Enoch Crosslin (crossedwire) wrote in thefield, @ 2009-05-11 23:40:00 |
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Current mood: | contemplative |
Entry tags: | cross, helena, z - 1st tribe - day 19 |
Vast Emptiness
Who: Cross and Helena
Where: the spindle trees, half a day's walk from Grazer Island
When: evening, shortly before dark
What: preparing to settle in for the night
Rating: PG
The swim across the lake and then the walk Cross and Helena had undertaken had been quite uneventful. Cross had taken Helena's suggestion to smear mud on his bare arms and his face and neck to keep the worst of the sun's damaging rays away from his already red skin, and while it was mildly unpleasant to sweat through a layer of mud all afternoon, he figured it was preferable to more painful blisters. They hadn't seen any wildlife to speak of, and during this walk they had the advantage of having full stomachs and plenty of water. It made the journey much easier.
Once they reached the part of the landscape that was recognizable as either the same area they'd stayed on the way to Grazer Island or one very near it, Cross paused in his long strides. "This look okay?" he asked, not wanting to take off his bedroll until she'd given her input on the situation.
Helena eyed the distance to the little burbling brook that had yielded the plastic water bottles to her just a few days ago. She nodded. "Yeah, this looks like the spot." She shrugged off the shoulder straps of her pack and knelt to do a little bit of maintenance on it. Her bedroll had been tied and retied since she'd left the camp. While the grassbraid rope held up fairly well as straps, it was starting to fray a little. "Hmm, the rope doesn't hold up as well as I'd like," she said as she dragged the whole thing a few more feet into the shade of the spindle trees. They'd kept one eye cocked toward the sky all day but there had been no sign of the enormous bird they had seen before. She fished out her water bottle and then sat down on the whole bedroll, uncaring that it was resting in the dirt.
Cross shrugged out of his own bedroll and left it to sit at the foot of the tree next to which Helena was sitting. "Gonna wash this off," he told her, indicating the mud that was smeared all over his arms and face. He hauled his shirt off, too, and draped it over a low hanging branch; he decided not to bother washing it out since it would only get filthy again tomorrow when he did the same thing. With a heavy sigh he plodded through the thin line of trees to the stream. The walk hadn't been terribly tiring, but he expected tomorrow's to be, since they'd be facing an entire day of it. He decided he'd worry about tomorrow tomorrow as he knelt and began splashing cool stream water over his face and his arms.
An entire day's walk with nothing but sweetgrind grain to chew on. She knew that wouldn't set Cross right. The man seemed to be a consummate carnivore. It didn't seem to phase him whether it was unspiced baked clams or lake fish, or laugher meat. He ate with a quite gusto and seemed better for it afterward. Helena, well, she missed nothing more than a good garden salad. Tomatoes. Cucumbers! Carrots!! She liked her steak too and munched away on the jerky when they had it. With this new lifestyle, as much fatty meats as she could get into her stomach, the better. Still.
She leaned back with her eyes closed and her head resting against the tree trunk. She fanned herself lightly with the enormous roc feather they had found the last time they were here and just let the ache slowly seep out of her legs.
After how sparse things had been at camp, Cross was just pleased to have something to eat, meat or no. Sweetgrind was definitely better than nothing in his opinion. As far as food went, one thing he missed quite a bit was chocolate, strangely enough. He'd never been a big sweet-eater, but once in a while, a piece of chocolate candy went down nice. Well, there was no point in dwelling on it, he'd decided, much as he'd pushed himself into not dwelling on most of the other things they had to do without. He took his time about washing up at the stream because what else did they have to do? It was lucky that he didn't require a lot of entertainment, because he didn't suppose there was going to be any for the rest of the day.
Once he had every bit of the mud washed off, he raked his hair back with his fingers and plodded back toward the trees where Helena was resting, water dripping from his large frame.
Helena had fallen into a light doze but she didn't miss the sound of his approach. She cracked her eyes open and offered him a smile. He was backlit by the sunset and she really could not deny that he was something to see. Apollo rather romantically came to mind but she dismissed it. Cross was much more earthly than that. "My turn," she said as she stood up with a sigh. She stretched her arms up over her head and a series of little pops went off in her back like a string of Chinese firecrackers. She passed him close enough to brush against his damp skin on her way to the stream. It was nice out here at sunset. The descending white sun took on all of the hues of orange and fiery red. It leeched the purple out of the sweetgrind so that all the way to the west it looked like a prairie fire.
The sky was incredible, Cross thought as he sat down on his own bound-up bedroll. He'd never seen a sunset anywhere near as compelling in London, or anywhere else he'd lived, for that matter. He looked up through the branches of the spindly trees, his blue eyes focused on the nuances of color, and he couldn't even dread the inevitable night of poor sleep that they'd have up in the tree. It was quiet here without the cackling cries of the laughers, and it was empty; before he'd ended up here, Cross had never imagined such vast emptiness. Very faintly he could hear the splashing of water that would be Helena at the stream, and there were small sounds of tiny creatures rustling in the brush, and that was all. The dying light washed everything around it in rose and orange, and it nearly stole his breath.