Niah returned outside just in time to hear the urgency with which Brom wanted to get her onto the ship. Once all the carriages were on the move and clattering on down the road into town, she'd run into the house and to her room where she fell to her knees by her bed and pulled a long, wooden box out from underneath it. Inside was her sword, sheathed in a beautifully decorated leather scabbard. As she ran back outside she tied it around her waist with the accompanying belt. It was a poor weapon against an enemy as monstrous as the one on the way, but she had to at least have something with which to defend herself. She wouldn't die a coward too afraid to put up a fight.<br/><br/>"We need to hurry," she said to Brom as she rushed back into the bright sunshine. "They can't get too far ahead." She'd loosely wrapped Steben's reigns around a post by the front door. Unloosening them in haste with shaking hands proved to be a ridiculously difficult thing to do. The grey stallion snorted impatiently, eager to move, and nudged at her side with his large head. That didn't help her a great deal. "Blasted ... thing ..." Niah muttered. She'd somehow managed to get the leather straps knotted into a hopeless, tangled mess. Panic rose in her chest, nearly closing up hear throat. Her family was completely out of her view now. If something happened to them while she was having a panic attack she didn't know what she'd do. Gasping for breath she yanked at the reigns while Steben became more and more agitated.<br/><br/>Ridiculously, tears sprang to her eyes and blurred her vision, making it even harder to see the cursed knots.