Sawtooth Spire all ashore

Alya gazed a moment longer at the skyscape set out before her before turning back to Nikai. There was a galaxy of speckles across his nose that reminded her of the night sky, and also of her father and sister, a bit. Even missing a leg and clearly exhausted, he was very handsome. She felt a pang of regret and guilt for having taken them this way.

Let's stop here for the night, she suggested, tearing her eyes away to cast around for someplace soft and comfy. There wasn't much around, but Alya improvised by flattening a small bed of coyote brush. It was better than the rocks, at least, and Alya wasn't too worried about those, either. I'm a bit out of practice, she admitted, lying down but leaving room for Nikai beside her. When I tried to get to Easthollow last time, I ended up hurting my leg, and I was down for the count for a few months while it healed. How much more difficult, then, had it been for Nikai? She wanted to ask, but at the same time, she didn't want to know the answer.

For so long, she had dreamed off going off to claim her own mountain, as her mother and her mother's mother had done before her. But maybe that was Hydra's job. Maybe it was Vela's. Maybe Alya didn't have to hold on to that tradition. Everything was so confused between duty and tradition and want in her head -

but she knew that Nikai was her friend in a pure and untainted way. They cared for one another. That, at least, she could be sure about.