Aviana had agreed to prep the animals, but she had insisted that Kasim come with her to do so. After the past few days, she was wary of leaving the injured man alone and out of her sight. It didn't seem completely unreasonable to want to stick together, especially down in the unsettling darkness of the Deep Roads. Perhaps once they returned to the surface, she would feel a bit better; or maybe she'd be even more paranoid around other people. She was starting to understand just why Kasim was so paranoid all the time, but she wasn't sure how she felt about that realization.
Ignorance is bliss, as they say. Whoever "they" might be.
She had expected it to be early to late morning when they emerged from beneath the mountain, but her mild shock it was near twilight. Her nose wrinkled slightly and she felt as if the world shifted beneath her.
Just how long were we down there?
It couldn't have been more than a couple of days, but it was startling to have her sense of time so off-kilter. Her and Kasim must have slept longer than she originally thought. That wasn't much a of surprise though, given their injuries and whatever transformation that Aviana had undergone.
She reached up and idly scratched at one of the knots at the top of her head, frowning. The pain had shifted to something closer to irritation and a dull ache that itched deep in her skull.
Perched on her shoulder, the still nameless dragonling squawked happily at the vast sky that stretched over head. The little creature scrambled partially up onto Aviana's head, as if trying to get as close to the sky as possible. His leathery wings draping down on either side of her face, not having quite figured out what he was supposed to do with the ungainly appendages.
The half-elf laughed at the absurdity of the creature's antics, reaching up to pull the dragon down into her lap in a more stable position.
"Okay... so we just follow the road south then, yes?" She asked, turning her bright blue gaze to Kasim.
