Record Lows

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.