RoM : Sled up Tartok

“Come on, she’s not even that unruly, she won’t cause any trouble in the competition…”

“I have said no. Look at her, she cannot even stay still as we speak. She’s not ready.”

After saying that in a cutting tone, the man closed the folder and abandoned the window. Hesley huffed frustratedly and turned around to leave the office. Brahma went after him, her tail proudly up.

“You could at least pretend to be sorry, you know?” Hesley commented scathingly. He left the building and walked through the courtyard of the Tokotna Research Center, until he found a stone bench and sat, contemplating the place.

Brahma was right after him, but at some point she abandoned the track and was now sniffing the garden beds, shoving her head between the plants with no regard for their fragility. Halsey saw no point in reprimanding her.

“Tough day?” a friendly voice asked at his left. A girl of silver hair smiled at him and sat by his side on the bench.

“You wouldn’t imagine.” Hesley replied, scratching his hair awkwardly. “It is my fourth rejection. I mean, our fourth rejection. Brahnna does not seem to want to do the Rites.”

“Oh, I totally get you” the girl let out an understanding little laugh, “It’s been the same for Goodnight” and she motioned with her head to their side.

Hesley looked in that direction and was surprised to see a large brick-colored dire, laying under the shade of a small pine. Its breath was so quiet he hadn’t even noticed it at the first moment.

“Are you kidding?” Hesley turned to the girl, incredulous. “She doesn’t seem like a problematic tokota.”

“She’s not, actually.”

They both watched as Brahnna, bored of inspecting around the bushes, came up to sniff the dire’s nose without further ado. She retreated her head, surprised, but allowed her to finish the presentation, wagging softly the short tufts she had for a tail to show her good intentions.

“She’s the shy type”, the girl explained. “I’m Ryneia, by the way.”

“Hesley”, the boy introduced himself.

“I tried to sign Goodnight in some competence, but they don’t want to enroll her. They say she ‘Looks too quiet and inactive for this kind of trials in the wild’” Ryneia imitated comically the severe voice of the secretary.

Hesley laughed. Knowing that made him feel a bit better about Brahnna’s turndown; maybe the secretary was too fussy.

“It was the opposite for me” he pointed to his undisciplined tokota, who had decided she liked Goodnight and was now bowing and barking softly at her, trying to get her to play chase. “They rejected her for being too disobedient to take part on the other Rites where we asked.”

The boy covered his face with one hand, massaging his forehead, as Ryneia laughed again. Goodnight didn’t look like she wanted to chase Brahnna, but she kept eyeing her with awkward caution, not knowing how to react to her effusivity. The dark-maned tokota finally got bored, or distracted, and abandoned the uninterested dire to further investigate the courtyard.

“I think she may never make it” Hesley commented to the air, feeling hopeless.

“Don’t say that!” Ryneia jumped immediately to cheer him up. “I bet you get a mission before us.”

“Really?” Hesley raised an eyebrow skeptically, watching as Goodnight came to sit down politely near her handler; in contrast, Brahnna had chosen to lay down on the dry grass and scrub her loin, kicking her paws in the air. “I bet the contrary.”

“It’s a bet, then” Ryneia extended a hand, with a parodically serious expression that her playful eyes betrayed. Hesley could not help but smile again and accepted the deal, shaking the girl’s hand.

A chill breeze started blowing at that moment. The young handlers looked up at the sky, which was starting to dye purple. Night would fall soon.

“Let’s go to the hall”, Ryneia suggested, “we may be lucky and find a task with the workers before going back home.”

With a nod, Hesley stood up and followed her back to the building.

The main hall of the Tokotna Research Center resembled an airport a little, because it had large screens where signs of changing colors indicated addresses and tasks to the workers and visitors alike. Hesley had spent a good while looking at them before, but Brahnna hardly fitted the profile of a professional tokota to get any important jobs. The place had doors and exits to at least seven corridors, not to mention the stairs and elevators leading to higher levels. The gable roof provided a nice view of the sky and lots of natural light, although at this time all the lights were on inside. The place had grown so much since its establishment, because it functioned as a gathering point and mandatory stop for all the outposts around the Tartoks. All the investigators, and anyone who worked with the TRC, made themselves present in the hall sooner or later for paperwork and meetings.

Thus, naturally, the place was always pretty crowded by humans, tokotas and other species alike. Travelers and workers ran up and down from office to office, trying to finish their tasks, and the hubbub of so many different conversations was chaotic and melodic at the same time. Brahnna sniffed curiously at the most exotic characters, while Goodnight opted for sitting in the waiting area.

“Hesley, look, tomorrow morning a group of climbers will go out to complete their Rite…” Ryneia pointed to a screen located on an information area many meters away, but soon she squinted her eyes and put her arm down “Oh, no, the quota is full.”

Hesley turned to see the window of the courier commissions, at some distance to their right, but the sign indicated it was closed and the employee behind was taking a break to drink a large coffee.

“I don’t think there’s anything left by this time, Ryneia” he said, discouraged. All the jobs should have been scheduled for daytime, since the winter was just ending and it was still dangerous to adventure on the cold and dark Tartok territory at night.

