Ororo and Nathan | Thursday | Yosemite

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Ororo and Nathan tackle El Capitan. They make it halfway up and camp for the night, only to have their sleep interrupted by a particularly bad dream.

"Half Dome is actually higher," Nathan said, his eyes sliding sideways
to Ororo as she stared up the massive rock face in front of them, "but
El Capitan seems bigger, doesn't it? I think it's the sheer mass of
it, really..." Half Dome had smoother lines, and the missing part of
the dome looked almost like someone had just casually reached down and
scooped it away, almost delicately.

El Capitan, on the other hand, just... towered over the valley,
monolithic and imposing. It was the biggest wall in the country, and
it was like the rock knew it. Nathan smiled at his own whimsy.

Whimsy was the furthest thing from Ororo's mind as she tried to wrap
her thoughts around the fact that they would be climbing that
thing in front of them not too long from now. "Yes, it certainly seems
bigger," she murmured, her apprehension showing in her voice and the
way she began to fiddle with the straps of her backpack. "How strange,
that."

Nathan knelt down to check their haul bags. They had to carry food,
water, everything they'd need for two days up on the rock. "Most
climbers take five days," he said lightly. "But we did Half Dome in
ten hours, we can do this in two days."

"Two days? Nathan, you really must be joking..." She looked at
him. He looked very serious. Oh dear. "I have no doubt you are
capable of completing it in that amount of time, but you must know
that I cannot climb as quickly as you..."

"My best time was eight hours. Which is more than twice the
speed-climbing record, but I was pretty satisfied with it at the time.
I was also," Nathan said wryly, "twenty-three."

"And certifiably insane? Which has not changed, I assume, despite your age..."

Nathan rose, a very odd little smile playing on his lips. He walked
several feet to their left, then looked straight up at the Nose. "I
think you can do it," he said mildly. "But if you don't think you
can..."

"You," Ororo grumbled, shifting her pack further up her back
and then crossing her arms over her chest. "Are an evil, evil man.
Just for that I am going to have to beat you up to the summit."

"Not in your wildest, wildest dreams, Munroe."

---

Eleven pitches up, and the rock seemed to stretch forever. Nathan
followed a long crack in the rock upwards, humming happily under his
breath as he moved. He had the impression that Ororo, waiting below
him on belay, would probably not take it well if he actually burst
into song. But he was tempted.

Ororo was not afraid of heights. That was a good thing. She had known
flyers who were, and while she could not help but feel sorry for them,
it was at times like these when she was very glad she was
unaffected by vertigo. They had passed a few other climbers thus far
in the day and she could barely make out the forms of people above
them; though it was a popular climb the mountain was large enough that
groups tended to stay relatively spread out.

"Enjoying yourself?" Nathan called down as he set a cam in the wall.
"We're making great time, 'Ro!" he added cheerfully. "Look at how far
we've come already!"

Hands firmly wrapped around the rope, Ororo braced her feet against
the rock wall and leaned back to look up at Nate. "The light is
getting dimmer... perhaps we should begin looking for a place to set
up camp."

"Got it covered!" was his overly cheerful answer. "Just a few more
pitches." He counted himself very lucky that she didn't throw anything
at him of the lightning-bolt variety, for that.

They were climbing fast, quite a bit faster even than he'd hoped, but
it was another three hours before they reached the ledge he'd been
shooting for, and by then, it wasn't just getting dim, it was
dark. Nathan took care of stowing the gear, letting Ororo catch
a break and get some food into her. That last hundred feet or so had
been a killer.

"I can't believe we've got the ledge all to ourselves," he said,
finally easing himself down beside her, his back against the rock.
"This is the best bivouac site on the whole wall."

Ororo nodded; after spending so long in near-silence except for the
occasional instruction or request, it took her a little while to
re-adjust to normal chit-chat. "I think we out-distanced most of the
others who were near us earlier in the day. And some of the ones who
started before us."

