"First things first though, come on," said Alexa, walking back over to the car. Opening the back, she gave Sarah the tent before grabbing their tarp. She led the way back into the meadow, following the edge of the trees until they reached a little brook gurgling its way through the mountains. On a modest rise just above the water, they found a little fire pit that made Alexa start to grumble.

"Whoever was here last buried the fire instead of putting it out," answered Alexa after Sarah made a little questioning sound. "Look, you can see they just dumped dirt on top of the ashes, and there's some big chunks of wood under there. They're lucky they didn't burn down the whole mountainside, and it's not like there isn't plenty of water to drown it."

"Ok, I"ll remember that. Um, What should I do with this?" she said, hefting the heavy tent.

"Just dump it out on the grass right here, we'll do the tarp first," said Alexa.

Setting up camp went quickly, none of it seemed particularly complicated to Sarah, though she did learn a few little details that she supposed could wreck someone's day. Like rolling the tarp under itself, so water wouldn't pool if it rained, or how a knot tied just so would tighten itself but a knot tied the other way 'round would loosen itself. They pitched the tent, and Alexa insisted on putting up the matching rain cover, even though the forecast said it would be clear. Sarah appreciated that they'd have shelter if an unexpected rainstorm blew in. That wasn't unheard of, after all.

Gathering firewood was a more difficult task. Alexa insisted that they had to find deadwood, and deadwood only. So they had to range out under the trees and look for fallen branches that they could actually carry. They had to be as big as possible, but still small enough for the girls to break into pieces small enough to fit in the fire pit. Alexa had a little saw and a hatchet, but cutting anything more than maybe the thickness of Sarah's wrist was exhausting. Ideally, they found branches they could prop up against a rock and kick into smaller pieces.

Looking for wood did give Sarah the opportunity to explore a bit and look around on her own. She'd never been in the mountains before, at least, not on foot in the woods. She'd driven through with her mom, but this was different. It wasn't like how she imagined things from her books, where the woods were just a wide park with tree trunk pillars holding up a green ceiling of leaves and branches. It wasn't a solid wall of underbrush either. She had to pick her way around bushes, rocks, and roots, and she had to duck under branches, but for the most part, the way was clear enough.

Sarah paused for a moment, to take a break. The mists shone brightly here, emphasizing everything she could see and hear. It didn't really illuminate things the way real light did, but Sarah felt like she saw and heard everything. Other than a spider up above in a branch and a line of ants working on a dead snake, most living things were hiding from her line of sight, but she could still hear them. Birds were calling as the afternoon turned to evening, and she could hear little scuttling and crunching noises from the trees that she guessed were squirrels. The deer had moved off, probably frightened by the noise she and Alexa were making as they had driven stakes into the soil and cracked branches into smaller pieces.

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Sarah couldn't hear Alexa doing anything at the moment; it was too far away to hear her breathing. She was probably taking a brief rest, it had sounded like she'd been tugging on something extra tangled. Some of the dead branches had stuff growing through them or were caught on living branches, and took a lot of effort to pull out.

The ever-present white mist that settled so thick here in the mountains shifted, and Sarah could almost feel part of it drain away as the white light snapped into a vivid purple hue. She gasped and looked toward where she'd last heard Alexa. Loud cracking and popping noises had started coming from the area, and Sarah found herself running to find the other girl.

She ran as quickly as she could through the undergrowth, hopping over tangles of roots and darting around trees. Within a few minutes, she found Alexa standing over a pile of wood chips, pieces broken too small to be useful for more than kindling. Smiling brightly, Alexa's whole body glowed green, though her arms and legs seemed faded.

"What happened?" gasped Sarah as she fought for breath.

"Well, I kinda got a bit frustrated," grinned Alexa. "It just wasn't coming loose, and then I remembered how easily I had jumped so high before, so I thought to myself, why not?"

"And?" asked Sarah, still catching her breath.

"It all just broke!" burst out Alexa. "Watch this!"

As Sarah watched, the green in Alexa's body flowed into her arms and hands, making her fingers glow brightly as the light in the rest of her body faded, leaving just some green flows along her shoulders and back. Alexa looked around, looking for something specific, then reached for a dead stump jutting out of the ground. It had broken off maybe three feet from the ground and was perhaps as big around as Sarah's thigh. The wood was grey with age, but it also didn't have that porous look that Sarah was already associating with the really light broken stuff that rotted into powder as soon as she put some pressure on it.

Alexa grabbed the wood with both hands and lifted it from the dirt with a loud crack. Alexa could see the cleaner wood where it had broken off at the roots. Then, with twisting motions and no apparent effort, Alexa proceeded to basically grind up the wood. She'd squeeze and twist and the branch would almost burst, splintering into little chunks. Alexa got almost all the way through it before her hands faded, losing the light they'd held. As the light faded, the task clearly got harder. Alexa slowed down and began supplementing the force with her own efforts, sweating and grunting until she couldn't break the wood into any smaller pieces.

Adding the last bits to the pile of chips, Alexa stood there, grinning triumphantly.

Sarah couldn’t help herself, and said, "Good job. Now come gather more wood. You said we needed a lot more for the fire, and you said we already have plenty of kindling."