hey--excuse me, sir--please, pardon me--ma'am, pardon
me--wait, have you seen a cart? Sir, if you would give me a bit of your time--"

This was growing incredibly frustrating.

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Word Count: 414
Tags: SongsTheDeadMenSing