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The travelers departed Uat’sn with somewhat less ceremony than in Benuun, which was more than fine as far as Martin was concerned. Still, despite the borderline routine nature of their time in Uat’sn, the anxiety at the back of his mind continued to nag at him. Were they doomed to lose Afzal’s trail by traveling by land? Worries of this nature plagued the man as the pair trekked up a rocky hillside, absent a trail entirely. The rugged terrain and lack of a worn path meant that, save only for the guidance of Chief Nino’opanaat, their route forward could be expected to be slow and challenging. Nevertheless, the pair pressed onward, undeterred.

One additional observation continued to perplex the vagabond. “Namo, question for you,” Martin asked, thighs straining a bit from their constant climb on the unsure-footed, damp, loamy slope. Namo literally as well as figuratively bent the ear to regard him, so he continued: “What did you think of Chief Nino’opanaat?”

“I think I’d hate to be on her bad side!” Namo said with a laugh. “It seemed like she knew a lot about us… maybe more than she told us. I’m glad she seemed to trust us in the end though, for shore. Also, is it just me, or was her Monuunkep—um, her English—real good?”

“It’s not just you,” Martin said with a grunt as he scrambled over a rocky shelf, the weight from his backpack almost causing him to lose his balance. “Her English was fluent, like it was her first language, even. Like, your English is good, Namo, but hers was flawless. Where would she have the occasion, or the need, to perfect English? There are no humans for several days’ travel in any direction. Something just doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe she lived with humans for a while?”

“Namo, didn’t you live with humans for a while? Nino’opanaat sounds as if she were raised by them.”

Namo shrugged. “She’s probably smarter than me.”

“You’re missing my point. I’m just trying to say that for someone who is unlikely to have regular contact with humans, she sure takes discussing with them in their language in stride.” Martin offered his hand to the faun to assist her in scaling the shelf he had climbed up. Through their travels together, Martin had observed that these steep slopes presented somewhat of a challenge for the Kepmuu, whose wide hooves appeared to be better suited for gentler slopes. Namo gratefully took the mans hand and used the extra support to scale the shelf. He emitted another grunt through exertion. “It’s not that weird, but it’s just… it’s just weird enough to bother me. Especially since I could see the way she looked at me: beneath every disarming smile was something else she tried to hide. Like, carefully concealed contempt.”

Namo gained her bearings after scaling the shelf, brushing her knees off and catching her breath alongside the human. “Contempt? What’s that mean?”

Martin couldn’t help but smile slyly at how Namo’s ignorance of the word contempt suited her character. “It’s like… hate toward someone or something, except calmer. Like a kettle kept at a simmer. Like you want to spit on someone but know you’ll make a fool of yourself if you do.”

“Now why would she hate you like that, Maa’ko?” The woman replied, her tone almost incredulous. “You did nothing to upset her.”

“I don’t know, Namo. That’s why it bothers me.” Having had enough of a break, the pair resumed their trek up the shelf. On their journey southward from the rocky valley, they had ascended through woodland back into montane forest. Conifers walled off their visibility in all directions and, in places, they had to detour due to dense undergrowth. However, in patches of forest where the canopy was particularly thick, the lack of penetrating sunlight meant that the dense layer of humus and leaf litter squishing beneath their feet were the worst of the obstacles they needed to encounter, as these conditions generally lacked the steep rock faces such as the one they had mounted shortly before.

“Ya think she’d do that to ya?” The botanist asked, after a period of silence.

“Do I think she’d do what to me?” Martin replied, scratching the back of his head in confusion.

“Spit on ya. Just like, because she didn’t like ya or something.”

The human couldn’t tell if she was just screwing with him at that point. “What? No, obviously not. It was just an analogy.” He shook his head. “Just…Never mind.”

It seemed too much to expect Namo to not trust the woman, but for his part, Martin couldn’t shake the nagging sense that the chief had had an ulterior motive. He merely hoped that he wouldn’t ever need to reckon with the nature of her true motives—ignorance being bliss, and all.