The girl also huffed, and both went back to sit with Goodnight, near the dispatching office.

Moments later, one of the access doors of the hall opened wide thunderously and a man, dressed like a traveler and accompanied by a beige and white toki, strode to the window and knocked despite the Closed sign, exclaiming:

“The Outpost 8 requests supplies immediately! We have run out of rations and half of the radars are down.”

“You will have to wait until tomorrow” the secretary was not perturbed. “The dispatches have already closed”.

“No, there’s no waiting” the newcomer insisted laconically. “We do not have any more supplies, not even food. We ran out of everything.”

The toki by his side barked as if to back up his words. The secretary blinked boringly.

“Why do you not have supplies? You should have requested them weeks before this point.”

“We did”, the man grunted, starting to lose his temper “two weeks ago, as the protocol states. They were never sent. My team cannot keep hunting and buying their own food from natives.”

The secretary rolled his eyes and gazed upon his computer, like it was going to give him any answers.

“Look, the office is already closed, but even if it wasn’t, no courier would want to go out to deliver supplies at this hour, not with the mountain still snowy.”

At that point, Ryneia and Hesley turned to stare at each other with wide eyes.

“You take it” Ryneia whispered breathlessly.

“No, you take it!” Hesley retorted before she had finished the sentence.

After another moment of staring fixedly, both of them stood up from the bench and ran to the window, pointing to each other.

“She can do it.”

“He can do it.”

“I need two tokotas for the sled” the man ditched the incoming argument before it was even started, and turned to the employee with a quarrelsome expression. The secretary sighed audibly.

“Alright, I’ll open a dispatch” he agreed reluctantly, as if he was annoyed to keep working. He spoke to the young handlers without looking at them: “Make yourselves present in the courier's warehouse, to get the sled and tokotas ready.”

Ryneia and Hesley could not contain their hype when they turned around and hurried to call their tokotas to complete the mission.

“Suddenly I’m not very sure of this”, Hesley began to have his doubts when the warehouse door opened towards a muddy road and the twilight panorama by the feet of the Tartoks, and he saw himself leading Brahnna, with Goodnight and Ryneia behind. Of course, Brahnna had to be placed front, because she was too restless and small to follow Goodnight successfully.

“Don’t be like that, kid!” The man, that had just returned to them, walked around the tokotas, making sure their harnesses were firm. “It’s not a long way. We must deliver the food before my team decides to riot”, he joked.

Brahnna stepped tentatively out of the warehouse, followed by Goodnight, and the little vitiligo toki ran to take position ahead, barking friendly. Pulling the sled through mud was as heavy as imprecise.

“When we reach the snow it will be better”, the man commented. “I’m Parther, and this guy here is King” he leaned down to pet him. “He’s an expert explorer, and he’ll guide us safely in the dark. Brahnna just needs to follow him.”

King shook proudly and pranced ahead.

Brahnna huffed, bothered. Pulling a sled was not being funny at all. Goodnight facilitated the work for her by starting to pull and easing the weight.

The exterior air was cold, but as soon as they left the enclosure of the Research Center buildings, the mountain wind hit them implacably, smelling like water. The sled moved forward, Brahnna’s silhouette contrasting with Goodnight’s, and both with the tiny King. Hesley and Ryneia walked next to their tokotas, and Parther maneuvered the sled.

Per the couriers office estimations, the trip to the eighth outpost took about an hour under normal conditions… but the sled was full to the brim and they were just improvised couriers. Hesley went through his humble provisions (croissants he had picked up on the TRC cafeteria) and shared one with Ryneia. She accepted and ate it without taking her palm off Goodnight’s shoulder, who walked with her head low, as if she was worried.

“The road is regular, only the last section will require us to climb the slope” Parther explained from the sled, gesticulating a curve from south to west. Their route circled the Center and elevated gradually to the south, ascending the Tartoks step by step.

Luckily, despite going up the slope, the elevation was so subtle that even the newbie-puller tokotas could handle it. When snow began covering the ground, the sled threatened to bog down, but Brahnna’s wild will and Goodnight’s endurance managed to save it. King awaited them, turning around himself enthusiastically, and fulfilled his role by barking at them when they got too close to the cliff.

Hesley did not mistrust Brahnna at all, much less the calm dire and her handler, but he was worried about the darkness that was starting to take over the landscape like a dew that fell over every surface. Suddenly it was really hard to see the bumps on the snow. He turned on the flashlight they had given him in the warehouse, lighting the way ahead, and Ryneia imitated him soon after.

“This is taking more than I would like it to”, Ryneia admitted at his back. They moved at a fast-walking speed; both for allowing the handlers to follow the sled by feet,and also because the sled started to wobble alarmingly if they tried to go faster than that. It seemed like Goodnight was having trouble to follow the directions of the dark brown leader, nor was Brahnna used to safely guide anyone.

