greyscale

in my thoughts i have seen rings of smoke through the trees, & the voices of those who stand looking. Tilney wasn't wrong. Aside from the initial shock and surprise of seeing him magically moved by the Rift, the fact that his feet had quite literally turned to stone lost its intrigue and appeal almost instantly. The two had talked about what could have possibly caused this and ways of getting the stone off (knocking them against other stones, trying to remove them by friction and force), but of course nothing worked. This wasn't all together that surprising given the Rift's apparent penchant for mischief, but because it wasn't happening to her, she wasn't quite as sympathetic to Tilney's plight as she maybe should have been. Even so, she followed at his heels (at an alarmingly slow pace), and kept a helpful and patient smile on her face despite the fact that she was fairly certain a slug could have moved faster than her companion currently was. There were few things in life that riled Otem quite as much as inefficiency did. And walking slower than paint dried, rather than flying swiftly to the cave, was about as inefficient as things came. "Oh, are you sure?"  Otem answered obligatorily. "I am more than happy to keep walking with you.." She was of course required to say this, despite the fact that she would have given anything to move even slightly faster than they were currently going. "Then again, perhaps I should go on ahead. That way I can try and see Maude from the air, and if I find her, I can tell her that you're coming." ----- interlude ------ But Otem hadn't seen Maude from the air. She hadn't spotted the curly-haired songstress in all the time that she spent soaring up to the cliffs where they had first met. Although Otem was disappointed not to find Maude for Tilney's sake, she was also disappointed for her sake too. If Maude wasn't here, she'd have to suffer even more slow walking with Tilney, and she wasn't sure that her anxiety levels had lowered enough for her to stomach that. As Otem spied Tilney enter the sea cave, she leaped from the cliffs and gracefully swooped down towards him, landing lightly at the mouth of the cave. "Hey!" She chirped brightly, not wanting to disappoint the stone-hooved father who was probably just as annoyed with his current situation as she was. "I didn't see her - but this place is really big. Maybe she's farther back in these caves!"

@Tilney