The pair made good progress through the day, despite having spent much of it climbing up the steep grade. Before nightfall, they had noticed the tree canopy grow shorter and more open until they ascended into an area where the trees grew no taller than chest height: they had ascended past the timberline and were approaching the treeline proper, where the climate was sufficiently cold to preclude tree cover of any kind. Numerous lines of evidence pointed to their substantial increase in elevation: Martin’s breathlessness due the thin air, the steady drop in temperature, and the gelatinous feeling in his legs all corroborated the information presented by change in plant community. To make matters worse, a driving wind had begun coursing along the ridge from the southwest, stinging the man’s face and making him express a silent prayer of gratitude for the beard which insulated his chin and cheeks. Martin considered descending in elevation for the evening, but the sun had long descended beyond the western ridge to their right and the moons, in waning gibbous, had begun providing the majority of the evening light. Martin witnessed thick clouds rolling in like celestial cavalry on the warpath, illuminated both by the fading twilight and the light of the moons they appeared to be racing toward.

Martin suppressed a shiver as he finished pitching his tent along a relatively level shelf on the mountain slope. For once, he was grateful for the thickness of the canvas liner: despite how heavy the damn thing was, it would serve as an excellent windbreak. Considering the quickening and deepening nighttime chill, he almost considered lighting a fire in the tent, consequences be damned. As it stood, the wind’s strength outstripped his trust in his fire-starting abilities, even if he borrowed Namo’s machete to hack up some shrubby trees to burn.

Speaking of Namo, the high-elevation habitat that they found themselves in presented a novel challenge. The faun had spent most nights sleeping under the stars while Martin used the tent. That was a fine enough strategy during the generally clement weather they had experienced during their travel across the predominantly arid landscape that characterized much of central Sinoe, but as the wind threatened to sap the warmth from his exposed hands he couldn’t help but be concerned that his friend’s natural fur coat along her legs and arms wouldn’t be sufficient to keep her comfortable through the night.

“Hey, uh, Namo…?” Martin started, the offer he was about to propose causing him to feel uncharacteristically bashful. “It looks like are going to have some weather tonight. I’d, uh, well, I’d hate for you to get caught out in the snow. There’s enough room in the, uh, tent for us both if you’d like to stay dry and warm.”

Namo, who had been gazing at the billowing clouds approaching them, turned to look at the tent, then at Martin. She apparently shared none of the bashfulness that Martin displayed. “Oh, for shoot! Thanks for offering. I don’t mind getting a little wet, but even I gotta admit that the wind is chilly.”

Martin felt his pulse quicken. He mentally scolded himself for the involuntary reaction, assuring himself that Namo had slept next to him in the past and it wasn’t weird then and it wasn’t weird now and that they were just doing what they needed to do to ensure they survived the night. Still, he found himself braving the cold for as long as he could to keep from being the first to enter the tent, including staring at the two moons in waning gibbous while eating the last of the canned meat he had picked up in Fordham. In his heart of hearts, he recognized the absurdity of his stubbornness, especially as he began to shiver through his parka. But the man persisted, hoping that Namo would relent first. After a while he forgot why he even wanted her to enter the tent first to begin with. Machismo? The gelidity of the air creeping into his core proved more than a suitable opponent for his ability to maintain an ultramasculine façade.

While Martin finished his dinner, Namo sang a few of her lullabies, as if she were holding a private conversation with the moons. The blustering wind served to almost drown her out, but her song wasn’t meant to be a performance in the first place; rather, it was likely just personal expression that reflected her connection to the world around her in that moment. Martin ate the salty cake of meat in silence, allowing himself to enjoy the the mezzo-soprano’s melodies. The warmth of her singing was more helpful than the meat in staving off the chill.

However, once the man finished the can of paté, he could delay acknowledging his need to seek shelter no longer. He weighed down the straps of his already bulky rucksack with a rock, doffed his road-worn boots, and climbed into the tent, where the thin bedroll he typically fastened to the top of his rucksack sprawled across the narrow canvas floor.

Martin undressed into his undershirt and long johns, afterward donning once again the wool parka and beanie he received in Uat’sn to keep his extremities warm. Pulling his thin cotton blanket over his body and rolling to his side, he listened in the darkness to Namo’s muffled voice as the wind rustled the canvas walls of the simple A-frame tent, but although the wind threatened to collapse it, he was confident that the stakes would hold in the thick soil made firm by the near-freezing temperature.

After Namo finished a particularly soft lullaby, she yawned, perhaps a side effect of her own singing. Martin could certainly agree with the sentiment: he felt sleepier from the relaxing tone of her voice. Relative stillness reigned for several seconds, with only the coursing wind audible within the tent. Then, the faun stood up and stepped over to the tent’s entrance, her hooves thumping dull against the firm soil. She climbed into the now-cramped tent and spun around in the dark after buttoning it closed, inelegantly placing one of her rock-solid hooves directly on Martin’s ankle in the process.

