Ocean's Breath Plateau à la dérive en mer

The slough had left her muddied and wild by the time she had gotten free of it.

As uncomfortable as the situation made her, she had only cleaned some of the muck from her. The skies spoke of rain to come one way or another; she could smell the moisture crisply in the warm air, in the rush of wind over open land. Whatever fears she had carried she had left behind the moment she had seen her out of the swamp, and now the openness where hinterland met the beginning of the coast enticed her to go further.

It had been a string of days since she had disappeared from the glade by now; she knew if anyone had noticed they would have been looking for it for certain. This notion alone pressed haste into her steps as she persisted ahead, following the sun patches across the fertile plain of tall grasses.

And then she saw it in the distance—a plateau.

Perhaps taller and more proud than her birthplace, it intrigued her.

She headed towards it just as swiftly as she could go, pushing still when her legs insisted that she stopped. It was almost a runner's high, some out of body experience that encouraged her to go and go, to push every limit that she had not before. She cut the majority of that distance by half before she felt herself begin to wane.

And by the time the sun had hit midday, she was weary when she reached the upward climb of the plateau. The day was warmer now and her tongue lolled openly. Anxiety had come back to her as she stopped to rest along a rocky slide—wide-eyed she looked, searched, expecting to see some familiar shape below her about to call her name. Perhaps it would be her father. Perhaps it would even be Rannoch fast on her heels. Or her siblings, least the ones that could fend for themselves. She knew it would be her mother or the newest of their family, still far too young to follow let alone do more than squeak.

But there was no one there, at least not yet.

Yet her nerves remained frayed.

@Blossom, perhaps?