Locked Away/ My OoO AU

A Walk in The Woods

Inpu's POV

It had been a few months since camp had returned to normal.

Time seems to have flown by, it was now the middle of November and with camp being mostly destroyed, Inpu had been spending a lot of time at camp just trying to help in any way he could. 

Today was a less chaotic day because it was mostly putting in furniture for the completed buildings, which Bryan took over to get it done with.

With nothing to do Inpu decided to take a walk into the forest so he could find something interesting he could show the kids or his husband.

He had been in the forest for about an hour and was about to turn back when he heard barking.

"What was that?"

As soon as Inpu said that, a small jackal with black fur and white spots came out of the bushes with a slight limp.

Inpu got closer in hope to see what was wrong with the pup's paw, but as soon as he went to grab it, she took Inpu's sleeve.

She wanted to lead him somewhere, Inpu grew worried.

'What does this little one want, she seems to be in a hurry'

After about 10 minutes of walking, the pup let go of Inpu and ran into a small cave.

Inpu did follow, the pup did seem scared after all, and as he went in, he found the pup sitting in someone's lap.

The person seemed young, she had white hair with a black fade in the middle part of her hair, she was wearing dirty clothes, but it didn't seem like she had a lot with her.

"Hey, are you ok?"

Inpu didn't want to just get closer, but she seemed weak, so after no answer for about 2 minutes, Inpu decided to get closer and try and figure out what was wrong.

She was burning up, Inpu couldn't tell if it was poison or sickness but wasn't going to let her stay there where she could die from anything.

Inpu gently picked her up and as soon as he did, a horse came from the shadows.

It didn't seem agitated, the jackal proceeded to jump onto the horse's back and the 2 followed Inpu back to camp.

Bryan's POV

After about an hour and a half of finishing buildings in the camp, Bryan decided to meet in the camp office and tell Kay that the task was done for the day.

What he thought was going to be a 5 minute conversation ended up turning into an hour long conversation that quickly stopped when someone entered into the front of the building.

Both Kay and Bryan figured someone got into a minor fight and needed help so both of them head into the medical part of the building and found the door open.

When they both entered, they found Inpu placing someone on one of the beds.

"Whacha doin?"

Inpu was surprised when he heard his husband's voice and turned around.

"I was on a walk and found this kid in a cave, she is clearly sick and wasn't responding, I didn't want her to die because she was alone in the woods"

Kay decided to leave it to Bryan because Inpu was also there and went back to the office, Bryan didn't mind, so he just got her set up and started to put in an iv with medicine while Inpu started to make an ice pack to try and break her fever.

The entire time they were doing it, the jackal kept scratching at the door and crying, Bryan wanted to let her in, but knew that if she was defensive of her owner, it could have ended bad for the 2 of them.

Once they made sure she wasn't going to die out of the blue, they finally let the jackal in, that's when Bryan decided to take a glance at the collar.

"Well, the tag has the jackal's name, I'd read the other tags, but each time I reach at them to grab them she pulls her head away"

"She's probably doing it to keep her owner safe, the pup wasn't leaving my side when I carried her over here, it makes me wonder what the heck happened to her"

"Think you can stay here for a bit? I'm going to run home for a bit to check on the kids, then I'm going to try and find some better clothes for her, I wouldn't be surprised if she got sick because of whatever got stuck on her clothes"

Inpu just nodded his head, and Bryan left to go do what he said he would do.

The whole situation just made Bryan confused, he noticed that the blank side of the jackals tag had an ankh on it, but he wasn't sure what to think.

The jackal was the second jackal with black fur Bryan had met, but she was the first with white spots.

As Bryan's thoughts went away, he approached the house when Inpu's jackal, Shade, ran over to see if Bryan was family or an intruder.

Inpu had his jackal about as long as he had the kids, it was a gift from his father to give him another companion, he was a pure black jackal that the entire family had loved.

He was going to name the jackal shadow, however, because Xylo had a horse named Shadow, Inpu decided against it.

Bryan entered the house and found the kids napping.

He left them alone and went to grab a shirt and some sweatpants, he wasn't sure what pantheon she was from but didn't want to assume so it was the best thing he could grab.

When Bryan arrived back at camp, Bryan had finally noticed the horse, when he was dead he knew some animals would be revived as shadows and would be brought back fully once their task was done.

Bryan just bowed to the horse, recognizing that it was a guardian, he didn't want to test the horse and went inside.

Once he got inside he noticed Inpu was going through a few extra daggers that Magnus had given him until he noticed Bryan had come back inside.

"Mind if I ask why you think now is a good time to look at daggers"

"I didn't want to go through her stuff, but I don't believe she has any weapons on her, it just makes me wonder how long she was alone in the woods"

"Let's just leave for the night, Xylo still stays in the room upstairs, we can tell him before we leave camp, he'll let us know if something happens or if she wakes up"

"I guess you're right, its just strange, I feel like I'm meant to protect her for some reason"

"It could just be the fact you were the one to find her"

"You're probably right"

Bryan and Inpu went to tell Xylo then went home for the night, however, once they got home, Shade approached them as usual, but as soon as he went to sniff Inpu's hand, and starting attempting to knock Inpu over.

Bryan got him to get down and noticed that he kept trying to sniff where the jackal pup had gripped Inpu to get his help.

They both thought he was just trying to figure out who the pup that Inpu pet was, just like how dogs will sniff their owners when they smell another dog, and decided to just go to bed since it was already almost midnight.