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"Bye!"
Nyx's awkward farewell floated down from the Ambler to the human, elf, and infant dragon below. Just an average travelling party.
A few moments passed when the only sounds were the faint chirping of the birds, the rustle of wind, and the fading footsteps of the Ambler. Rayla and Callum glanced at each other, both refusing to make a stab at conversation. Rayla said curtly; "Well, let's get going" and climbed onto their remaining mount, Callum quickly following suit.
There were some immediate improvements from last time, the most notable of which were Callum magically finding himself extremely comfortable holding onto Rayla, who's attitude had improved so much Callum couldn't help but smile.
"What're you smiling at?" Rayla inquired.
"Nothing." was all he replied.
A while had passed, and things hadn't been at all what Callum was expecting, but in a positive way this time. He figured Rayla would be short, irritable, and overall edgy.
Boy, was he wrong.
Rayla could not stop talking. He didn't find it annoying- quite the contrary. It was like a barrelfull of funny stories, ideas, overall time-killing matter, had exploded out of her. It was an unbelievable improvement from the Ambler- it seemed the events following that day had brought back the personality he knew and loved from Rayla, before... he would deal with that later. best not bring all the positive energy crashing down now.
"Wait until you see the Thunderfalls-one of my favorite places, plus the only body of water I like-"
"Wait, there's a body of water you like?"
Rayla chuckled and elbowed Callum playfully. he grinned back, and poked her ear, which immediately began twitching in rapid succession, just like he hoped it would. Rayla grabbed her ear, in an attempt to stop it, while Callum just laughed.
Before long, however, this positive energy was fading. It was almost noon, Callum's neck ached (Probably because Zym had been sitting on his head for at least half an hour), Rayla talked less and less, her posture fell, and she was beginning to show the effects of tiredness from the less-than-healthy amount of sleep she had been getting the past 2 days.
Some of it probably came from being hungry.
He heard the sound of crashing water ahead, and an idea popped into his mind. What better place to make her not hangry than one of her favorite locations?
He tapped her shoulder. "What?" she grunted back.
"You're hangry."
"Am not."
"C'mon, I know when you get hangry."
Rayla sighed. "What's your point?"
The trees opened up to the shoreline of a massive waterfall, sparkling and flowing. It was almost the most beautiful thing he had seen in the entire journey. It flowed onto multiple stone plateaus within, making the water seem like it was bouncing smoothly down, all the way until it settled into a river, flowing west as far as the eye could see.
"This looks like a nice place to eat, doesn't it?" Callum grinned.
After much food consumption (Mostly on Rayla's part) They set off again, finding a quick way across through the water (much to Rayla's dismay, but Callum had found some moonberries for her to eat along the way, and he was adorable, so she managed to get through it). as they went, the pleasant forest with it's interesting plants and wildlife slowly dissapeared, to be replaced with cold, hard foothills and plains. The spire grew more and more visible as they went.
After summiting a particularly large hill, Callum's jaw dropped. ahead was a massive peak of rock, surrounded by plains and with what looked like a grim statue at the base.
They were there.