Her father's words continued to thud loudly in her mind long after the meeting was over and eventually Aryn found herself trying to escape them. Further and further east she travelled though the echo still remained, threatening her sanity and piece by piece tearing away her remaining child-like innocence.

Her mother and brother had been away from her now longer then they'd been with her, and as Aryn aged first into a yearling and then into a woman her heart had been slowly but steadily healing. When Torin then brought news of their captivity it all came crashing back down and the hole in her chest was painfully reopened. How long had they been kept prisoner, enslaved and maybe even tortured while she lived life?

It was almost stupid looking back and remembering the last season, where Aryn had spent so long dutifully attempting to rescue mere goats and sheep from their deaths at Fireside. Maybe if her head hadn't been in the clouds all her life she would have seen something, maybe had she learned to hunt she would have smelled something. Could she have saved her mother or her brother any pain or fear had she just been a little more grown up? Barely weeks ago she'd attended a damn sex party for the hell of it, gotten drunk and nearly even pregnant just because she was having fun. Stupid.

Her paws hurt the longer she walked but she hardly paid them any attention. She needed to get as far from home as possible, to find somewhere to absorb everything that had happened without the overwhelming reminders of her life to beat upon her while she thought. Everywhere Aryn went she decided against, unable to stop wondering if maybe this was the land they were being held captive in, and maybe she was too stupid and inexperienced to notice the signs.

It wasn't until the volcano that her paws slowed, drawn by the heat and the memory of the eruption that changed her life. Derecho and Paddy couldn't be held here, it was a place she could rest and cry and mope and not wonder if they were being paraded around just outside her vision.

The ascent was difficult, and Aryn likely wouldn't have been able to complete the climb even if she was fully rested of mind and body. As it stood, she made it about a third of the way up. Aryn couldn't bear to admit her weakness by turning back though still her paws refused to bring her higher towards the mouth. Eventually, she simply let herself fall heavily on her stomach onto the path, her forehead pressing hard into her paws. It wasn't long before the tears started, her sobs broken up by sharp, choked gasps as she struggled and failed to collect herself.

Lorikeet grimaced, wondering now if the view was worth the effort and the dust in her coat. It would take hours to bring herself back to a respectable shine. But how often did you get the chance to see the view from a volcano? It would of course be even better if she had a dramatic story of making love on the edge to bring home, but… perhaps her imagination would have to suffice. She paused to take a breather. Fighting kept her fit, but the climb still took its toll on her poor knees. So she took a nice deep breath, and admired the world below. It had taken her longer then she intended, and the sun was beginning to set. The view almost took her newly-taken breath away. With the orange-blue sky casting its glow across the trees below, lush with summer and vibrantly pink. A little more to the south, and she could see a zig-zag path of water making its way through trees, and… was that a hint of a waterfall? Stunning. Absolutely stunning. She wished she could turn this view into art somehow, bring it home for everyone to enjoy. Then everyone could see how her eyes were like the perfect sunset, and her coat the lush path of a steady stream. She might have stayed there a long time, every time she looked, she found something new to admire, but a sound distracted her. She tilted her delicate blue/black head, listening. Her orange-toned eye found the wolf first, and then she brought her gaze together, settling it upon the stranger. She wasn’t colourful by any measure of the word, her silver/grey tones blending into the growing shadows. But she was petite, small, and perhaps even delicate. She looked absolutely tasty, but the tears took thoughts of lust away from the Aracari. She fluttered gently closer, her light tread silent as she approached. “Heavy heart, or heavy mind, my love?” she asked, her velvet voice soft and supportive. "Talk" "Listen" Think

Aryn was oblivious to the approaching stranger, and as her soft voice rang out the young lady startled and jumped to her feet. With one striped foreleg she hastily brushed away her tears, sniffling hard in an attempt to contain them. The stranger looked about the same age as she was, though in size she towered over Aryn easily.

"Oh, uhm." Her young voice shook, her breathing rapid and uneven as her sobs slowed. "B-both, I guess." The blue lady seemed friendly enough, but Aryn had learned the hard way how not everyone was how they seemed. She wondered absently if she might have met the wolves holding her family captive, and if she had, did she think them kind at first glance? The suspicion was clear in her watering eyes and she took a step back, closer to the edge of the path.

The distress of the girl was terribly obvious, and there was no dainty motion in her tears. It was a snot-nosed full blown breakdown going on over here. The young cryer took a step away from Lorikeet, and the blue dame paused in her advance. How to proceed? Wrestling her to the ground, well potentially fun, would only increase the girl's distress. Whatever affected her, had affected her trust as much as it had her heart. She flopped down gently on the grass before Aryn, stretching out her paws, before tucking them under her chin. Her tail curled lithly past her shapely bum and across one back leg. “Well, that would not do, not at all. Did you want to talk about it hun, or would you prefer a distraction?” she looked up at Aryn, who stood taller than her now. Peering at the tawny, silver marked wolf over her lashes. "Talk" "Listen" Think

Laying down was good, that meant if this stranger intended on harming her at least Aryn would have time to run while she got back to her feet. She didn't know exactly where she'd run to; headed up the volcano would trap her, off the cliff would kill her, and her paws ached so badly that she could hardly consider heading back down. She'd need to cross that bridge when she came to it, so for now Aryn simply remained standing, alert, tense and ready to move.

Lorikeet had asked her a question and even sad and afraid Aryn was not capable of ignoring another wolf. "What kind of distraction?" She asked after a moment, hesitant. Was kidnapping a distraction? or murder? something worse? She was so far from home and was becoming more and more painfully aware that she had no real way to defend herself should this stranger turn out to be hostile.

Keetie paused thoughtfully, she knew what distraction she would like, but she wasn’t quite so crass as to suggest some intimate cuddling to the poor wounded bird before her.

“What would you like as a distraction? We can spar, if you like. Or I could sing you a song”

being named after a bird was rather apt for the lovely Aracari, who had worked hard to mold her voice into something as beautiful as her body.

Singing to the little chick might be a fun exercise, she often used her voice to woo pretty things, and this stranger could easily be described as such. She was beautiful in a soft, subtle sort of way. As delicate as the bird Keetie mentally called her.

"Speech"

Aryn's ears perked, her suspicion slowly fading away and in it's place curiosity returning. It was as far from murder or kidnapping that Aryn could imagine, and her eyes threatened to fill with tears once more. Nobody'd ever offered something so sweet before. "You'd sing for me?" She asked softly, laying her head down upon her paws to look up at the beautiful stranger from beneath her lashes. It sounded like a much better time then fighting, Aryn didn't think she could ever take another wolf up on offer for battle - especially not on the side of a volcano. "That sounds lovely." Maybe this crappy day would turn around after all.