Pff.

She can tell them a story, then. Something with a storm, like where they are now, and a lot of other things that are absolutely nothing like where they are now, because that's the last thing kids need to be thinking about at times like this. She can tell them about a group of pirates who got washed up on an island in a storm just like this one, and on the island they made themselves homes from the ship's planks and learned to take care of themselves, until they discovered that the island was already home to an encampment of fierce centaur warriors...

She watches the ground, occasionally, to see whether the others are back.

It takes them about three hours.

She will have to send the kids down before they can go up.

"Alright, everybody down again. Sorry. Space only seats so many."

Awwwww. Down they go.

"Well, good news, the governor says they can come if they go to the port and subsequently get out of his way."

"Where will they go then?"

"That's the less good news, we have no idea. Stupid fu- sorry - civil wars are bad. Fazil's gonna message people's relatives in Andoran to see if they can make arrangements for them.

And it's suggested we accompany them all the way back to the port on foot, because there are trolls in this forest."

"Gosh. Well, maybe we'll see a troll," she says, as though consoling herself.

"Maybe. Sorry for the delay."

"I don't mind so much. Except that it's muddy out. But I guess I can keep cleaning myself off."

"It's probably good practice. Right now we should all be asleep, though, this spell's not going to last that much longer and we want to rest while we can."

"Okay."

She snuggles Imrainai.

Snuggle. And they can nap.

The three of them also snuggle.

And they sleep.

Mahdi wakes everyone up shortly before the Rope Trick runs out. It is still raining. 

Such is life. 

And they head towards the port?

Yep. They are all very wet and slightly grouchy. 

That's valid.

She can't really do anything for anyone except for walk, so she'll walk.

Clean clean clean clean clean. It's sort of completely useless but she spends about half of her time not covered in mud.

It's probably great practice!

In the afternoon they run into trolls. Three of them, snarling and spitting and wielding fallen trees. 

Oh, good. Three is just enough to be interesting.

That's terrifying.

She'll just - stay as far back as from them as she possibly can, and drag Verita with her before she can do something profoundly stupid.

(Woaaaah.)

It's not a very long fight. Mahdi opens a pit of acid underneath one of them and then pelts the other two with balls of fire while Hagan shoots a ridiculous number of arrows in an unreasonably short length of time and Fazil gives everyone in the vicinity the magic ability to get out of the way faster, shoos them, and then patches up Hagan, who absolutely was crushed by a tree trunk in the midst of that but hardly seems to mind.

Well that's... good, then.