Emberwood and through it all, a dying wind of change blew

He jumped on it without judging, but Maia of course couldn't be sure he wasn't humoring her.  Still - it was an excuse, and the compliment was nice.  Normally she'd have talked it up, told him of course he was.  Today, she accepted it as some needed encouragement and jumped in on storytelling.

I come from a forest, oh wait no maybe this wasn't a good idea.  She always started from someplace real, because that was easiest, but starting here wasn't good.  She paused, faltering at the decision of how to continue, and then found an avenue. Whew.  But one day, my sister found me and said we had to go! We had to see what was on top of the nearby mountain!  There were no mountains around her home, but an upcoming visit to Charon had them in her mind.

She was the queen, and as one of her most trusted advisors, of course I would go and help.  When we got there, the air was full of smoke, and all of the forest animals were super terrified and all.  They wouldn't say what did it, they just pointed out a cave, like, halfway up the side.

My sister Sarah is a queen but she's also like a super cool warrior too.  And she did manage to convince one of the creatures, a bluejay, to tell us what was in the cave.  He said....

Here she glanced at him and paused, to see if he might toss something in.  Osprey had done this all the time in her stories and at this point it was almost a habit.  She felt a slight pang as she did, but as she told the tale, the words had started flowing easier.  Her breathing calmed, her mind calmed, and she felt pretty okay right now.