“Don’t these dogs ever get tired?! They’ve been chasing us for fifteen days now!” Gole shouts crabbily, while Trouse and Thigi hold the girl doub steady on the alterna’s back as the group races down a large gorge with few bushes and grass to impede the alterna’s speed.

            “Well, there are benefits to carrying your houses with you- you don’t care how far away you get from where you started, you can camp out anytime.” Poole says as Erve snorts loudly, racing behind Gole.

            “Yes, well, they need to get a hobby besides hunting individuals who accidentally stumble into their encampment!” Gole snaps, as she lets her momentum down the gorge carry her.

            Suddenly, the alterna comes to a screeching halt, Erve sliding a few feet past her, nearly into what Gole had stopped for. An enormous ravine cuts across the entire pass, too wide for even the most optimistic person of the group to hope for a chance of jumping across, and too steep to both go down and come back out as well.

            “What do we do?!” Trouse cries as the woofing of the dogs grows louder.

            “We stay and fight, it seems.” Thigi says as she unsheathes her bright sword once again, waving it in the sunlight as she lets Trouse bear the weight of the doub girl they had taken from the dogs.

            Trouse closes his eyes and turns away to steady himself for his approaching doom as the dogs grow closer, and starts in surprise at the sight of enormous, multicolored flowers growing like a staircase across the ravine. When he opens his eyes again, the flowers are no longer visible, until he shuts his eyes again, and is able to see the flowers just as clearly as if his eyes are open.

            “Gole, close your eyes and look at the ravine!” Trouse exclaims fervently, and Gole sharply retorts,

            “Have you gone mad?! How am I supposed to close my eyes and look at something?!”

            “Just do it!” Trouse shouts as the barking comes ever closer.

            “Fine, you crazy doub!” Gole exclaims as she turns and closes her eyes, and them opens them, clearly startled as Trouse had been, before she closes them again.

            “I’m going across!” Gole announces as she rushes towards the ravine, her eyes closed.

            “Gole?!” Thigi exclaims as she quickly sheathes her sword and clings onto the alterna’s Providence Cloth shirt for dear life, while Poole, Seehea, and Onewe watch in wonder as their comrade hops across the ravine on invisible flowers, before Erve starts after them as well, her riders quickly exchanging their wonder for fear.

            “Close your eyes!” Trouse calls to Poole, and the rem does so as he grips onto his horse for dear life, before he starts in surprise as the others had done, amazed to watch the horse follow Gole’s steps perfectly across the chasm, jumping on the invisible flowers.

            “These flowers even I have never heard of!” He exclaims in wonder, as Seehea and Onewe look with their eyes closed at the flowers in bewildered amazement as well.

            Seehea turns around on the horse as the dogs reach the other side of the chasm across from them and watches the dogs’ confusion with amusement as Erve touches down on the other side of the chasm with a loud clock of her hooves.

            “This a view I like.” Seehea grins as he watches the dogs bark furiously, unable to cross the chasm to reach the group, and Gole turns and begins walking away from the dogs, deliberately slow so as to infuriate the dogs further.

            Poole pulls out a map from his bag and begins to analyze it. Erve follows patiently behind Gole and Poole finally folds the map back up and slides it into a pocket on his Providence Cloth sweater.

            “We are in the Pass of Sa.” He announces finally and Thigi purses her lips,

            “Who lives around the Pass of Sa?”

            “The alterna do. It’s the only entrance or exit of their territory.”

            “We’re where?!” Gole exclaims, stopping in her tracks so quickly that Erve bumps into her.

 “You’re in alterna territory, trespassers,” a proud voice says, and the group quickly finds themselves surrounded by enormous alterna with jewels pierced around the borders of their ears.

“The alterna guards.” Poole breathes, as if entranced as he watches the alterna circle around them.

“Who are you, and why were the dogs chasing you?” A white and black alterna with a black heart on his shoulder asks in a commanding voice as he looks down at the group from his immense height.

“We are adventurers on a quest to stop the waters’ poisoning.” Trouse replies honestly, and the alterna sneers at him.

“There is no poison in the water, foolish doub.”

At this Gole snaps as she bares her teeth, looking tiny beside the giant alterna,

“Don’t you dare call him foolish! He knows more from his short lifetime than you’ve learned in three hundred and forty years, Ahe!”

The alterna looks shocked at this knowledge of him and leans down to look closer at Gole, who’s fur bristles as she raises a paw and slaps at his face.

“Oh, it’s feisty little Gole! I’m amazed to see you’ve survived so long, and that you’ve somehow managed to make a few friends! Well, one of them is tied up, so I suppose you’ve become a robber now, and this is your gang of thieves.” The alterna chuckles as he looks around at his fellow guards who look just as amused, before the feline wipes away all trace of humor from his face,

“I think that’s all we need to know to explain why the dogs were chasing you. The Queen will be very interested to see you, Gole. To the dungeons with them!” The alterna guard calls to his subordinate guards, who shepherd the group along, trapping them in a tight circle.