While Rion's squad leaders made their way toward the settlements of the various group leaders, Rion talked to Lara.
Lara had Rion's head on her lap as she listened to him with a calm gaze.
She smiled when he told her about his strolls in the south forest, remembering how he ran around the redwood basin during his younger days.
She comforted him when he told her how the ceremony of deliverance had broken him apart.
She scolded him when he told her about entering the purple fog forest without anyone's knowledge, remembering the day he had snuck out to join that stupid Redwood Den.
But most of the time she stayed silent.
Even though she knew that Rion was, for some unknown reason, different, she didn't think that he would become someone so detached from what they considered normal.
