Caw was remarkable, she thought, not for the first time. It wasn't difficult to pick up on his peculiar way of speaking, as though he'd ripped out phrases and words from pages of different books and pieced them together to make pages of his own. More than once, Rhaeyla had thought of simply blurting out all the words she could think of at the moment, to add to Caw's word bank, but it hadn't seemed right to do so.

[color=cbd5e0]"I've only ever seen the ones at home,"[/color] Rhaeyla said, eyes darting up as she tried to imagine how their modest orchard had looked. She leaned close to Caw and spoke in a more hushed tone, almost conspiratorially. [color=cbd5e0]"When I was little, I would hide there and it would take the chief hours to find me. There were endless rows of apple and cherry trees and I would weave in and out of them so I could lose whoever was chasing me. I thought I could hide there forever!"[/color]

Even before Sebastian conveyed that these orchards were fortuitously along the way, Rhaeyla would have told Caw with certainty that, [i]yes[/i], they would be able to go. She would have found a way.

As they pressed on, Rhaeyla busied herself looking over her world map, reading and reading all the little notes she had scribbled on the back. She had refused to take Sebastian's place on his mount, if only to give her more to do. Their relaxed pace had allowed her more time and opportunity to marvel at her surroundings, true, but with the promise of beautiful orchards and flower fields within her grasp, her restlessness began to stir.

Luckily, the first of the apple trees came to view in time to slake her growing impatience. Rhaeyla turned to Caw excitedly, looking like a child who'd been given permission to gobble up a whole cake. [color=cbd5e0]"There it is, there it is!"[/color] she told him, pointing wildly at the fecund lands even though there was clearly no need to. 

Whoever this Madam Honeydew was must really have been blessed, to have such a green thumb. The fruits were the most tantalizing she'd ever seen, and the [i]flowers,[/i] oh, the fields of flowers were something out of a painting. It was almost like every imaginable type of flower existed there, all at once, creating a harmony of colors. If circumstances were different and the twins weren't in a mission to get to Greenrest, she would have liked to try and capture the sight in her sketchbook.

Rhaeyla settled for pressing a flower as a memento instead. Madam Honeydew wouldn't mind if she just took one, she reasoned. Excusing herself momentarily, she ran up to the first flower that caught her eye: a small pale yellow one with almost heart-shaped petals. She picked it short, getting rid of the stem completely, and gingerly placed it in between the last pages of her sketchbook. It needed to be a heavier book, but it would have to do.

With a gratified grin, Rhaeyla pulled out her world map and a pen. After taking another moment to take the beauty of the sight in, she drew a line through her to-do list item.

[quote][color=cbd5e0][s]❀ Visit the orchard[/s][/color] [/quote]
One done, hundreds to go.

Rhaeyla scampered back to see what Caw was up to with a renewed sense of purpose. Greenrest was next, and she felt in her soul that she would find answers there. She would find [i]her[/i] there.