The man yelped in pain as her wide hooves threatened to crush his fibula. He shifted his leg on reflex, causing the faun woman to lose her balance. The startled Namo fell on top of him with a yelp of her own; the impact of their bodies knocked the wind out of both of them as Namo scrambled to find a place for her hands to push herself up from without crushing the man underneath her. With a groan, Namo apologized as she rolled over onto the empty space in the tent. “Oh my goodness,” she said with a cough. “Are you alright? I’m so sorry!”

Martin groaned and rubbed his leg as Namo rolled off of him. The pain in his ankle felt like his leg had been pulverized, but he’d live. Probably. “Yeah. I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Namo, perhaps unable to control herself, hugged Martin apologetically from her prone position. “I feel so bad! I could have crushed you.”

“My ankle might be fractured, but that’s okay. I have two legs,” Martin joked. “Maybe you could whip up some miracle salve to heal my poor, wounded leg.”

“Oh, for sure! Of course!” Namo went to stand to look through her bag, but Martin gently pulled her down by her arm.

“Namo, I was kidding. I’m fine. No broken bones. I really do appreciate your concern though.” The man had to emphasize his unharmed state by rubbing his foot against her leg to illustrate to the woman that he was, in fact, not in extreme distress.

“A-alright, but if you change your mind, I’m pretty sure I have something that can help.”

Martin lied back down, the faun woman almost touching him in the cramped confines of the tent. She sat up and shifted around more carefully than before. He figured she was changing into her night clothes as well. However, despite being in near pitch darkness, Martin could faintly see that the woman had removed her shawl and skirt without changing into anything else. For a few moments, Namo busied herself by braiding her hair, an apparently simple task for her even in the darkness. She lied down next to Martin and scooted closer, such that the pair were all but spooning.

The touch-starved man’s heart leaped in his throat as he felt the bare skin of Namo’s upper back rest against his arm. Her butt rested close enough to his stomach that he could feel the twitching of her stubby, fluffy tail against the parka covering his abdomen. If Namo knew how compromising a position she had put herself—and, by extension, him—in, she made no indication of it. However, Martin felt equal parts confused and surprised by how comfortable he felt in this position. Namo’s body heat radiated in the narrow space between the two of them, beckoning him to inch closer like the warmth of dawn sunlight. However, her effusing body heat meant that in moments—moments that felt like an eternity to the man’s racing mind—he needed to remove his parka or risk melting in the tent. He managed to do so without disturbing the woman beside him, but the space between them felt to Martin, in the moment, to be far too great.

With a gentle exhale to steel himself, he took the initiative and hoped Namo wouldn’t rebuff him. Lying on his side, he lifted his free arm around Namo’s side and placed it on the tuft of fur over her sternum, silken strands lacing among the gaps between his fingers.

“Is this okay?” Martin whispered softly into her ear.

Though turned away from him, Namo responded with a simple nod and whispered “mm-hmm”. She gasped quietly as Martin pulled her close to his chest, the cloth of his undershirt coming into contact with her naked back, and his arm draped over the tanned skin of hers. The faun woman made no move to extricate herself from his grasp. Quite the contrary, in fact: she scooted her lower body closer to the man so that they were in full contact, her butt now pressed against his long johns.

Martin stroked the impossibly soft fur that covered Namo’s chest, causing the woman to coo in contentment, but otherwise kept his touches chaste. He tried to suppress the myriad of thoughts racing through his head—kiss her neck—move your hand lower—nibble her ear—caress her stomach—that his baser desires craved, but he knew acting on such urges would spoil the moment. Still, he had a measure of concern that his pounding heart or certain other aspects of his anatomy would ruin the moment between the two of them, but Namo’s only response was to hold Martin’s hand over her chest tuft encouragingly. He could almost swear he heard—and felt—her breathing grow faster and deeper, but the change was just imperceptible enough to where he couldn’t be certain.

Martin focused on the gentle rise and fall of the woman’s chest as his fingers probed between the whorls of fuzz of her undercoat. Even as the wind whistled around the tiny tent in direct parallel to the coursing thoughts of how he viewed Namo and their changing relationship, Martin was guided to sleep by the certainty embodied by the placid regularity of her breathing.