"Oh!" Ash winced guiltily even as she climbed onto his back. "I'm sorry, I just- this is so-" She just felt like they needed to move. They were getting closer, she just knew it. If they could really find her mother...
"I'll make sure we take a proper rest soon, I promise," she murmured, leaning low over the dragon's neck and patting him gently.
Nearly a week passed, swimming from one island to another, sleeping on cold rock, surrounded by the sea and the wind.
And strangely, Aishling loved every moment of it. Yes, it was cold, and she was tired, and dressed in nothing but a very ratty, very damp nightgown, but being out on the sea, traveling with the selkies, with Yan...it was wonderful.
Braiga, the selkie girl who'd first spoken to them, had stopped them at a crescent shape stone far out to sea, further north than Ash thought most human settlements stretched. She shrugged out of her coat and waved airily in a westward direction.
"The islands are there," she told girl and dragon. "Just out there, see? The chain looks like a spiral, the largest island in the center. If you are lucky, your mother will be there. Or someone who knows her."