Thaler didn't want to walk so much as she felt she [b]needed[/b] to do so. Despite how her entire body ached from head to foot and how at the time it was awkward to manage even that without tripping and stumbling she needed some space from the others. With them all mounted and herself walking she got just that, space. 

Under the over sized coat and clothes given to her by the guards folk she still bore the marks of her run in with the devil god, though it was perhaps the unseen damage that was worse still. She felt as though Rilon had reached inside her and hollowed her out, taking every crumb that was 'her' and whisking it away with him when he disappeared. She was fighting through a haze that made her head feel so heavy and full she could barely bring herself to think let alone navigate her steps and there was a deep sense of hopelessness that chilled her to the core. 

She managed though, to follow along the road, listening to the hoof falls of the beasts and correcting herself if she felt she was going too far a stray. The stick sourced for her while useful to make sure there were no large bumps to mind was utterly useless as a cane not that she had the heart to tell Aemoten as much. She couldn't deal with any more of...what had transpired today and she was going to avoid any chance of it for as long as possible. 

Luckily the trip was rather uneventful for several hours and while the chill seeped into the fabric of her clothes her skin didn't feel any colder than it already did. She just wanted to get to Zerul, to find a bed and then sleep until all of this went away. Of course sleep was hardly any reprieve for the girl and she somewhat came to dread the idea of what would happen the next time she closed her eyes. She spent a good portion of the silent journey trying to will herself to think and process all of what had happened but her mind appeared to have alternate ideas. Every thought she gathered was soon scattered by a hundred other smaller thoughts and lost in a tidal wave of distraction.

Despite this there was a slow and gradual progress to this attempt at mental mapping, though she was by far too tired to be proud of such a thing, and she felt a little of the fugue surrounding her lifting. That was until the dekkun seemed to grow fractious and Aemoten announced a change in direction. Thaler was terrible with maps for obvious reasons but this change in course seemed unnecessary, the path from the guard post to the city was more or less straight and by following the sounds they would be leaving the path and slipping back into the woods.

She hesitated on the path a moment, allowing those mounted to slip in front of her -it would be a rather poor move on her part after all to swing the stick and strike one of the animals in the legs- and then followed them to the tree line just off of the main road. There she used the make shift cane to feel out the roots of a tree and then to find the trunk. She used her hands to measure the gap and close it before she eased herself to the ground, facing out into the road with the stick across her lap. Once down she leaned up against the tree, her head on the bark and her eyes lightly closed. It was not the most comfortable place to rest but it sure beat some of the places they had been this week. 

While no doubt it would have been seen as an act of petulance or spoiled behavior Thaler had no intention of attempting to navigate those trees in her current condition, nor did she much relish the idea of what it was the dekkun and foreigner were leading them to. While it would have been wise to speak her thoughts the others were already ahead and she could not muster the energy nor care to call out to them. They'd soon enough notice she wasn't there and Olan would likely have enough of his wit to guess she had simply stayed by the road to await their return. Aemoten had promised her no more detours, no more distractions, they were meant to go straight to Zerul and that was to be that, Thaler had no intention of going anywhere that did not directly lead to the city. Of course it didn't for a moment surprise her that his promise was forgotten for the sake of curiosity, let them have their adventure and she'd wait for when they were done. 

It was surprisingly quiet under the tree by the road and it wasn't long until she could no longer focus well enough to follow the progression of her comrades. Instead she was treated to the sound of chirping winter birds and lightly rustling leaves and branches that were over head. After everything this last week it was almost euphoric to hear something so simple, peaceful and not foreboding.