Dream d1585-s: Lano Crests the Scrub

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the scrubland was still gold at noon, dry grass catching the light between the blue-stone outcroppings, and the caves were close enough that I could smell the mineral cold coming off them.

We had not said much since morning. The Weather Reader was reading the pressure in small ways, the way he tilts his head and watches the tops of things. The Builder walked with his hands loose at his sides. Rurik moved through the grass ten meters to our left, the black cat's path parallel and deliberate, tracking something in the scrub that none of us could see.

Then Lano stopped.

She had been trotting just ahead of me, nose working, pausing to check back as she always does. But when the wind shifted and brought the cave smell - the cold mineral dark of it, limestone and old ash and something deeper - she stopped so completely that I nearly walked into her.

Her whole body changed.

Tail up, ears up, nose straining toward the rock face ahead. A sound came out of her that was not quite a bark - a sharp short exhale, more breath than voice. Then she ran.

Not the casual trot she used for following. A flat run, her small white body low over the grass, the scrub parting around her like she already knew its gaps. She did not check back.

"Adelante," the Builder said quietly, watching her go.

The Weather Reader did not say anything. He had stopped too. We all had. There is something in watching a dog remember home that takes the speech out of you.

Rurik sat down in the grass and watched her, amber eyes tracking the white shape as it climbed the slope. He showed no surprise. He had been here before too - I have never been sure when or how many times, but the cat has never once pretended the caves were new to him.

I looked behind us, back across the scrubland toward the flat horizon. The framework glowed there, steady at distance, a pale constant against the blue sky. The same glow it had shown since we turned south. Not asking anything of us. Not pulling. Just there, the way it had always been, running on its own while we were gone.

When I looked back up the slope, Lano had crested the scrub line and vanished over it.

We moved faster without deciding to. Not a run - we are not dogs, and this place has taught us some patience at least - but closer to a run than a walk. The Builder was smiling. The Weather Reader had his hand on his instruments but was not reading them.

The cave mouth would be just over that ridge. We all knew it.

Lano already did.