The closer they got to the mountains, the harder the going got. They had to get out of the canoes and drag them along the river bank (that wasn't at all suited for even walking) because the rapids were impossible to get up on the water. Anaya was soon wishing they were going down the river, but going up a mountain meant going upstream, and there was nothing to do about it.
And then they came to the first waterfall. They were surprisingly high in the mountains already. The foothills had had a gentle, long slope that made it possible to get this far.
They stood on the bank of the pond below the waterfall, staring up at it for a long time, listening to the roar.
"This is it, then," Madiza said.
"This is it with the canoes," Tiu corrected her.
"Is there any way we could get the canoes around and up? Continue on the river somewhere upstream?" Anaya asked no one in particular. They all shifted their attention to the cliffs around the waterfall, falling silent in thought for a moment longer.
Then Tiu shook her head.
"I think we can get quite easily up if we go a bit that way, but there's no way to carry the canoes up with us. They're too big and heavy. Maybe if we go a longer way around?"
"How far exactly do you want us to carry the canoes into the forest to see?" Madiza asked her. "We have no idea how far we'd need to go to get them up."
Tiu gave her a dirty look she pretended she didn't notice.
"We should set up camp," Anaya said, changing the subject. "We could go on for a bit longer, but it will start to get dark soon, and I at least am tired and could use a shorter day. If we're continuing on without the canoes, this seems like a good place to stop for a night."
The others nodded, and Anaya closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, relieved. And to give herself a few heartbeats of rest before they started to set up the camp.
She was unexpectedly tired. She'd been out in the forest before, felt safe there. It was her home more than any other place. They had spent days at a time out here, days that were more physically taxing than the days back at the school. She always slept better in the forest than in the confines of the school building, under the ever-present gaze of the Madam.
And that's how it had been for the first couple of days. She had felt free, at home, like she was breathing better and thinking better and happier than she had been in a while. But then the weariness had started to settle in. The days were long, and especially today the current against them had been getting stronger as the slope became steeper. She was even starting to doubt the whole idea of being here. She didn't remember anymore why they had thought the ice dragon would have come from the mountains. It was simply the closest place to them that had snow, and that had seemed like reason enough, that that would mean they would find something here that told them why the dragon was at the town. Now her tired brain couldn't quite figure out how that made sense.
How easy it would be to simply get back into the canoe tomorrow morning and let the stream take them back home.
Then again, it seemed they had been right. They were following the tracks of frostbitten forest. Why in the world a flying dragon would follow a river made absolutely no sense, even if the trail of frostbitten forest so seemed to indicate.
Kimo went to see if there was fish in the pond. He seemed to have a knack for fishing, they had learned quite fast. Anaya had been surprised to find out he wasn't just a nuisance and dead weight they needed to drag around. Madiza went into the forest to find some firewood. That left Anaya and Tiu alone to set up the hammocks and nets and build a fireplace.
"Are you okay?" Tiu asked Anaya in a quiet voice as they worked. Anaya nodded.
"Just tired," she assured her. "It's been a long few days on the river."
"Usually long days out of the town is a good thing for you. Refreshing instead of exhausting."
"Usually I'm not stuck in a canoe with such annoying company," Anaya said and gave Tiu a tired smile. It was true, but it was far from the whole story. Anaya wasn't sure what the whole story was. Tiu laughed.
"Yeah, I'm sorry you're stuck with them," she said.
"I know. And I know it makes the most sense. At least tomorrow we'll be out of the canoes."
They sat in silence that night, eating the few fish Kimo had caught, and some of what they had gathered the day he'd poisoned himself.
In equal silence they all made their ways to their hammocks and let the constant roar of the waterfall lull them to sleep.
~x~
In the morning they packed up, lifted the canoes onto the shore, flipped them over and tied them to nearby trees. They lifted their packs to their shoulders and headed to the forest, following the cliff. They only needed to walk a few minutes to find a place they could easily climb up, but what they had thought yesterday was true: it would have been practically impossible to bring the canoes up with them, and it didn't look like the slope eased much any further either.
Anaya was the first to climb, and as she got to the top of the cliff she almost lost her balance as soon as she stood up. They hadn't noticed it from the valley below, but up here the wind was blowing hard enough to make her loose shirt billow and flap around her. As soon as she got her feet properly under her and made the small adjustments the wind required, it wasn't bad at all. It had simply taken her by surprise. She moved farther away from the edge, giving the others space to get to the top.
"Watch out when you get up here," she called down to the others. "Don't let the wind catch you off guard."
"This isn't that bad," Tiu said after she stopped next to her to wait for the other two.
"No, it's not. But if you're already off balance and on the edge, a gust might be just enough to push you over," Anaya said and turned to look up the mountain. The forest was beginning to visibly thin somewhere above them. "And I expect it will only get windier from here on."
__________________________________
We're almost half-way through and I still have no idea what's going on. That's always a good sign, right?
The topic for tomorrow is Reminder.
~matleena
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