When the winds had begun picking up this week, Jolene had admitted that it might be time to turn in. She'd even gone so far as to try to hang around the interior hotsprings, albeit in her usual clothing, to see what the fuss was about. So far, public bathing seemed like a nuisance that she didn't see the appeal of, though the option to scrub at her stained clothing was appreciated...

But then the trunk shook with a thunderous crack and water spilled up and over the sides of the rock piles and Jo leapt to her feet, various prudish thoughts completely forgotten. She had been soaked by the splash and now she stumbled out into the open through a harried flutter of lanky limbs, soot clinging to every part of her as she came out on a limb that was occluded by the ominous weight of the fallen tree.

The air smelled foul and the wind howled and Jo, mind flashing back to the life she'd been dragged from, froze up in a panic that locked down all limbs and all thought. To anyone else who was nearby, it would be clear that the wind wasn't responsible for that level of yowling; it was the soot-soaked adventurer jarred out of sorts. Her hairsays were quick to leap on her panic: she saw in the fire-struck tree the towering monoliths of her city transformed into half-living monstrosities, and the hairsays, too stupid to distinguish between reality and a memory, were trying to communicate with it.

...She might need a shake or a punch in the shoulder or perhaps to be dragged back inside.