Twenty Five

After a short dip in the creek that Teeroy described as “colder than a witch’s tit”, they found a trail that Bird had worn into the woods that headed roughly northwest. Teeroy was able to follow this by the light of the moon. By the time the moon had set they were well on their way to the summits of the western peaks.
As they inevitably ran out of hill to climb they found a trail of sorts that ran north through stunted pines and exposed granite bedrock. Fyndraxis began to dimly light the way so that Teeroy wouldn’t suffer some completely avoidable injury at the hands of a clearly malevolent universe.
Throughout this process, Teeroy had barely said a word. Fyndraxis suspected that he had never been this far into the Waste and it was making him extremely uncomfortable. The Daemon Sword kept up his radio scheme as a quiet devotion to the safety of the party, alternating between blasting high energy static and listening for any activity.
After another hour or so on the trail, Teeroy silently made the decision to descend into the Gulf. This involved some bitter negotiations with some very stubborn pine trees. These trees came up to about waist height on Teeroy. The fact that they spent half the year covered in hoar frost and the other half bracing themselves against hurricane force winds was made apparent by his slow progress. This process was punctuated by the occasional whispered profanity. He was creative in the art of cursing, and this kept Fyndraxis entertained despite their circumstances.
After that frustration had been traversed they found themselves in a slightly more reasonable quality of forest. The tight waist high pines gave way to taller less desperate trees that made their living on a portion of mountainside so close to vertical that Teeroy had to use them as one would a ladder and made this part of the journey backwards. At one point he dropped the Daemon Sword and it skittered about a hundred yards downhill. This made his going a bit easier, so he finished that part of the trip by using the simple expedient of throwing the sword downhill and making his way toward the light that it so conveniently shone for him. He of course asked Fyndraxis if this was an alright thing to do, and was answered with a, “fine by me,” from the Daemon.
Eventually they found a creek that they could follow downhill with relative ease. This terminated in a fifty foot waterfall that poured into the Gulf. As they figured out how to safely get around it, they both agreed that it added the proper punctuation to the end of their journey. At the base of this waterfall, Teeroy called it quits and began to set up camp. He wrapped Bird in the blanket that he had bore her in and went about gathering materials for a fire.
While Teeroy was out gathering wood and tinder the sun began to come up. Not that anyone in the Gulf would notice. This place was where geographical definitions came to die. There were two vertical walls of forest separated by perhaps thirty yards of land you could walk around on. A good portion of that walkable land was occupied by a creek that was really pushing the definition of the word very close to what a river tended to be. To call the place a canyon or a gorge would be wrong. Both of those terms implied exposed rock, (and there was certainly plenty of that) but this was truly two walls of forest facing each other in a bitter staring contest over a river. Calling it a ravine would be wrong as well. It was far too brutal to be a mere ravine. The people that named this place hadn’t had a word for what it was so they just made one up and called it the Gulf. Perhaps they had tried out gulch for a while, and it just didn’t work out.
Teeroy eventually turned up with some material that he thought might be combustible under miraculous circumstances. The Gulf was an environment that turned any sort of fallen wood or leaf litter into a fully saturated medium with a thin cover of slime that seemed to repel any attempts at firemaking. He spent a good half an hour fighting against this particular environmental quirk with flint and tinder to no avail. He gave up and fell quickly asleep on the forest floor next to his wooden monument to futility.
As Teeroy slept, the narrow strip of sky that the Gulf grudgingly allowed them to have had begun to brighten. This roused Bird, slowly at first. She opened her eyes, and blearily propped herself up on her elbows. She took in the scenery slowly and with a knit brow. She looked to the walls of forest and then to the brightening strip of sky. She looked at Teeroy for a while, and then at his attempt at a fire. She then looked to the Daemon Sword.
“Fyn?” she finally asked, when she decided that the mystery of her whereabouts were beyond her powers of deduction, “Where are we?”
“The Gulf,” The Daemon Blade answered, thinking that she would probably know what that means.
“Yeah, how’d I get here? Did Teeroy carry me? I feel like shit,” she asked, levering herself up to a seated position.
“Yeah, Teeroy carried you,” Fyndraxis explained, “some stuff happened at your place and we had to get out of there.”
“What kinda stuff?” She asked while stifling a yawn
“Wendigo stuff. What’s the last thing you remember?” Her last moments of consciousness were pretty tough to pin down given her condition. She took a few moments to try to recall the events of the previous afternoon.
