Falls

I had been sleeping when he found me, nestled beneath the boughs of a willow tree. Few of the Lagoon men ever bothered me, and while I had scented Leif's return on the trails, I did not fear him. Not anymore. No, in truth, the beast that occupied my thoughts most often was Garmr. The man who continued to thwart my attempts to leave, only to disregard and ignore me the second I was safely shackled once more.

I hated it.

And I hated him, but that didn't stop me from wanting him to show up. Ostensibly, of course, to give him a few pieces of my mind. The circuitous discussion we'd gotten into about morality on the Ruins had been infuriating, but I would have gladly taken another round of that over my solitude. And that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that being near him made my heart race and my mouth go dry.

His footsteps gave him away and I jerked awake milliseconds before he was upon me, driving me clumsily from my bed. Groggy and confused, I complied (for the most part, we won't count the few stray kicks) until the cold air of the Falls finished wiping my mind clear of sleep. I was unfamiliar with this section of the Crossing, and the Peak's mountains loomed aggressively overhead in a way that made me feel rather small and alarmed.

"What is going on?" I snapped as I stumbled along before him, doing my best to avoid his teeth, keep an eye on the terrain ahead, wake up, and piece together where the hell we were going. He'd been so adamant at keeping me caged that in my addled state, I couldn't conjure a single reason why he was escorting me out with such a deadpan look in his eyes. "Where are you taking me, jerk?"

When we finally stopped some time later, and he actually addressed me with words, my ears pinned flat against my neck and I fixed him with a sour gaze. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" It wasn't that I didn't want to be out of the Lagoon - I very much did - I just couldn't fathom a reason why he had dragged me out here in the middle of fall to be alone. Realization dawns like an egg cracked over my head and I shivered suddenly, my tail clamping over my rump as I took a step back, my balance suddenly unsteady. "Garmr..."