Aedmorn and Ivkarha hunkered down behind the boulders, curled up with their hands tight over their heads. The boulders leaned up against each other, forming a shelter alcove and it was in this spot that the pair hunkered down. The roar around them was immense and they could fell snows swirling about them, over them, cold and stinging.

It seemed but a moment, it seemed a hundred years to endure, until the noise receded away and silence resumed. There was whiteness around them, resting upon them, though the boulders they were hiding within had formed a little cave around them, enough to stretch out a little. There was still light, filtering through the snow above, an indication that it wasn’t so thick as to block it.

Ivkarha gave Aedmorn a grin and started to work on the snow above, to shovel it aside, clearing a path out. With a bit of effort she broke through to the surface, and fresh light seeped through the hole she had made. After widening it, she began to wriggle out, onto the fresh layer of snow around them, one that shrouded any vision of the land.

While she stood, looking around, Aedmorn joined her, emerging from the hole.

“Far too close,” he noted, dusting himself off. “Strange that it would trigger so abruptly when there was nothing to disturb it.”

Ivkarha nodded slowly. “I think this place likes us not. You can feel it.”

“Aye, there is a feel of that,” Aedmorn agreed. “It seeks to protect its secrets.” He could feel it, a feeling right on the edge of his senses, among the stillness and silence, of a presence; that was the best that he could describe it as. It did not feel alive, not in the way that he was used to, for while there was life in the valley that he could feel, this was not part of it. It was separate, alone and yet not awake.

Ivkarha stamped a foot down on the new layer of snow that had tumbled down the slopes. “It is well that there was not a lot further up that could come down,” she observed. “Barely enough to cover us. Any more an it may have been the worse for us.”

“Small mercies indeed,” Aedmorn noted wryly. “We shall have to proceed with caution.”

Ivkarha looked aside to him, raising a brow. “Now you are interested?”

“If the place is trying to hide something, I wish to know what it is.”

She grinned, eyes shining with mirth. “Onwards,” said she and set out across the snow.

Rather than the clouds thinning the lower they descended into the valley, as Aedmorn expected they would, they instead grew thicker yet, until they could barely see more than a few steps ahead of them, slowing them down. There were no landmarks to navigate by and no way to be certain that they were headed in the right direction, beyond downwards. The snows on the ground did fade away, being replaced by patched of earth and stone, and then began the first sight of foliage, of mosses and lichens and small, thin leaved shrubs and bushes. The greenery stood out stark against the greys and whites they had been travelling through, a welcome change of colour.

Stolen story; please report.

Trickles of water began to seep down around them, and with it came the first noises they had heard in the valley, a soft gurgle of running water. The trickles built up in strength the further that they went, running into each other, to form gradually larger flows, feeding into small pools of water.

They came upon a small stream that cut a runnel through the landscape, with greenery growing up around it. By now the bare ground had disappeared, and all was growth around, button grass and cushions of moss and alpine shrubs.

With the clouds still thick around them and no direction prominent, they started to follow the stream, to see where it led. Across the alpine meadow they tramped, while insects started to hover about, remaining close to the waters.

They paused at the running water, to drink from it; it was very cold but fresh. As well, they took the chance to top up their water bottles, before continuing on.

The stream wound it sway across the land until before them loomed dark shadows in the mists, tall and straight. A small copses of trees emerged before them, the stream running by it. At the trees they came to a halt, as it was a place of shelter in an otherwise hidden landscape. They disappeared in amongst the trees, a type of tall pine with thin needle leaves of a kind that Aedmorn had not seen before.

It was darker in among the trees, but sheltered, with a thick bed of fallen leaves beneath the trees. Setting aside their gear, they began to clear a patch of the ground, sweeping aside the leaves until they had come to bare soil. They dug out a small pit in it and lined it with stones that were laying around under the trees, before preparing a fire in it. Needles and twigs were laid in it, while a store of larger fallen branches were collected and set aside.

Ivkarha took flint and steel and struck them, raining sparks onto the fire they prepared. It took a number of strikes before a few tendrils of smoke began to rise. Ivkarha blew on it until flames began to take, growing in strength. Fresh twigs were added and then a few branches, until a merry little fire was underway. It brightened the interior of the small cluster of trees, and even the mists seem to retreat from it.

“I will see what I can do about locating some fresh food,” Aedmorn announced.

“Rabbit would be good,” Ivkarha told him, “But I’d settle for anything fresh.”

“I haven’t seen sign of any yet,” Aedmorn replied, heading off into the mists. The glow of the fire acted as a beacon in the gloom, pinpointing the locale of their camp for some distance, yet even without it he could find his way back. He could feel the pulse of life about him, from the trees and plants and insects, but Ivkarha stood out. He had been with her long enough to become attuned to her distinctive energy, enabling him to locate her as long as she was not too far off. Hers was different, for her ties to Az-Ashar, the desert god of death were strong and gave her a darker shade of life.

Reaching the edge of the trees, he began to rummage around in the thick growth of the alpine plants, plucking a bit here and digging there. There were a number of herbs about as well as a number of edible tubers and the bulbs of a type of alpine onion. Collecting them up, he returned to the fire and Ivkarha.

She had a small pot over the fire, and in it was a cake of dried soup and water, reducing down.

“Got something to add to it,” he told her, displaying his finds.

“Toss them in.”

Cleaning them up and chopping them into pieces, Aedmorn added them to the soup, then sat back and waited as it cooked up.

It was growing darker as evening came on, with the fire the only source of light to be had; shadows closed in around them and flickered as the flames danced.

After partaking in the soup, they settled down for the night, wrapping their cloaks around themselves and resting on a bed of leaves and soon drifted off to sleep.