Darin followed Ridahne as they left Greyrock. She may have been imagining it, but she could swear she could feel the tension leave Greyrock with them. She couldn’t help but feel like her connection to people was changing. It scared her, but even scarier was the fact that that it excited her. She couldn’t explain either feeling. She couldn’t explain this connection. It came from The Seed. She knew that much. She had to wonder if it was only because of The Seed. A quiet part of her whispered that a connection took two people to make a connection. What if it was her?

Darin gave her head a shake as she continued to follow Ridahne. She wasn’t really following. Talbot was following. Darin was honestly just along for the ride. She was not riding very well. She knew that she was basically a novice. She had to wonder if the fact that Talbot was so big was contributing. She didn’t know at all. She supposed she could ask Ridahne.

Darin looked over to ask and immediately fell silent. Ridahne looked like she was thinking about something deep. The human had no way of knowing what that was. She didn’t know if an interruption would be welcome or not. Darin moved to speak again but couldn’t find her voice. Darin blew some air outside of her mouth. She wasn’t used to being silent. She talked to herself all the time. Now that she had people with her, she felt an indescribable urge to chatter at them. Luckily, she had practice being quiet. The elders didn’t like pointless noise. For once Darin wasn’t the one upsetting them. She clung to that with a tight determination until this trip. Now it didn’t matter.

Finally, she found her voice, “Ridahne? Can you give me some tips on riding? I feel like that I’m about to fall off.”

Now there was a fact. She didn’t know if it was her incompetence, Talbot’s size, or a combination of both, but she literally felt like she was one misstep from falling off. Talbot must of sense that because all of the sudden he broke into a brief trot. Darin let out a small shriek as she quickly wrapped her arms around his neck. After the trot was over, he let out a whinny that sounded almost like a laugh.

Darin slowly sat up as she scolded him, “That’s not funny Talbot!”

The human didn’t think that the horse agreed with her because he just whinnied again. Darin suddenly felt the urge to get off and walk. She resisted that urge. She had just asked Ridahne for help. She would never learn without practice, and she did need to learn. Maybe it would be easy. Maybe not. Darin was thinking that it wouldn’t be easy. Nothing lately had been easy. Well that wasn’t true. Getting Talbot was easy. She had a really nice sickle. That was a big plus. It was currently siting on her lap. She didn’t want to lose it. Maybe she could turn her ripped up shirt to a harness or belt for it. That would be amazing.

She was also wondering how long it would take to get to The Tree. Darin supposed that depended on if they took a direct route. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to do that. Then again Ridahne seemed apprehensive of going to The Tree. It might just be best to get it over it. Darin couldn’t decide what the best course of action would be. That was standard at this point. At least one thing was constant.