Journey on Wolf Paw Mountain

[Christoph]

“Well, the only reason she’d fall asleep is because she’d be so tired afterwards,” Chris retorted, with a grin full of exaggerated smugness. “And of that, you should be jealous.” He highly doubted this, of course. They had been very good friends since they were children, but there was nothing to suggest that their relationship was anything but platonic. It was probably why they felt comfortable joking about topics that many others would deem “inappropriate.”

“Right, what’s say we hurry to those trees,” he suggested, picking up his pace even though he was now tracking through snow several inches deep. He collected one last branch of firewood before the first large, fluffy snowflakes danced their way down to the forest floor. The amount of snow falling began to increase, making visibility suffer. “Let’s see if we can’t get there before it vanishes.”

At least the wind had slowed down -- wait... no it hadn't.

[Tigurio_hatesHer]

Heather was already ahead of him. And huddled under the trees where they thought to make camp. These trees were bare, but even their branches provided some cover, as they were so numerous.

"Hurry up and pull out that huge canvas from your sack." She said to Chris. "I'll get the kindling going if you set up the shelter overhead. Make sure to tie ropes to the trees for support and angle the canopy away from the fire, so the smoke can escape..." She began digging away snow with her hands, so she could start their little fire on actual grass or dirt.

[Christoph]

"Yes, yes, I know," sighed Chris, climbing a few feet up the first tree and securing a section of the rope to a branch. "I mean, how many times have we done this sort of thing? Well... without the icy wind, snow, and killer wolves, that is." He continued on, tying the heavy canvas tarp to three of the four trees that surrounded their future fire. Once done with those, he stood and stared at the fourth and final tree that he would need to climb, as though he could make it shrink by looking at it hard enough.

It was a tall, formidable Oak covered with coarse, wet bark. Its trunk was wider than Chris could get his arms around and the lowest branch was well out of arm's reach. Well, standing here won't get this tarp up... He took a deep, defiant breath and tried to shimmy up the Oak's trunk. This attempt failed decisively and resulted in Chris falling back down and landing on shaky feet.

After pondering his situation for a few second, a seemingly obvious solution came to him. Taking the remaining corner of the tarp, he walked over to one of the adjacent trees and began to climb. With the aid of luck and some clumsy acrobatics, Chris made his way up the tree and over to the Oak by climbing across one of the branches until he could reach the one destined to support the tarp. A lucky toss put the looped rope around the branch... just as a loud cracking sound pierced the frigid air, followed swifty by another until the branch that Christopher was using for support gave way. He plummeted to the ground and into a pile of snow shoulder first and landed in the snow with a muffled thud.

[Tigurio_hatesHer]

Looking over where he'd fallen, it took a second for Heather to register what had happened. She rushed over, grabbing her pack and leaving the kindling unlit in the fire pit.

"Chris! Are you alright?" She dropped onto her knees at his side, a long trail groove leading out from her legs as she slid sideways a few feet. Opening her bag she pulled out a healing potion, afraid of the worst...

"Gods and demons, Knighton! Are you hurt?" She asked, uncorking the potion in case he'd broken anything or didn't answer quickly.

[Christoph]

"Just... my pride," Chris grumbled after a moment, his face still mostly in the snow. "And... well, maybe some bones and organs, but I'm fine." He struggled for several seconds, but didn't make much progress in crawling out of the snow.

"I don't think I broke anything. But could you give me a hand? I'm a little stuck." He squirmed a little more, but only succeeded in sinking even deeper. Next time, he thought to himself, I'll just ask for help BEFORE I try dangling from a tree and falling.

"And I've realized something," Chris added, his ironic tone returning even though he could barely feel his face. "Snow is cold." He face was too numb to laugh, though. He simply stretched out his hand, hoping that she'd grab it and yank him out of the results of his own foolishness.

[Tigurio_hatesHer]

"Oh really? I hadn't noticed. With this warm breeze, I thought it was summertime..." She stood, straddling his ankles and leaning forward to grab his hand before yanking hard up, trying to lift him.

[Christoph]

"That's what I thought too..." A grunt followed, and Chris returned to his feet with Heather's help. He cracked his neck and back painfully. "Thanks... ow... I think I'm okay. Let's get this fire going." Chris began talking stiff steps toward the pile of wood.

Snow covered him from head to toe, but he too cold to brush it off. He was beginning to wish that he hadn't come up with the crazy idea for this exhibition. On the bright side, at least the tarp was up. Besides, there was no going back now. As he walked by the Oak, he glared at it and gave it a swift kick. (Most definitely hurting his foot more than he hurt the tree)

"Stupid tree..."

[Tigurio_hatesHer]

Heather walked over to the fire, and watching Chris kick the tree, she muttered under her breath.

"Stupid man."

Reaching into a robe pocket, she produced her flint and steel once more, holding it close to the shreds of kindling as she struck the flint. Rapidly striking the rock, she knocked enough sparks into the kindling to get a small flame on one leaf of kindling, then it spread, a little pillar of fire, then as the heat spred, more kindling caught until a six-inch wide circle of fire had been created. The heat radiated out, catching the sticks over the kindling and she grinned at her success.

"Come on, frosty, get over here and thaw out!" She indicated the spot next to her. As the fire grew to consume the larger sticks, she placed one of the few larger pieces of wood they'd found on one side of the fire. Another few sticks over the fire and on top of the small log would help make the log burn a little easier.

"In a bit, this is going to be hot enough and ready for you to cook over it, so we better get some of the rations ready. Just enough for both of us to sleep without growling bellies..." She said. She didn't want to waste food by using up all their rations too early. "And perhaps you should cook up some of the fish rations we brought along... My cat needs to eat too..."

[Christoph]

Chris trudged over and plopped himself down next to the growing fire, sighing softly as it's warmth gradually soaked into him. Most of his companion's words didn't even register at first. He was cold and it was making him weary. He closed his eyes and held his hands out, as though he could suck the heat into him by sheer desire.

"Yeah... I'll dig some food out in a minute," he replied absently. Then, a shock of realization hit and his eyes snapped open. "Heather. Please tell me that you didn't bring your cat along."

[Tigurio_hatesHer]

As if to answer him, a parchment colored furball jumped out of her backpack. The cat barely sunk half an inch into the snow, despite seeming large by its fur. He looked over with his large eyes at Chris, then hopped into Heather's lap.

"Yes. I brought Paper along. He's good at sniffing out herbs and he's as good as a guard dog, if something or someone is sneaking up at night." She seemed slightly indignant that Chris would even feign to object to the cat's presence.

"That's why I had you pack an extra couple of salt fish, if you fail to recall... Wrapped in leaves I found can preserve meat for an extra week or two... so we can get to some form of civilised area before it goes bad..." She stroked the cat affectionately.

"And dust off that snow. You'll get sick!" She reached over, aiming to slap some of the snow off his shoulders.