Blacktail Deer Plateau Under cloud and under star

Mal's brain kept yanking him back and forth on whether to trust him.  Monster or of unfortunate appearance?  Trickster or honest?  Which combinations of those would make most sense, which story sounded like it was reality?  His sheltered and relatively solitary upbringing didn't help him much other than give him trust issues.

It was probably the fact that Ramsay hadn't done anything worth side-eyeing that probably drove Mal the most crazy.  Everyone was pretty much scum unless they were his sister, so... Now what?  Other than following along and hoping that something in the world would reveal itself.  Yeah, but...  I gotta keep moving before I have to go back.  Maybe next time.  Shrug. Or not, he wasn't sure, but the grass was always greener elsewhere and this felt near enough that Elysium members could show up to heckle him, too. This might be too close to the coast anyway.  Eugh, yeah.  It hadn't been too long in travel-time since whatever the hell happened, and they still freaked him out more than Ramsay did.  After all, he'd only been just on the other side of the mountains, so they could show up here really easily.  A nice vulture of a memory, just hovering there, waiting.