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...yet you found yourself preoccupied with Andrew's questions, which hadn't ceased since you tried to explain Florian's abilities to him. You'd found him surprisingly interested, probing you with random considerations you hadn't even begun to think about, practically exhausted of hearing them by the end of the day.
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>August 11th, 1884.
A blur. You couldn't even recall a difference between it and the tenth. You'd seen more neofauna, you supposed. No new species for the first time since they'd appeared. They were oddly sparse around these parts... perhaps for the better. Andrew continued to ask about them. You'd offered him your notebook... only for him to ask you to read it for him. You did so diligently, but... surely the notes weren't <span class="mu-i">that</span> illegible, were they? You could still make them out...
Aside from that, the only stand-out event was how you'd woken up: covered in dirt up to your neck, with Steele and his guilty mole nowhere to be seen. It'd taken an entire search around camp and their snickering to find them and, once caught, the perpetrators had their dirt returned to them in dramatic fashion. You were thankful that Steele was good-humored enough to clean his suit atop Buckwheat instead of holding everyone up to do it at camp.
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>August 12th, 1884.
A day of progress. One of travel and adventure! Of roaming endless plains, following the Sacramento River, counting trees until your eyes went blurry. Reading and reading to Andrew, bouts of silence while he thought and you caught your breath, sparse questions here and there when he remembered to ask.
You did so much. You met some strangers, you made a fire, you exchanged notes, you set up camp, you slept...
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>August 13th, 1884...
...Sacramento finally seemed within reach.
You hadn't slept at a proper bed in days now.
There was a crick in your neck that hadn't gone. Bags under your eyes so heavy that you could feel them weighing down your cheeks. It was hard to keep a straight posture.
The warm wind against your face was the only thing keeping you awake. That, and the occasional movements of your companions upon your neck or chest. Florian and Taylor had been sleeping fine. They seemed more than accustomed to you by now. It was hard not to envy them whenever they grabbed your attention...
"Gentlemen, I think it's best we take a break."
The words shot through your heart like Cupid's arrows. A break? And Andrew was suggesting it...
Steele had to agree for you to believe that it was real. You had to start changing course, leaving the river, trotting into a tiny town...
You chuckled. It reminded you of Shenanigan's Gulch, if that town hadn't had any mountains. Relatively close to a large forest, small in scope, nearby a crippled railroad...