“I don’t know,” she started piecing things together, “there was somethin’ about me gettin’ sick, and a friend in the sky. You made me jump in the creek. It’s all pretty blurry.”
“Yeah, that’s about right,” Fyndraxis said, in encouragement, “my friend in the sky sent some medicine for you, do you remember that?”
“Yeah, kind of,” she recalled, as if trying to remember a dream.
“Turns out that thing from the sky was some stuff from the old world and Teeroy and I decided to burn it,” Fyndraxis said, helping her fill in the details.
“Solid plan,” she said, reiterating the sentiment that both Teeroy and Fyndraxis had had at the time.
“Turns out that the fire attracted the Wendigo,” He tried to break the news as gently as possible, but there was really no decent way to receive this sort of information.
“Shit,” was all that she could manage. She looked like she had spent a couple of weeks closing down dive bars, but the medicine seemed to have done a decent job.
“So, my cabin?” She asked, knowing the answer already.
“I wouldn’t go back there if I were you,” Fyndraxis said aloud what they were both thinking. She sighed and seemed resigned to her fate.
“I really liked that cabin,” she said under her breath.
“I know, it was really great. Hopefully we can get you back there someday,” Fyndraxis offered as consolation, “I think that Terra and I are coming up with a kind of plan of sorts.”
“That sounds almost sorta’ promisin’,” she offered back sarcastically.
“I mean, I need to talk to her again, but we might be able to deal with the Wendigo for good,” he tried moving on to what might be considered good news.
“I’m all ears,” she said as she laid back down.
“She asked me to get a sample of them and I did,” his tone wasn’t cheerful, but cautiously optimistic could probably be applied to what he was saying, “we just need to figure out what to do next. I have a decent amount of faith in her. She saved your life in a rather spectacular fashion.”
Fyndraxis and Bird’s conversation had started to bring Teeroy back to the land of the living and he sat up, looking almost as bad as Bird did.
“Mornin’ Bird. Fyn,” he said. He looked as if he had joined Bird in her dive bar campaign, and possibly had a run in with an overly enthusiastic bouncer.
“Mornin’ Teeroy. Thanks for getting me outa there,” Bird offered back, as sunnily as she could.
“Shit, no sweat,” he ran his fingers through his hair and beard in an attempt to neaten up, “I don’t think I wanna go that deep into the waste again, though. It’s fuckin’ awful.”
“What way did we come?” Bird asked.
“Went up to that long trail,” he shot a look back up into the forest, “then found this river and followed it down.”
“Shit, that’s quite the hike,” she said, in commiseration, “but you didn’t really get into the waste propper. The trail’s the border, pretty much. Thanks again, I know how rough that country is.”
“Anytime Bird,” Teeroy deflated a bit, “I know you’d do the same for me. Anyways, how are you feeling?”
“Like leftover dog shit,” she observed.
“Can you walk?” He asked, creaking to his feet, “I need to go check on town.”
“I think I can walk,” she took his cue, and stood up as well, “but I’m not gonna go back there. I’m gonna head north”
“What? Why?” Teeroy seemed to be experiencing a flavor of disappointment that he was used to at this point.
“I got nothin’ but the clothes on my back, Teeroy,” she gestured around her, “the boys up north owe me a couple favors and it looks like I’m startin’ from scratch here.”
“I could set you up in town, no problem,” This showed a lot of signs of being an old and practiced argument that they were having.
“Thank you, Teeroy,” this was a familiar song for her, so she headed right into the refrain, “but I need to head north. I’ll come and visit you when I’m more set up, but I need to figure my shit out.”
“Yeah, figured I’d ask though,” he knew this song as well.
With that, Bird brought him in for a great bear hug. There was obviously love between these two, but they each had their journey to go on, and for now they were separate ventures. They hugged for perhaps three heartbeats longer than what would be considered appropriate for a goodbye like this. Teeroy looked around and realized that the only stuff he needed was in his pockets so he patted himself down and gave Bird a big smile.
“Whelp, I guess I’ll go. I’ll come back here tomorrow to see that you’ve moved on,” He then shot double barrel finger guns in what turned out to be a universal gesture, even in a world without firearms, “oh, and Fyn, stay sharp.”
Bird groaned and gave a reluctant smile. Fyndraxis the Daemon Blade made finger gun noises in lieu of the actual thing. Teeroy then turned and headed south back to town.