Celia (Old)

Chapter 5

Harley trotted along the riverbank, wandering on all fours as he found it to be the quickest way of travel for a Lizen. The evening mist was beginning to settle along the valley and riverside, giving Harley a bit of a chill as he was beginning to feel less and less motivated to continue with each step forward taken, but he must continue forth, he must find Celia and Rowan.
Come on, you've been through worse before, Harley. You travelled halfway across this province, survived off of killing small prey, escaped capture twice, and fell off of a helicopter into a burning building and survived! You can do this! Harley kept motivating himself in his thoughts.
But you are getting old, you are thirty six now and you've done a lot in your life, and your body is bound to need a break. Harley's thoughts then told him as he slowed down a bit. Then he leapt forwards, saying quietly to himself "No, I can do this, I can do this, Rotisserie Chicken Lizen can do this."
Harley then collapsed to the ground, his arms underneath him, his head on the ground, and his hind legs still standing with his tail slowly swaying from side to side.
"Y'know? A rotisserie chicken wouldn't be so bad right now." Harley then told himself before saying "No no no no no no stay focused."
He tried to get back up again, but his legs didn't want him to. Instead, he laid on the ground, defeated by himself. He felt his body temperature cooling down as the sun continued to set, and if he didn't want to freeze in the early autumn temperatures he had to find warmth. For Harley, the solution was easy. He could just made a fire by setting some sticks on fire with small embers from his energy. Motivated by not wanting to become delayed by cool temperatures, Harley stood back up, made a rock circle with nearby rocks, gathered dried grass and sticks, and placed them inside the rock circle. As he wandered around again looking for more sticks, he found some very thick sticks that were still too small to be logs and brought those back. Once he had everything set up, he used a little bit of his energy to set the dry grass on fire, which quickly spread onto the wood. He felt warmer as he laid down next to it, his eyes heavy and his limbs weak. Harley knew next he had to find food, but he wasn't motivated to do so. All he wanted to do was rest, he hoped that Celia and Rowan weren't still in the river and were somewhere on shore, wandering back upstream to the burrow. Eventually, Harley fell asleep, and had a terrible dream about his childhood, which was just nothing but watching as everyone he once loved disappeared and abandoned him. It didn't bother him though, but he wasn't expecting to have that nightmare again. Roscuroe was the only Lizen who kept him around for this long, long enough to let him become part of their family, and he appreciated that very much.