Duck Lake spare me from this limbo

Harlyn was happy as they set off - happier than she'd felt in a while.  Actually, it was the happiest she'd been since she had reunited with Mordecai.  Since then, her life had been an endless stream of "what-if's" and "when's" and "how's".  But more than that, it had been plagued with wondering if it would even happen at all.  Would he want to leave with her?  Would he want this future with her?  Did he love her at all?

Those were thoughts she still pondered, but at least she no longer had to wonder when.  Luke's question came at the right moment, and she regarded him with a confident smile.  "Yes," Harlyn replied, her tail and ears lifting slightly as she said it, "I am ready.  I am not so certain yet of Mordecai, but the gods have shown me that I must move forward without him."  Truth be told, it pained her to know that this what was she had to do.  If she'd left it up to her heart, she very well may have settled at the Plateau forever simply to be with him, waiting for him if she had to.  The Cinderloch didn't leave her life fully up to her own short-sighted, mortal whims, though.  When the spirits said move, she moved.

"I will speak with him when I get back, though," Harlyn added after a beat to reassure her friend, "There's still hope that he will be ready to join us.  But if not... Well, if even then, I don't think it would mean hope for that is gone."  She had faith that the gods would bring Mordecai to their new home as well, in their own time.  Not all destinies were so perfectly intertwined that each step was taken together.  What was a straight line for one could easily be a long and winding one for another, though it didn't meant the end point was not the same.