Hesley checked his watch; it had been half an hour since they left the Center. Hypothetically, they should be halfway to the outpost, and they should hurry if they did not want to be in danger of the still wintry cold of the night. To their right, the slope of boulders rose up higher, occasionally interrupted by crags and battered pines. The views to the left were wider, because they could see the landscape down the mountain until the far away texture of the Illuq forest, but even that was beggining to dissapear as the fog crept up the ladder.

Out of a sudden King growled and barked. He came back from the front of the way, and ran ahead again, looking vexed.

“What’s the matter, Kings?” Hesley went forward in the dark with him and disappeared behind an abrupt ledge. Seconds later, a very worried “Oh, no” was heard.

Ryneia and Parther exchanged a look and went after him to investigate.

Some dozens of meters ahead, the snow had collapsed from the cliff, and instead of the regular line of the road there was now a pile higher than Goodnight. Parther let out an imprecation on his natal tongue and put a hand on his hip, evaluating the situation.

“Should we disengage a toko from the sled to help us get rid of it?” Hesley asked, but Parther shook his head.

“It’s risky. The other one may not be able to stand the weight by herself; we are in a hill after all.”

Kingsley grunted again, barked, and ran away quickly down the road.

“I guess we’re going the old-fashioned way, then” Ryneia took the lead; she went back to get the sled, guided Brahnna and Goodnight with them, and picked up a small shovel from the tools box. With a resigned face, Parther and Hesley started to push and loose up the snow with stakes.

However, they could not busy themselves too much before a bark sounded up the ledge. The five of them looked and found King, who showed his mottled face panting happily.

“King!” Hesley exclaimed in surprise, and the toki barked again, scratched the ledge with his black paws and shook his head.

“I think he wants us to move” Ryneia understood everything faster, taking Hesley by the arm and pulling him away from the snow pile.

They grouped by the sled, as they observed the figure of the gracious toki over the ledge started to dig up the snow with exemplary energy. After one minute, only his tail was visible to the couriers; and then the snow pile suffered a movement. Ryneia held Hesley as the blockade began to fall by bits, until almost all the snow sled downhill.

“Well done, Kingsley!” Ryneia congratulated him enthusiastically, as King retreated carefully from the ledge. His excited barks sounded like he was climbing down the crag taking a detour.

“Let’s keep moving!” Parther jumped in the sled again, and the team continued the trip with renewed energy.

Brahnna’s gait lost its irregularity step by step and turned into a neat line, that Goodnight could follow without trouble; the second half of the journey accelerated a bit, though Hesley was forced to trot in the vanguard to light up the road. It was a relief for the young handlers when at long last they spotted some lights up in the distance, among the fog.

“Okay, this is the hard part” Parther’s voice sounded over the wind. “We will turn and go up in a straight line. It is important not to stop, or we could lose strength and fall. Hesley, Ryneia, you may want to take these stakes just in case…” the man tossed some poles in the air; the handlers barely had time to react and catch them. “If the sled falls, you must stop it.”

Hesley eyed Ryneia in sheer fright; she smiled nervously to try and calm him down.

“Let’s go, up!” the traveler exclaimed with no more preambles.

Brahnna jumped out of the road and three meters over the snow before she was forced to sink her legs firmly and moving at turtle pace; Goodnight pulled the sled before them, following her. King placed himself in the front of the comitive, breaking through the snow that reached his chin, to make it easier for his teammates. Ryneia and Hesley ran to the sled and took the lateral straps to help, while Parther kept the course stable and strongly pushed the cargo. The group did not take long to agitate; the warm breath of the bigger toko formed tiny clouds that the wind carried south. Some stars blinked dimly in the cloudy sky.

“You’re doing great, Goody”, Ryneia encouraged her dire, who wagged her short tail for the words of her handler.

Hesley wondered if he should encourage Brahnna too, but he found out the stubborn tokota was too focused on following the swift pace of the toki, and he would most likely distract her. He made a mental note of buying her favorite food later, though.

“We are close!” Parther encouraged them all.

The last couples of meters were the hardest. Brahnna advanced with paused steps, making sure to firmly grip one paw before moving the next, and Goodnight breathed so heavily it was audible even in the wind. Hesley and Ryneia felt an unknown type of relief when King barked happily from a small hill in the snow and behind it they found a short muddy road, with almost no slope, that led to the outpost doors.

The handlers ran to help Parther to push the sled from behind, and even King went back and tried to push it with his front paws. Brahnna kicked angrily and managed to surpass the mound; Goodnight swung her head nervously, but followed the smaller tokota and pulled the sled totally up.

“One last push!” Parther shouted to the company, and everyone grunted for the effort. With the sound of snow crunching and objects shaking inside the wooden boxes, the sled finally overcame the hill.

“Well done!” Hesley hopped to his friend, and both high-fived in the air.

“Good, good” Parther grumbled, pushing the sled by his own. “Unload the boxes before celebrating. Hurry up so that we can have dinner!”

Brahnna was no longer interested in helping with the sled; she scratched the harness straps petulantly, making it clear that she was very uncomfortable. Goodnight, on the other hand, let out a small woof of celebration, that King echoed very enthusiastically with pitchy barks.