Astrona: "I got it, no sweat!" She says, sweating her tail off.
- Blue and Astrona arrived at night to her modest camp. The wetlands had different sounds at night, filled with insects calling to one another and strange lights floating between the thick foliage. Blue was too tired to care much about anything at this point, exhausted by the hard work it took to get here. Astrona didn't seem to realize that swimming was an exhausting activity-- even though she found him a low point to wade through. There is a reason why most don't learn how to swim.
Astrona did take note that a bridge was probably necessary. Especially if she wanted traders to come to the area. It was a formidable river along most of the way anywhere close to her camp-- taking Blue to calmer waters added another half day to their travel time.
Thankfully the heat of the day caused Blue's coat to dry out quickly. His large mane didn't get very wet, either, as that would be a terrible way to go. Blue has no doubt that if he were to submerge it, it would drown him after a fruitless struggle. Blue wasn't even looking around much as night took over the sunset and Astrona's camp was still not yet in front of them. He let the tigress lead the way as he slowly fell further and further behind.
Astrona had already lit up a few torches when he made it in the camp. She gestured towards a den entrance, which Blue was more than happy to accept the invitation. The bedding in there was old and dried out and smelled a bit like Astrona. On any other day, Blue would have put up a bigger fuss of receiving such comfort over someone else but hell, his back and legs were killing him after so many days of sequential travel.
He fell asleep quickly, even before Astrona had gotten settled herself. Blue had no idea where she slept that night, for the tigress was busy at work long before he woke up with the late morning sun. Like the past mornings of this trip, Blue woke up sore and surly. Astrona had laid out some fish for him again. Blue was becoming quite partial to it, actually, which surprised even himself.
Speaking of the Guardian, Blue didn't see her around camp. There wasn't much to camp. Astrona's den, which he slept in, a half-dug pit that was likely going to be for storage, a thickly woven leaf roof keeping some supplies dry, and some cleared out spaces around camp that didn't have an obvious purpose yet.
Much to his surprise, Astrona came out of the depths of the forest carrying more food and some supplies. Today, she was determined to build Blue a den. To Blue's surprise, some of the trees in camp were not trees at all. Maybe they once were, but some force of nature had turned them into stone. It was a pair of these that Astrona chose for Blue's den. She had wooden planks, carefully carved and treated-- that she must have traded for, or borrowed from a skilled trader, and a large stretch of thick leather to create a roof.
Blue's afternoon was spent half-heartedly protesting all the work Astrona did-- while Astrona happily ignored him the entire working day.
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