Sleepy Fox Hollow as i went down in the river to pray

set September 3, early afternoon

She took her time with the kids, knowing that a trek across the mountains could be difficult for their still-developing bodies and for her twisted leg as well. Slowly, they ascended the mountains, traveling over the night and resting intermittently, and then descended again into a valley that seemed. . .well, not familiar. But the peak that loomed above it to the north. . .

I think that's the place where I was given this, Maegi told @Anansi and @Sakhmet, turning her face to show them her mouth's ragged side. They were burrowed down to sleep, now; Maegi, for her part, was exhausted. When I was a pup, not too much older than you are right now, I was looking for my brothers when I was kidnapped. Taken up to a mountain and tortured. The man who did this to me—he's a wicked beast. I hope he's dead.

I hope you never come across him. But that went without saying, and she didn't even want to voice the possibility, anyway. So we'll avoid that peak, she said decidedly, gritting her teeth, and head that way instead. She canted her head more off to the west, lips pulling tight in a contemplative frown.

She had no way of knowing if Sobek had gone this way or that. She had yet to pick up his scent. But whatever she did, she would not return to Shadow Mountain. . .and she certainly wouldn't subject her children to that hell on earth.