Heron Lake Plateau they escaped the weight of the darkness

sionnach had spent the entire trip griping and squalling, being the most disagreeable sionnach that sionnach could be.. and given sionnach, that was quite a feat. she scowled, she skulked, she kicked, she howled; it was way past her bedtime, she missed ashlar and gannet, and she wanted to sleep! her neck was sore from the distance she had been carted, and she was as prickly as the porcupine that had whacked her that one time.

'i can walk myself!' sionnach had insisted on more than one occasion, marching off on her stumpy legs before she could be scooped up. eventually she would tire, and that was when she would march to her mom or breccan or deshyr, demanding in a surly voice 'CARRY ME!' with a princessly stomp of her little feet. sionnach could not make up her mind most of the trip whether she wanted to be carried or whether she wanted to walk herself.. so much of the course was an endless cycle of CARRY ME!! / PUT ME DOWN! for her patient and enduring family.

a new member had come to their fold, and sionnach had also spent much of the trip eyeballing @Wisteria with the coldest squint she could muster. who??? what??? she had been informed at least sixty times this was an older sister, but sionnach just wasn't having it. who was this skinny freak? wisteria probably would have picked up on the constant daggers sionnach glared into the back of head by now: the puppy was neither discreet nor shy when it came to wide-eyed stares. deshyr was her only older sister, and this johnny-come-lately would just have to be something else: mom's weird skinny alcoholic friend, or maybe daddy's anorexic secretary.. but not older sister. sionnach barely knew her!

once they were at the borders, sionnach politely insisted she be put down by roundhouse kicking at her mom's throat until she was placed on the ground. once her feet were on all fours, sionnach fumbled her way to wisteria suspiciously. up until now, sionnach had kept a wide berth. she sniffed the air like a colt inspecting something new, her little nose twitching as her piggish eyes measured this 'new' older sister with doubt. whatever went on in the back of sionnach's head, it appeared wisteria met her approval, for no sooner had she marched to the girl and stared at her, sionnach barked/demanded "CARRY ME!" in her older sister's face.