Shows Up Late With Starbucks

It was silly, but she felt she'd missed something important. She'd seen it, of course. The hoards of horrible creatures that ran across the open space like they had somewhere urgent to be. Some of them would stop and snap at her, but most seemed to simply not see her. In the distance, there were ghostly beasts swirling in the sky and the sparkling of many shards. And for the whole of it, she'd been quarreling with angry ptarmagins...

She supposed it hadn't seemed that...urgent? The mountains had been full of strange things like the bear that had nearly bested her. Despite the fury that pulsed through the air, she'd felt this would be more of a long-term problem. Although the task of repairing the obelisk was being slowly chipped away at, some part of her felt she would never leave. It was as if this was all that was left. She and the other kin would be enslaved by the stone forever, dosed with alien fury for its amusement

She eventually finished her fight with the furious birds, bringing back prey to the now battered and bloodied camp. There'd been beasts on the way. It was as if the closer she got to the spire, the angrier the fauna became. Smaller things like rabbits and swooping birds she didn't mind so much - she could handle a few things on her own. She'd grown wise to how creatures moved to attack, where their defenses fell open. The giant beasts though, something out of a dream and enraged just as much as everything else, she ran from. She didn't need more wounds. They'd just slow down her progress

Cresting one last hill, she came across the scene of the battle with kin injured and monsters felled. There was a temporary lull in the air and not everyone seemed to be fully...there. It was like they saw something she didn't. She had little time to think about it. After dropping her prey on the half-frozen pile collected, she'd started to wander around. It felt important to make sure no one had actually been killed. It didn't seem to be the case. They were dazed, bruised, and some still high on adrenaline, but none had gone still. And then, before she could even begin to ask around for what had gone one, the obelisk was whole

It was as if something inside of her had been suffocating all this time and was suddenly allowed to breathe again. Her mind was soothed and filled with welcome clarity. She didn't have to think about blood anymore. It was over. And then, just like that, she was on the other side. Familiar weeping trees swept the ground with their branches and toads croaked in the distance. The cold of the mountains melted away, replaced by the scent of damp earth. The task was complete and she was back in home territory. Half of it felt wildly surreal, everything all a dream. Yet, everything was tangible. There were others too, stumbling near the swamp's obelisk. For the first time in what felt like years, she was able to breathe a sigh of relief. They were safe now. They could go home

She didn't even mind the snow. She was going to take the nap of her lifetime