A Place To Bloom

Three Days

Our second day in the pass, the road took a sharp incline that went for miles bringing us alongside gray rock capped by a snowy peak on the left, and dropped down on the right into a deep ravine dense with trees, beneath which we could hear the roar of water.

Ales wasn't so impressed by the view but rather vomited out everything he'd eaten from the night before. He crouched low and heaved out a soup with globs of white goo in a slimy base. Faren and Geraln stayed with him while Davod and I took the road up to what looked like the height of the current section. Up ahead, the road dropped a little then leveled off, and there was a flat spot with an abandoned campsite on the left, tucked in a ravine between two massive rock faces that offered good shelter from the freezing wind.

Davod called back to the other three, "there's a good spot to rest up ahead. Come on."

With that, Faren and Geraln helped Ales to get up and the three of them slowly made their way to where Davod and I stood. I looked over the valley below us. Steep inclines of rock covered in ice and snow with battered trees in the gully gave way to an expansive view of the valley beyond, a lush garden at the base of a high mountain ridge with a shimmering creek peeking its way through the trees.

"This is beautiful," I said.

Davod smirked. "Oasis was beautiful."

I shook my head. "It's not about that."

"That's your problem; it is about that. It's always about that; it's never not about that. You let your foreign god tell you otherwise, and then you miss out on opportunities like her and Melyce. Falcon watches over you, you know, whether you believe in Him or not, and life is about experiences. If I die in this war, I don't want to fade away thinking, I shoulda made love to that girl. I only get one life; I'm going to enjoy it while I still have it."

"And how does Runya feel about you having that attitude? With other girls?"

He looked me square in the face and smiled. "She and I, we're not like you. Your religion tells you your girl has to be a virgin, yeah? Fuck that. I don't need to be her first, but by the gods if I put it down right I'll be her last. Besides, if I'm the only man she's ever fucked, she's always going to wonder, you know?"

"I see."

He glanced at the other three as they crept up to where we were and continued. "So you know, we did talk about it. I'm going to enjoy myself with other girls, and she's going to do the same. If Falcon brings us back together..."

"She's going to sleep with other girls?"

He laughed. "No, man!"

"That's what you said!"

"Whatever!" he slapped my shoulder hard as the other three caught up to where we were.

That evening, as the western horizon turned pink and the shadows of impending dusk approached, the road led us through a narrow passage between a rock cliff on the left and a massive ice shelf on the right. We set up our tents in a corner between giant blocks of ice with the wind above us whistling through the cracks.

We had ten fuel pods for all of five nights which, for the blessing of dry wood the previous evening, we now had ten for four nights; that gave us two extra. Ales wanted to use them.

Davod refused.

"It's fucking cold, man!"

I told him myself, "it'll get worse. It's best to save them..."

Faren shivered. "I've never been so cold."

Geraln tried to offer a compromise. "Why don't we use three tonight, then tomorrow we look for a spot with some better shelter?"