Duin would always run ahead, almost as if teasing Kryssta, or perhaps urging her to greater speed. Then again, perhaps he just saw all of this as another merry game. Given half a chance he'd be trying to find a puddle to splash in or a muddy river-bank to slide down. An odd pairing they made; while Kryssta was perhaps less serious and dour than most of her people, she was nothing like a river-otter.
Save only in swiftness; lithe and lean, quick to weave her path between and above and below and through, Kryssta when she was hastened by urgent need could cover vast amounts of ground. And while these lands were unfamiliar, she was retracing her own path now. Hurried she had been heading north, but on her return, the words of Haleth burned in her ears and she took no rest, nor stopped for a meal (of which she had none anyway), but pushed on until the sun was well down. And then continuing on in the dark, with no trail to follow.
And so got turned around. Always you are the fastest, she remembered her mother telling her once, but swiftness will serve you poorly until you are sure the direction to be going. She could not even remember the purpose of the lesson; something during the impetuousness of youth. Now the voice of her mother rang clearly in her thoughts, and she stopped and held still. Duin climbed onto her shoulder and stood up, looking around, as she stood silently.
Until she could hear the faintest of susurration. Moving water. "Some river otter you are," she said to Duin. "When I need to be led to a river, you stand silent!" She started an easy lope, uphill, but towards the sound of water, and soon enough crested a hill and could see the rising moon's light on the ripples. And there, crossing the waters slowly, what looked for all the world like three gnarled, broken trees.
