The Bracken Woods Over rock and under tree

Mali was very determined, and to a point pretty tunnel-visioned. He was just gonna keep stomping along on his quest and then he'd be a huge hero and stuff! Easy! Or not.  He was suddenly yanked up off the ground.  No! Lemme go! We gotta find her! Lemme go! he shrieked.  It was probably a volume more appropriate for complaining someone trying to skin him alive.  And Mali wasn't going to go slack immediately, wiggling wildly instead, especially since he was probably towards the upper end sizewise of being carryable at this point. Alarian totally played a dirty trick on him!