Sunspire Mountains i'm pretty but i'm tough, like a diamond or beef jerky in a ball gown

After her brief visit with Ford, Mallaidh takes up the evening under the cover of the ridge. There’s no way she was getting back to Drageda by nightfall and she didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself by irritating the wound on her shoulder. She’ll give it through the night to start to scab over once she’s cleaned it and she’ll make the journey back home.

When daybreak comes and illuminates the dark reaches of her cover, she stretches all four legs outward like a cat despite the pull of her shoulder, and then she draws them back in to give herself a few more minutes. Her head doesn’t hurt anymore and there’s no more ringing in her ears; she’s been free of them for a few days but she always worries they’ll show back up. She hasn’t heard her mom in days, either.

Mallaidh slowly picks herself up and gets her legs moving. As much as she desires to go home, she ends up in a different direction to bide her time. The mountains stand tall in the distance. It’s the area she’d found Kiwi before her return to Drageda but otherwise relatively unexplored and eerily quiet in the cold, snowy morning.