"We'll finish tomorrow, easily." He could predict that with a certain
level of confidence. After all, they'd been climbing all week. Nathan
fished out a water bottle, draining half of it before he went on.
"You'll sleep better than you think," he reassured her, smiling out at
the valley, stretching out under the moonlight. "Even this high off
the ground."

"Somehow I do not doubt that. I am exhausted enough to sleep on the
Blackbird's wing while she is flying, let alone here. It is a good
exhaustion, though," she amended, smiling a little. "Meditation by
fatigue."

"I was hoping you'd get the hang of that," Nathan said, trying not to
sound triumphant. But that was the point of the whole week. "It
doesn't work as well if you're only climbing for a few hours."

"When all you can think of is where to put your hand next or whether
that crack will hold you it becomes difficult to worry about anything
else."

"Clarity," Nathan said more quietly. "That's what you get."

---

Murmuring - low, agitated murmuring - broke the night's near-silence.
Nathan was curled up on his side in his sleeping bag, in as close as
he could get to a fetal ball, murmuring almost frantically in Askani
and shaking. Not from cold.

Ororo didn't wake right away, and when she did, it took her several
moments to realize where she was. Several thousand feet above the
ground was not a reassuring thought, even though they were clipped to
the screws tug deeply within the rock wall.

Before she could react to what she was hearing, Nathan sat bolt
upright, gasping out more words in Askani and pulling instinctively at
the rope restraining him before it dawned on him where he was. Who he
was with. "Ororo," he said, breathing hard. "~I thought I was... I was
dreaming-~" He cut himself off as the words came out in Askani.

She blinked through the darkness at him, thrown by the strange
language and his apparent disorientation. "Nathan, it is me. We are on
the mountain face - are you all right?"

"~My head is- I'm not-~" Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, laying his
hand against the cool rock beside him, as if to ground himself. What
she'd just said had made no sense, apart from the mention of his name.
That wasn't right. He breathed, in and out, and tried again. "I
was dreaming," he finally said, slowly, the Askani accent slow to
leave his words. "I'm sorry."

Ororo reached over to place a hand over his, her expression concerned.
"Do not apologize. Are you all right? Do you need anything?" Though
there wasn't much to offer besides what they had in their haul bags.

"Just to... calm down. I think." The English felt unfamiliar, awkward
on his lips. What was going on? Nathan kept his eyes closed, kept
breathing deeply. The disorientation was fading, if slowly. "I'm all
right," he said after a long minute. "I have problems with nightmares,
sometimes..."

And you did not think to mention this before? Calmly, Ororo
nodded, keeping her hand firmly on top of Nathan's. "We are secure
enough up here. Take your time."

"I didn't think - I don't dream, climbing," Nathan said, responding to
the thought and not her words. His shields had slipped at some point
during his nightmare, and he wasn't quite managing to get them to
settle again. "Physical exhaustion usually... ~and I was dreaming
about battles, not mine.~" Oh, hell.

Making a mental note to keep her thoughts as non-accusatory as
possible from then on, Ororo pressed her lips together and patted
Nathan's hand gently.

It took longer than it should have to calm down. Nathan finally
managed a somewhat weak smile for Ororo. "Hurray for tethers," he
said, tugging lightly on the rope. "Would have been very embarrassing
to fall off El Capitan in my sleep..."

"And I do not think Moira would believe me when I said it was an
accident," she answered with her own tiny smile. "So I am thankful for
them as well."

Nathan just nodded, not quite up to more banter. He looked up at the
sky, then checked his watch, the hands glowing in the dark. "We should
try and get a few hours more sleep," he said. "Going to be a long day
again tomorrow."

"Indeed."

Watching as Nathan settled down once again, Ororo leaned back against
the mountainside. She would at least wait to make sure he got back to
sleep, and then worry about her own rest. After all, he is the one who
knows what he is doing in all this.