Yes, perhaps a Jungle visit. Kellyn has a wandering heart, occasionally, and it’s clear Zilpah can be persuaded to go adventuring also. So she flicks a half-smile back at Malka, and then follows her friend. For once she travels normally, not messing with time, and she enjoys the walk beside her cheerful friend. Distance falls away beneath their feet, and slowly dirt and green turns to sand and gold.
The feel of the hot Deserts air is familiar in her throat, warm against her skin. The sand shifts underfoot and she sighs, familiarity a comfort. Zilpah speaks again, and Kellyn turns to her friend, ears flicking to catch the words. “A tree?” she responds, amused, trying to imagine a big tree growing in the Desert’s small oasis. She finds she can’t quite imagine it – and when she closes her eyes, it’s the horror of the underworld she still sees – so she bounces to the tip of her hooves and back, edgy with the need to keep running from what she saw. “I think I remember the way to the oasis,” she laughs. “Let’s race!”
She is light of foot, light of body, and runs atop the sand dunes, mane and tail streaming. It doesn’t take long, and she does remember the way. When she finds the tree she is pleasantly surprised that it is, in fact, very large. Blinking up at it, she takes a drink from the water of the oasis and then settles beneath the spreading branches of the oak, looking once more at Zilpah. “I’ve changed some, too.” she says, and her voice is quiet and serious. She doesn’t know how much she wants to say – but she wants to tell someone; and since she didn’t go home to her family, to her father and her grandfather, Zilpah is all she has.
daughter of cagney and elite