Darin was snapped out of her song by Ridahne’s comment about their closeness to The Tree. Now that the human thought about it this was the closest, she had been to it as well. She had a feeling that it was different for the Elf. Ridahne had actually left home before all of this after all. Darin turned to look in the direction she hoped was the direction was home. She was more concerned with the fact that this was the furthest she had ever been from home. Yet again a terrible bout of homesickness over came her. Darin looked over at Talbot. He looked like he was done. He pushed at her affectionately. Darin smiled as she headed towards the fire. The smile fell as she sat down. Ridahne didn’t look good. Darin supposed she should try to help. She just wants sure how. Maybe she could try distracting the Elf. How could she do that? Then Darin had an idea.

She swallowed before she began, “Hey Ridahne? Could you look at my shoulder? I didn’t see anything wrong with it when I fell, but it’s better to be safe rather than sorry.”

The only other thing Darin could think of was stories of home, but she was so not in the mindset to do that. Home wasn’t something Darin wanted to think about even though she thought of it every day. It was always in the back of her mind. She was glad that she hadn’t forgotten home, but she knew that it was distracting her from the job at hand. She thought that might be part of Ridahne’s problem as well. The human would admit that remembering the past was important, but it couldn’t be changed. The best anyone could do was pick themselves up, dust of regret, and keep moving forward. The human didn’t know how to say that though. Hopefully this distraction would work well enough.

Darin continued, “I mean it doesn’t hurt or anything, but it hurts to touch it. I suppose that means I shouldn’t touch it. I mean I’m not touching it on purpose. It hurts when I move it too. I’m having a hard time avoiding that one. I guess it’s not that bad.”

Darin knew she was babbling. She couldn’t seem to stop though. She supposed it was better than having Ridahne wallow in whatever miserable thoughts she was thinking about. Maybe they were miserable. Darin wasn’t sure since she wasn’t a mind reader, but she was positive that they weren’t good thoughts. That was okay. Everybody had not nice thoughts from time to time. Darin didn’t want to stop from her companion from having the bad thoughts. She just wanted to distract the Elf long enough that the bad thoughts would leave her alone for the rest of the night. Somehow Darin didn’t think that would be the case. She could still try.

Darin tugged the sleeve of her shirt down, “I mean you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I guess it’s just a little odd that I don’t have someone fawning over me. Mama never let me alone when I would get injured. Though she tried to stop as I got older. I guess she was trying not to smother me. It was nice though. Even though she didn’t really approve of me running the farm she still took care of me.”

Okay, Darin was shutting up now. That was a little too close to stories about home than she really wanted to get to right now. Then again, would stories about home help? Darin wasn’t sure. On one hand her home was about as far as you could get from Ridahne’s life. On the other it might just remind Ridahne of what she no longer had. Darin would reserve judgement on that case. She looked at the injury. It didn’t look that bad. She didn’t think it was infected and infection was the real worry. It might scar, but that would be the first scar she would get. She had a feeling she would wind up with a lot more before this journey was over. That was honestly the least of Darin’s worries.