A Place To Bloom

Three Days

Ales crouched on all fours and heaved out a soup with globs of white goo in a slimy base.

The road had followed a steep incline for miles bringing us alongside gray rock capped by a snowy peak on the left, and a deep ravine dense with trees on the right. Freezing wind nipped my ears, and above the sound of rushing water somewhere in the distance, Ales clutched his stomach and heaved.

Faren crossed his arms over his own stomach and closed his eyes, and Geraln bent over grasping at his knees.

Up ahead, the road dropped a little then leveled off, and there was a flat spot with an abandoned campsite on the left, tucked between two massive rock faces that offered good shelter. Davod called back to the other three. "There's a good spot to rest up ahead."

While the other three fought to drag themselves to where we stood, Davod and I looked over rock cliffs covered in ice and snow with battered trees in the gully. Beyond that, the valley was a lush garden at the base of a high mountain ridge with a shimmering creek peeking through the trees.

"This is beautiful," I said.

A light breeze toyed with a lock of hair from below Davod's shoulders, and he 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. "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. "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?"

"No, man!"

"That's what you said!"

"Whatever!" He slapped my shoulder, and we both had a good laugh.

That evening, as the western horizon turned pink and shadows of 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 whistling through the cracks.

We'd started with ten fuel pods for all of five nights. 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 beneath a woolen blanket. "I've never been so cold."

Geraln offered his thoughts. "Why don't we use three tonight, then tomorrow we look for better shelter?"

"No," Davod commanded. "We've still got a couple thousand more feet to climb up; it'll only get colder. We save the extras."

"But..." Ales shivered.