Travel begins with a thick fog, perhaps hiding something unseen, as Mina tries to grasp more memories.
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♫♪Suggested Music: from Mists Across the West Coast on AudioNetwork
Mina rose for the morning an hour later when Edvard built up the fire beside her. He told her to go back to sleep, but she had slept only fitfully since he had stepped on Yuila. She decided to get up, and took a moment to brush her hair as Edvard led the animals outside the cave. She looked out the entrance after them, disliking the thick fog that hung at the entryway.
The cold thickness crept into the cave, clinging to her despite the fire's heat. It lent an eeriness to the stone chamber, and seemed even stranger when Edvard seemed to appear from nowhere in the thickness at the cave mouth.
"It's so quiet out there," he said, shaking his head and bending to roll his blankets near the fire. "No sound of birds, no sun. Just thick." He looked to her and shook his head. "There's nothing wrong, Mina. It's just quiet."
She nodded and bundled up her bedroll. "I don't like the fog. It always seems like everything is nearer to you than you know it is."
He took her bedroll after she tied it. "Never thought about it like that, but you're right."
They had to wake Yuila an hour later. Edvard wanted to wait out the fog, hoping the sun would burn it off shortly, but when that didn't happen, they decided to get under way for the day. Yuila wanted to sleep longer, complaining of her ankle being broken where she had been stepped on that night and of not having slept a wink.
Edvard waited for the young Crone to mount Sova half an hour later. She made all the sounds of distress, gingerly touching her ankle and looking to him with large violet eyes.
"It's not broken," he muttered as she let her foot hang out of the saddle stirrup. He turned her ankle and felt along it. "There's no swelling, no bruising, and it's not hot." He lifted the hem of her pale yellow slip to see her shin. "There's no redness, Yuila. It's not broken."
She winced as he moved away. "Then why does it hurt so much?"
"Because you want it to," he said. He climbed into the saddle on Neito's back, and then braced his foot as Mina used it to step up and sit behind him. He waited for her to adjust her skirts and Yuila to look away before turning to see Mina better. "Do you think she's really hurt?"
She smiled, flipping her wool skirt so it lay straight. "No. I saw her using it just fine when you were dousing the fire." She looked to where Yuila was sitting, rubbing Sova's neck and speaking to the mare. "I'll bet if you told her she could take Sova on a run she'd kick her without blinking."
He grinned, nodding. "I hope you're right."
They made their way out of the boulders and into the more heavily treed trail slowly. The fog actually thickened in the trees, the clammy grayness sticking to their skin and making it moist. Yuila had pulled the mare close to the gelding, and occasionally she reached over to put a hand on Mina's skirt, staying close.
The trail had widened, but it did little to help visibility, which was down to only a few yards in front of them. The horses stepped carefully, the mule balking a few times. Mina's fingers tightened uneasily on the side of Edvard's shirt as he connected a lead rope Sova's bridle.
Yuila didn't object.
The fog remained thick, the suns only an indistinct brighter spot in the gray-white above them. Within an hour the trail before them seemed to be almost opaque with white, and the horses stopped of their own.
Neito's ears pricked forward, then back a few times.
Edvard urged the gelding on, but the horse only took a step and stopped. Sova refused to move at all, her ears flat against her head.
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