She’s tempted to wave at them, but they seem scared enough already. It’s probably for the best if the strange person in her strange clothes doesn’t pay them much mind.

Mostly she keeps track of their location in case she needs to navigate her way around later. The scenery makes it much easier than she’s used to. Look! Landmarks! Amazing.

With the rest of her brain, she also thinks about the implications of having been resurrected right where she died. They’re... not good? The only time that happened was the very first time she died, before she’d had any chance to fall asleep. It had been when they were testing if her experimental resurrection bullshit would even work. Ever since, it’s always brought her back in the last place she fell asleep. So what does not having done that mean? Maybe she was moved after she fell asleep, and, what. Her soul couldn’t navigate all the way back to her last sleeping location, and instead opted to just remake her where she fell?

That implies a very great distance. Maybe not anywhere in the world, in fact. That’s extremely scary. ... but she finished the really important part of her job before getting whisked away to wherever this is, so she’s not too broken up about it. Some other people have been brought back to life, there’s a tiny aggressively alive foothold in the middle of the wastes, if people want to fix the world they’ll have the chance. Which is something.

This is a very odd retirement location, though.

They fully veer left and start following the tributary stream's western bank to the north. That path starts sloping upwards, with the shallow river meeting drops that turn it into waterfalls at irregular intervals. After passing by the second waterfall Taharqi speaks up again: "Don't try to make any sudden movements, Lucky's used to it and we're fast enough that we won't have any trouble."

Used to what, she may wonder for half a second? Probably the pack of hyenas up ahead that notices them from a distance and whose members get up from their lazing about gnawing on bones and start growling menacingly at the approaching human horseriders.

“I will not flail and fall off of the horse to be ripped apart by, uh, whatever those are. Is everything here so murderous?”

"The babies usually aren't. And the herbivores tend to be more peaceful and only get irritated if you get too close."

True to Taharqi's warning, Lucky does not get spooked by the hyenas, and although they try to pounce and eat them, the horse is much too fast and agile for that. They cross a natural bridge above the water to go to the eastern riverbank and the hyenas give up chase a little bit after that.

"No small, adorable bunnies that are incredibly traumatized by their murderous surroundings? Well. That's great. What a damn retirement location."

"Well, there are hares endemic to some harder-to-reach islands but they are small and don't have much meat in them."

"Eugh, pass. I'd rather just live off of potatoes until I get proper vegetarian dietary variety going. I was mostly just amused at the visual of something small, fluffy, and innocent, surrounded by all of the death and murder."

"The shaleback hatchlings are quite adorable in my opinion."

She now knows what the name of the large turtle thing that attacked her is.

"Are those the turtle things? Because the babies were very cute."

"Indeed! They're even mostly nonaggressive so long as you don't bother the hatchlings. With some exceptions, they actually vary rather a lot in personality."

And once more he veers left to return to the western riverbank. This time the threat he's avoiding is not immediately clear but if she tries to get her eyes used to the camouflage she might notice a number of giant spiders hanging out on a grassy area they would have otherwise needed to pass by if they didn't cross the river.

The smallest of the spiders is about the size of a mastiff and unless her eyes are playing tricks on her there is one as large as Lucky.

"Huh! Neat. ... Are those giant spiders. Why are there giant spiders."

"Presumably they nest in the cave over there. I've peeked once or twice but never had a good reason to go in and see what's inside."

"Augh. I mean, I want their spider silk, I bet it makes for some amazing cloth, but still. Augh."

"That would be a reason to go inside!" he replies cheerfully. "Although the times I've peeked I also managed to snatch some of their nested eggs and make some silk from their gossamer so unless you want very large quantities of it we can just kill the handful of spiders by the entrance and snatch the silk there before the ones farther in take notice and decide to come see what's up."

She snorts, amused. "I don't think I'd want spider silk right now, I don't have the infrastructure set up to make plants that could replicate it, but. If I get that, I will want samples to dupe any and all interesting materials available. If there are any others that spring to mind."

"Plants?"

"Yep. I have so much magical horticulture experience, you have no idea. Are you attached to material scarcity? Because it's dumb and should stop."

"You are a very useful voodoo witch. I'm glad I helped you."

"Thank you! I'm very glad you helped me, too! And also do you see why I was so annoyed about people deciding to eat me, it's such a waste! I mean I would still be offended if they wanted to torture me for all of the knowledge I have until I was their witch-slave or something, but it'd be much less actively counterproductive and dumb."

"I think Yog only likes torture for sport, he is substantially less gung ho about it than about the cannibalism."

"Mmhmmm. Yeah, fuck that guy. God. Whatever."

He laughs and shakes his head.

Northwards they go.

Northwards! She keeps an eye out for any other weird nasties that will inevitably want to kill and/or eat her. Such a great retirement home, really, it shouldn't have.

(She's being sarcastic. But at least she's not famous here, that's nice.)

She can spot more hyenas and alligators here and there but most of them are too far to notice or care and the ones that aren't quickly give up on chasing them once Lucky makes it clear just how few shits she gives about their slow attempts to kill her.

Well. Okay. Back to looking at scenery again, she guesses. Are they going to get to his home soon?