Noctisardor Bypass And emptiness is all you know.

Her made comment on Ciri's long journey, and her ears splayed backward in a beat of embarrassment. To her she clutched the memories of her Brokilon caretakers, the wolves who'd sheltered her at the heart of Winter and treated her as though she'd always been one of them. There was some level of shame deep at the heart of her to have left the forest where she'd better learned to see the good in strangers, but had she chosen to stay she would've always wondered:

Are they looking for me?
Do they think I'm dead?
Do they miss me?

Because she missed them: her mother, her sister, her father. Ciri was elated that the latter remained and that she'dmanaged to find him, yet she felt she would forever long for those who were lost.

She had not answered Mahler's question at the riverside, did not even recall it. In that moment, Ciri had been so fixated on how a sliver of luck was finally on her side, on the unbridled joy and relief to look upon his face once more. Her bright eyes watched him go and her pace eased until she stood there at the edge of the woods, and finally lowered her haunches to wait.

Upon his return, the gargoyle's jaws were full. A soft curve to her lips communicated her gratitude, but she felt the flush of her cheeks and averted her gaze. "Thank you," she said with a flop of her raven tail, then assured as he crouched closer, "I will replace this, when I can."