Redhawk Caldera Is it rejoicing, or merely halloing?

Forward dated a week or so, after the blizzard clears up.

 

Rue hobbled steadily toward the mouth of the Caldera, pushing through the pain jolting up her spine. Every step was agony. Travel had been painful before the storm hit, and days on end spent underground had not done her injury any favors.

Rue looked up to check her progress. She had almost forgotten what the sky looked like, but there it was—clear and blue, with the outline of the Caldera etched against it.

Looking at it from the outside, Rue never would have imagined it could be a hospitable place to live. Had fate not intervened, Rue never would have known to look for anyone here, and certainly not the remnants of Asterism Grove.

Certainly not @Towhee.

By some incredible stroke of luck, Ruenna had stumbled across @Phox and Figment in the Sunspire Mountains, and they (presumably, thread still in progress) passed on news that floored Rue: Towhee had survived the landslide. The Redhawk family had survived.

For a year, Ruenna had been searching for her place in the world. When the landslide buried Asterism Grove, Rue’s stint as Towhee’s beta was cut painfully short. Ever since, Rue had been unmoored.

Rue stopped to catch her breath, panting and shaking from the strain of the climb.