Hushed Willows tangled hills and tiny verio singing

*CRAWLS AWAY FROM WORK, LIFE, ET AL*

Mordecai wondered too when things would be back to normal. Rather, he wondered if there would be a time when everything seemed normal again. It had been for the longest time that a constant black cloud seemed to hang over his family, though the famine had done nothing more than whittle them into thin cut-outs of themselves and concrete that feeling even more. But so far, having come to the Keep, things felt like they were on the slow climb back up. Whether or not they would make it all the way back up that hill or plateau out somewhere else was anyone's guess; he certainly did not want to venture down that rabbit hole of thought.

He didn't comment on the length of how long Stark had been there; the locusts seemed to last an eternity when day in and day out they had been plagued with them. How whatever restless sleep they acquired only revealed to them the distortion and destruction of the landscape that had once held untold beauties. Even now, with the regrowth, Mordecai still found it fairly barren like a mockery of what had once been colorful valleys and woodland.

"I guess we'll find out one way or another," he finally said, his gaze returning to Stark briefly. "My only hope is that it's before we start having to deal with winter. If things felt thorny then, they'll be worse when it's cold." It didn't need to be said, he thought, as it was probably a niggling thought on the back of all their minds. Yet things so far seemed good, even if he wasn't quite ready to go out and say they were promising.