Back To Krypton

Chapter 12

The sound of soft raindrops against the canvas of their tents wakes them up gently, the staccato soothing to their ears even as they realise that it means they will have to walk in the rain today.

Lena is the first to wake and rather than waking her blonde counterpart, she pulls out one of the books and starts reading, letting herself fall into the pages and become blissfully unaware of the world around her.

One hand flips the pages as the other absentmindedly combs through Kara's hair as her head rests just to her right. The light scratching against her scalp brings her slowly from the land of dreams and into reality.

Lena is only nudged back to reality when Kara's warmth leaves her side as she rolls away from her and onto her back so she can sit up. "Oh, hi."

"Hey, how long have you been awake?" Kara's voice is still clouded from sleep, making it sound raspy.

"Not too long, I just took the opportunity to get started on these books whilst everyone was still asleep. It looks like we'll have a long, soggy day ahead of us." Lena flits her eyes up to the roof of the tent to show that she is referencing the rain.

Kara listens to the pitter-patter for a second before responding. "Yeah, that won't be fun. It's a good job our packs are waterproof, you won't be able to read if your pages get soggy."

"You can say that again."

They hear voices from the Olsen-Danvers tent and determine that it is time to get up and get this day over with, the rain isn't too heavy right now, but it could get worse and no matter what it is like right now, after hours of walking they will definitely be soaked through to the bone, no doubt about it.

They stick their heads out of their tents so they can all speak to each other whilst keeping themselves mostly dry.

"Hey! We'll have to walk for a little bit, so we have somewhere with more coverage. A fire won't light here because of the rain, and I like my food to be cooked ." Kelly lets them all know the plan.

Kara groans, she hates doing anything before breakfast, let alone physical exercise. She knew that there would be challenges in this mission, but this isn't one she signed up for.

"I'm not going to make it."

"Doing be such a baby, come on." Lena offers her no sympathy as she climbs out of the tent and meets up with the others.

Kara purposely takes longer than she has to so she can put off going out into the rain, wrapping up both of their sleeping bags and mattresses then packing up everything else. Lena is just coming back to drag her out by her hair if she has to when she pops out and begins to disassemble the tent.

"We're all packed up."

"Thank you, darling."

It turns out that the rest of the team is even less inclined to hurry, and Kara, Lena and Esme find themselves fully packed up under the canopy of a small tree, watching the rest of the team packing up their own tents.

The only thing that motivates the others to move faster is Kara's incessant whining about needing them to be quicker so they can find somewhere to make breakfast. They haven't missed a breakfast yet and she isn't planning on today being the first.

Their clothes are soaked through within the first hour of their trek and unfortunately for them, there hasn't been anywhere with suitable cover around so far. The ground is rich with wet mud that crumbles beneath their feet and makes their journey unstable.

They are heading down bank towards the ever nearing canopy of lower-set trees but when their feet begin to slide they have to slow their pace, trying as hard as they can to stay upright.