h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Day 4

The horses are restless. It is still dark, so Pato takes a branch from what remains of the fire to investigate. He thinks he sees two yellow eyes light up and vanish a bit further up. Probably a lynx or a wildcat… At least the horses are still OK. He tries to calm them down, pondering the departure ritual of the previous day.

Everyone not currently working on the mound had turned up, even some of those who were working on the mound took the effort of coming. Every family added more to the stack of gifts for the transfer rituals: Delicate pieces of fabric, an ornate bronze dagger, a traditional piece of headdress. Pato did feel a bit sorry for the horses. In hindsight, he now feels a bit more sorry for himself as well.
Saying goodbye to his aunt had taken some time, since she was going to fill in for him on Clan matters within the village, like her husband is doing at the mound construction site. Pato hopes this doesn’t put too much strain on their relationship. After that, everyone went back to business as usual, except for some of the kids, who ran with him and Bora until they couldn’t keep up anymore. Someday he will have to have kids of his own. Probably sooner than later, the way things are going.

Looking up from his reverie, Pato notices the mountain tops are catching their first light, so he wakes Bora. There is still a long way to go.

This day will take them into the river gorge, where the going will be much harder than yesterday. The grassland has made way for bracken and forest that gets denser quickly. Due to the winding nature of the river, they have to ford and change riverbanks time and again, leading the horses by hand, to avoid injuries.

Bora uses the time with her brother to quiz him on his vocabulary, which he will have to manage by himself sooner than later. She had hoped for a somewhat steeper learning curve, but it’ll have to do. It reminds her of the time with their late mother who spent ages teaching her as well. Anyway, she won’t be there to see Pato screw up if it didn’t work out for him. For her it is more like a matter of pride now.

Following the old stone markers in places where the river splits, they reach a broader area where they can camp. The markers have been placed there by their ancestors over the ages, to ease the passage. Along the way, Pato has added some new rocks on top of the piles that have been damaged in previous winters, in some places clearing away bits of overgrowing plants. . If all goes well, they still need two days to get out of this gorge again. That is when the really hard part is going to begin.

This gets more and more intriguing.

What I found most interesting is the relationships within the clan: Pato and his sister, his aunt and her husband. There is obviously a lot of tradition and convention- things you must do and others you must not.