It was further than she'd ever been before, but when the rolling hills and tangled trees of the thicket eventually succumbed to steeper, winding paths and new heights, Lyanna was startstruck.
The forest that adorned the crags of Stonewatch Timbers was much the same as the one she knew and hailed from ─ dense and dark in places, secretive and alluring ─ but the air was thinner, fresher, and perhaps even colder. As the day wore on and her jagged, unforged path wound further up and away, the autumn wind that seemed to ricochet off the rocky faces of the weathered, old peaks cut across her face and ruffled up her tawny coat. Her paws were dirtied, stained brown with flecks of dried mud clinging to the fur of her legs. It was hard work, navigating the new world without a single soul there to show her or guide her or keep her feet from slipping on the stone, but that was exactly what fulfilled her.
It must have been her mother's blood coursing through her, calling her onward to places unknown and making her feel more alive than she'd ever felt before. In her mind, she could only envision what she thought @Kite looked like, a fabricated image composed of her own interpretations of her father's memories and the stories he'd shared with her. Even if her mother was very much a ghost, though, the young Tainn ─ with her courage and golden eyes ─ couldn't help but to want to know her, or be her. And so as Kite had once been the wayfarer, versed traveler, and earned scout, so did her only child strive to be, too.
The only difference was that Lyanna had it in mind to return home.
'Home' was a thought that had crossed her mind several times on this particular excursion. When her feet were worn and her mouth was dry, and as the afternoon sky faded from brilliant blue to muted silver and then to a churning, foreboding sort of grey, she considered turning back. Perched atop a rounded boulder that hung over the crooked, shadowed cracks and crevices of the wooded forests below, she tested the air with a flick of her rough, pink tongue. Soon it would rain, and no sooner than she chose to turn around would she save herself the grief of riding out the wet cold alone. She just wasn't ready to go home. Not yet.