Phantom Hollow It's been a little cold and not outside

People disappearing was a running theme in Mal's life.  Though he didn't say it aloud, though he was happy that Simmik was willing to come along, he was very aware of the fact she could wander off to not be seen again like the rest of them.  My other sister was still in that pack until I went back the last time.  Still don't know where she went, and nobody else there was gonna care enough to know.  I wanted to make the pack for her originally.  The only constant person in Mal's life was himself, and he was alone.  His sisters were missing, and there was the possibility that all his blood relatives were dead.  Ibis and Okeanos were from there too.  I'd have told them to piss off but Okeanos was all saying he totally understood the Elysium people were wrong and he was gonna stick around and all that. So it sounds weird for him at least to bail... But maybe he's actually just as awful as the rest of them.  Mal had been willing to give Okeanos a chance (Ibis had done a good job wearing out her welcome, on the other hand), but the longer he was gone, the less happy Mal was going to be if he ever returned, especially without reason.  Maybe all of Okeanos' attempts to be kind were lies, in which case Mal had been right to keep him at arm's length.

I only regret I hadn't left sooner.  That's the only thing I had control of that might have changed things.  Maybe he'd still have one sister then.  But now there wasn't much he could do to change things.  It was what it was.  But this is life.  If the people who want things to be easy don't stick around, it's probably not much of a loss.  He looked over his shoulder a moment, then back to Simmik.  Want to head back to Neverwinter?  It was that or he'd eventually end up just going through his whole pathetic life story, and it was a tale he was starting to tire of telling.