The next morning, as the sun was just starting to peek over the jagged edges of the mountain, Ember, Mayabelle and Idril packed their things and started again on their climb up the steep cliffs. Captain Dharnon had given them ropes and climbing spikes to aid them on their journey and a few swift words of encouragement. A few of the other tieflings had given them extra bread, water or dried meat for them to eat. 

Ember couldn't believe it, she had an uncle. Witch Whispers was right, she had finally met her family. Even if her parents were dead or lost, she had met a living breathing blood relative. She was almost breathless, from altitude or giddiness she didn't know. 

Still, she could see the faint worry in Mayabelle's eyes as they climbed. The curse had frightened her, Ember could see that plainly. She groped for some method of comfort, some way she could cheer Mayabelle into forgetting the curse. 

"Mayabelle," asked the tiefling suddenly, "Why did you choose to become a monk? I've met a few before, but you seem too cheerful to be like them."

Mayabelle smiled faintly. "After my father passed," she started, her green eyes sparkling with concentration as she fumbled to the top of a boulder, "I found myself in a monk's sanctuary. I realized that if I was here it meant my father's spirit was guiding me there. They were kind to me and they helped me through the tough times when I missed him..." she trailed off a small smile on her face. 

They continued slowly and surely up and up, barely pausing for breath. Ember considered each of their families, not paying attention to where she put her feet. 

Mayabelle's dead father and absent mother, Idril's parents who, although alive, never supported her dreams, and herself with only the beginning concept of what a family was. 

What was a family? Was it really all in blood? When it came down to it, blood relations had little importance, rather a family was people who stuck with you and cared for you even when you were down. A family took interest in you words, listening and laughing and even crying with you. Looking around her, Ember realized that she had been ignorant all along. The two climbing next to her were her family. 

This thought put a small warmth in her heart, until everything went downhill. 

Literally. 

The mountain was crumbling before her very eyes. Beside her and in front of her, the trail was toppling, barreling and thundering in a wave of dust, crumbling off the mountain with a crashing sound that was too terrible to recount. 

Ember screamed, "Everybody, stay close to the rock's wall!"

Then in a rush of dust and tiny crushed stone shards, the path going forward and going back had gone.