Ghost Lion Crag In the hall of the mountain king.

With the matter of accompaniment settled, Towhee began to move, pivoting on a heel and beginning the descent into the foothills below. Climbing down was a little easier than the ascent, though Towhee's heart felt like it lodged in her throat. She knew how dangerous slipping and falling could be in either direction. The scar on her thigh twinged as if to remind her to be careful, not that she needed it.

Somehow, she managed to split her attention between her footing and Hydra's face, though she relied heavily on contextual clues to fill in the gaps as her attention inevitably shifted. "Sisters by choice," she echoed, lips still lifted at the thought. "I'll need to meet them formally. Maybe I could bring Fen to visit at the spear sometime in the coming months." She hoped Hydra could come to think of her blind daughter as a niece too, though before she could think to mention it, Hydra regaled her with news of another missing person.

Towhee glanced away, swallowing thickly, before slowly dragging her orange eyes back to Hydra. She paused in her climb to catch every word, brow furrowing at "sign from the heavens." It made her think of Sundance and Dorea. She suddenly began wondering whether any wolf out there in the wilderness had escaped unscathed from the autumn's tumult. Had every single one of them lost a family member, a friend, even a home, to those godforsaken quakes? Her teeth clenched at the thought.

"Isi," the mercenary repeated, resuming her downward movements. "What does she look like? I'd be happy to keep an eye out. Until there's a body, there's hope." They were meant to be encouraging words, though truly they were grim. She thought of Phox, Fig, X and, hell, all the others who'd mysteriously vanished, not just recently, but throughout her nearly three years of life.