At the thump sound of Nakia tripping, Hyll skidded to a halt and jogged back to her little sister, "No problem Nakia - did you hurt anything?" The nymph asked, smoothing back Nakia's ruffled hair. She knew how rarely the young girl lost her balance and fell, so Hyll figured something must have distracted her, whether it was her mind or something interesting passing by.

After taking a quick scan of their surroundings, Hyll figured Nakia must have thought of something that brought her attention away from running, "You can talk to me about anything at any time ever, Nakia. Okay?"

It was not often that Nakia lost her innocent, outgoing demeanor, and the few times she had were staples in her family's memory. Nakia was young, but had seen enough horror for dozens of lifetimes, as such, it was hard for her to really talk about what she'd gone through. So instead of speaking, something that Nakia wasn't particularly good at in this language anyways, she hugged Hyll. When she'd been with Mother, hugging and physical touch had been very important. Especially in mountain lion form. As Nakia could not express her worries through words, she just hugged Hyll instead.

"I know, thank you Hyll, for everything. And being my sister even though I am a horrible nuisance half the time." Nakia hugged Hyll tight, a grim smile on her face. "I'm pretty sure I messed up my knees though, because there is definitely blood trickling down my leg right now." Nakia giggled, pulling away and bringing up her dress a few inches so her scrapped knees were visible. It wasn't too bad, but there was indeed blood trickling down her legs. Nothing she couldn't handle of course, but wandering the woods smelling of blood was never a good idea.

Hyll hugged her little sister tightly, smoothing down her hair softly, and bent down to press a light kiss to the young girl's brow, "It will be okay," Hyll promised solemnly, "We will be alright - there are lotsa people who love you, Nakia."

Once Nakia pulled away and showed off her scraped knees, Hyll crouched down, balancing carefully in a squat, and cleaned the scrapes free of dirt. Her green-tinged skin was gentle and soothing, and rubbed away the blood staining the area around Nakia's knees, avoiding the scrapes themselves carefully, "There we go. I'll keep a lookout for something that'll help take the sting out of those as we walk, alright? You ready to go on?"

Nakia didn't know what she'd do without her family. Granted, if Rowan and Alvaro had not appeared when they had, she'd be dead. A young shifter couldn't defend themselves for long, and she hadn't been very good at hunting when Rowan had found her. Nakia would've died within days if it wasn't for her new family, and she was ever so grateful for the opportunity to start over again, and have two amazing siblings.

Hyll was surprisingly good at cleaning injuries, Nakia had to give her that, and although it stung a little, Nakia would be healed by the end of the day probably. Once Hyll was finished, the energy seemed to return to Nakia, and she was already skipping around again. "Yup, let's go! I can't wait to ride horses, they're kinda big and scary but I don't care, Momma will take care of us." Nakia beamed at her older sister, a soft giggle drifting through the air.

Hyll smiled and nodded along with Nakia's excited chatter, "Yes. Horses can be quite large, but you are right. Rowan wouldn't do anything that could get us hurt."

-

ts to getting to rowan?

Yessir))

~~
By the time Nakia and Hyll made it to the clearing, Alvaro and Neo were there, though they had only arrived moments before. Alvaro's eyes immediately narrowed in on Nakia, who still smelled like blood and was rather stiff. Neo was close behind Alvaro as he hurried over, concern covering his face. "Nakia, Hyll, are you two okay? You smell like...blood." Alvaro looked the two over, his mark flashing bright green as Neo hurried to Alvaro's side.

Nakia was a little sore, and her knees hurt when she bent them. Walking wasn't great, but it was her fault she was hurt in the first place.

Hyll was quick to reassure Alvaro and Neo, "We just had a little incident with some scraped knees. They are all taken care of, though." Hyll wasn't going to be the one to tell Alvaro or anyone about Nakia's thoughts. They weren't hers to say or talk about.

-

im sorry this is so short and awful

Neo kneeled next to his little sister and gently looked at her scraped knees. They weren't bleeding anymore, but he was still a little concerned. Alvaro took one look at Nakia's kness, and released a sigh of relief, she would be fine from the looks of it. "Please be careful, all of you, blood attracts unnatural beings, and although we should be safe, we can never be too careful. Got it?" Alvaro watched as Nakia nodded solemnly, as did Neo, once Hyll agreed, he turned back around.

"Onward then, let's find Rowan." At the word Rowan, Alvaro cheeks turned a slight pink, though he made sure to hide it from the children.

Hyll exchanged a knowing glance with Neo. Alvaro was the opposite of sly, although she graciously did not call him out on it. In fact, Hyll was looking forward to riding and going on a picnic, so she hurried her steps along to walk faster.

Eventually the group caught up with Rowan, who was sprawled put carelessly on the grass while the horses - already tacked up - relaxed nearby. From the looks of it far away, they seemed to be responding to Rowan's words, but when they got closer Rowan turned to them and the horses resumed normal horse behavior, "Alright! We all set to go?"

Nakia frolicked about ahead of Alvaro and her siblings, which made her miss Neo's goofy grin when he glanced at Alvaro. It was rather obvious that something had happened between his mother and Alvaro, and it was obviously something that Alvaro had not been expecting if he was so obviously flustered by it. Neo just hoped that it would all work out, his mother was a happy woman, but when Alvaro was near, she gained a spring in her step that wasn't obvious if you didn't know his mother. Perhaps, they'd be a whole family eventually.

By the time they made it to the clearing, the heat had left Alvaro's cheeks and he had composed himself. He watched as Nakia ran about, giggling and hopping around, and a warm smile crept onto his face. At this rate, he could hardly imagine a life without little excited Nakia, and ever serious yet kind Neo, and, of course, sweet and thoughtful Hyll, as for Rowan, well there was no need for an explanation for her, she was.. well she was Rowan. He didn't know what he'd do without all of them.

Rowan's voice pulled him out of his thoughts, and he blinked rapidly, as if he had just woken from the most pleasant of dreams. "It seems so, we must get going soon, else Nakia might just explode from excitement." He grinned as the little girl stopped in her tracks and stared at him in shock. "I can explode from excitment?" Her words drew a laugh from Neo's lips while Nakia only glared at Alvaro.