>Nod and gather up our stuff. "Best get to making good on that, then."
>Kagerou nods. "Right."
>You gather up your things and set off to the north, following the bend of the glen until the steep western wall of it gives way to a gentle grassy slope. The terrain beyond is pleasantly navigable for an hour or two - more meadow than forest, dotted with patches of scrub and only a few large trees - and you set a good pace. The lethargy you felt upon waking recedes a little, though never entirely; there remains an ambient level of weariness that doesn't
quite feel like fatigue, and is just present enough to play on your mind whenever you give it half a chance. You try your best not to.
>Sadly, the ease of your day's beginning is more than offset by the terrain a few miles onward - tangled stands of stumpy trees clumped altogether too densely between uneven spurs of rock, with little open ground besides the large field of nettles you were reluctantly forced to circumnavigate. Kagerou's sense of direction becomes less and less certain as you progress, and you are forced to rely more heavily on your map and spur-of-the-moment terrain judgements; there are false starts, short bouts of climbing, and the pace slows dramatically. The map gives you hope that things will get a little easier in another couple miles, but that doesn't make this leg any less onerous.
>By the time you pause for lunch, you have covered less ground than expected and are all the crankier for it. Kagerou is busy picking out stray bits of thorny scrub that got tangled in her dress somewhere along the way.
