Ororo and Nathan | Tuesday

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Nate and Ororo head to Half Dome and succeed in climbing it. At the top there is reflection, discussion of Petrarch, and a squirrel.

It had been raining, on the shuttle bus into the valley; Nathan had
toyed with asking Ororo if she could do something about it, but it had
just seemed like a fairly light shower, and really, it was warm enough
that a sprinkling of rain wasn't such a bad thing. The rain clouds had
started to move off as they'd gotten started on the trail to
Half-Dome, and so, not an issue in the end after all.

They did so much training in the Danger Room that sometimes it was
easy to forget how invigorating exercising outdoors could be. Ororo
felt the thick layers of pine needles slip beneath her feet and
adjusted her stride, inhaling the smell of wet earth and greenery with
a deep breath. It was good to be there.

"That was a very hearty breakfast, back at the lodge," Nathan said,
glancing over his shoulder at her. "Probably a good thing. My
open-fire cooking leaves a lot to be desired, to put it
mildly... although I did make granola before we left the mansion?" He
gave her a slightly maniacal smile.

"Is it too late to stock up on MRE's?" 'Ro deadpanned, shifting her
backpack slightly and fussing with one of the straps.

"... it's not that bad," Nathan said, laughing outright.
"Rahne's recipe, Ororo, don't worry."

"I am not worried about the recipe, only about the cook," she teased.
"But I suppose you could not ruin granola completely... I will
certainly give it a try. And if not, I think I saw some edible
mushrooms along the trail."

"Are you forgetting that I taught the basic cooking class, woman? I
can most certainly cook. If you don't believe me, come down to the
boathouse for French toast some morning," Nathan scoffed.

"Perhaps I will," 'Ro replied primly, giving Nate a smile. "And may I
just point out that you were the one who first questioned your
culinary skills, not me."

"Open fire culinary skills," Nathan pointed out, "there's a-" He
stopped at the top of a rise, staring ahead of them. Smiling,
suddenly. "Wow."

Half-Dome's top was shrouded in rain clouds, although they were moving
off, it seemed, patches of pure blue sky and rays of bright sunlight
peeking through. But it wasn't the clearing trend that was most
impressive. There was a rainbow slicing down out of the dark
rainclouds, bright in the sun, that seemed centered on the very summit
of the massive rock face. A delighted laugh escaped Nathan.

Ororo came to a halt next to him, gazing out at the mountain in front
of them with a somewhat rapturous expression. She could all but feel
the rays of light as they hit the moisture-saturated air and created
the prism of colors; rainbows were a glorious thing, and this one was
even more so than most. It was nigh-perfect.

"That," Nathan said gleefully, "is an omen, damn it!" He
looked down at her, grinning. "Want to go looking for the pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow? At least I think it's gold. Maybe it's
Lucky Charms. Or Skittles."

"...anything sounds better than braving your campfire cooking."

--

It took ten hours, in the end. A better than respectable result - in
fact, a damned fantastic result, given Ororo's relative inexperience
and how long it had been since Nathan himself had climbed a wall this
big. It was their relatively high level of physical fitness, he knew;
they didn't tire as easily as many of the other climbers they passed
on their way up twenty-four pitches.

He offered Ororo a hand, pulling her up over the edge and onto the
summit. "That," he said, breathing hard, his knees screaming that they
hated his guts and really, there needed to be a conversation about
days like this, "was amazing."

Ororo could do little more than nod her agreement, crawling slowly
away from the edge until she had enough space to collapse into a
sitting position, resting her elbows on her knees and bowing her head.
"Completely and utterly," she managed to say, the grin on her face
unmissable despite the silvery hair that fell into her eyes.

Nathan pulled the haul bag up, then sat down himself. "You did damned
well," he said, still out of breath. "Usually people don't start with
real climbing on Half-Dome."

"I can see why," came the half-amused, half-exhausted reply. "As I
would imagine few people want to die on their first attempt."

"You mock!" he scoffed, pulling his water bottle off his belt and
taking a long drink before he opened the pack, looking for something
to eat. They both needed the energy. "You were mocking me all the way
up that wall, you... mocker."

"I do not think I had the concentration to spare in order to mock
you," Ororo said, raising one eyebrow dubiously at Nathan. "As most of
it was dedicated, again, to not dying. Though I would be happy to mock
you now that we are both safely on level ground again."

"It was silent mocking. Mostly about my sanity. Granola?" Nathan
offered, something close to an impish sparkle in his eyes as he
offered her the bag.

Ororo must've been feeling brave; conquering a particularly
challenging mountain could do that. She smirked and leaned in to take
a handful, pointedly closing her eyes as she popped the first bite
into her mouth. "Thank you," she murmured. "This is actually quite
palatable."

He felt... lighter. Still works, I see... Nathan closed his
eyes, turning his face upwards to the sunset-colored sky and let the
breeze move over him. It was a perfect, peaceful moment.

One that was abruptly broken by a chitter. Nathan's eyes snapped open
and he looked down, raising an eyebrow at the squirrel that had
appeared a few feet away. "Well, then."

If the squirrel had an eyebrow to raise back at him, it probably
would've. Obviously they were the intruders here. "Why do I think he
may have had an easier time getting up here than us?" Ororo remarked
with a small smile, watching as the creature surveyed them and gave an
indignant shake of its tail.

"Well, there is that... admittedly somewhat strenuous hiking trail up
the back side." Nathan gazed at the squirrel, then placed a piece of
granola on the rock between them. "This has got to be about the first
squirrel I've seen up-close since my daughter started flinging them."

"He must not have heard the gossip, then." Darting forward, the
squirrel grabbed the granola and gnawed on it experimentally,
apparently appeased at this 'offering'.

"We seem to have made a friend." Nathan laid another piece of granola
down, then gazed out at the valley, stretched out before them in all
its magnificence. "How do you feel?" he asked, not looking at Ororo.
"Sitting here, looking out at this..." There were all kinds of things
he could have said about perspective and the like, but he wanted to
know what her answer was. He might never have been able to come
to a conclusion about the nature of the summit experience, but that
didn't mean that he was going to stop looking for other people's
insight on it.

There was a reason he didn't generally like to climb alone.

"Very... open. As if there is nothing weighing down on me." The reason
was twofold, of course: the distance from the school and its problems
combined with the wide-open spaces around them both served to calm her
nerves and settle her mind. "I suppose that being up here is a good
way of putting things in perspective. It does not make one feel
insignificant, but it does remind you how small you are."

"Small, and yet large," Nathan said, shaking his head slightly as he
yet again failed to find the right words. "You should read Petrarch's
letter," he said suddenly, seemingly as a non sequitur. "The one he
wrote after he walked up Mount Ventoux, just to see the view... some
historians say that was the beginning of the Renaissance spirit."

"Something I might find in your library?" Ororo ventured, glancing
sideways at him.

"Or on the internet," Nathan teased lightly. "I'll look you up a link
when we go back to the lodge." He closed his eyes again, letting the
air in his lungs out on a sigh. "You see the world around you, but you
see yourself most clearly. Because of that perspective." He opened his
eyes, looking sideways at Ororo, and the smile she got was a bit
crooked, but warm. "You see the person climbing with you clearly,
too."

"Must be the thinner atmosphere," came the reply, though it was
entirely teasing, and not evasive as some of her earlier jokes had
been. "Thank you for suggesting we come out here, Nathan. I do feel
better... and some of the worries seem much more approachable from up
here. I would have regretted any decisions I made if I had stayed back
at the school, I think. This is a far better place to make them."


Nathan nodded, more to himself than anything else, the smile lingering
as he looked back out at the valley. "And to think - we're only two
days in."