Ursula Le Guin - The Beginning Place

She pulled on her clothes, shivering a bit herself, and as he roused she got him to wear the leather coat, which had finally got fairly dry, and the cloak on top of that. “It’s shock that makes you feel cold,” she said.

“The shock of what?” he asked with a placid smile.

“Shut up. It does make you cold—shock from injury.”

“I think we figured out how to get warm.”

“Yes, all right, but we can’t get to the gateway by lying here and screwing, Hugh.”

“I don’t know if we can get there by standing up and walking,” he said. “At least we can enjoy the rest stops,” he added, and then looked at her to make sure he had not hurt her feelings or offended against modesty. His own modesty, his vulnerability, were entirely admirable to her. She was much cruder than he was, she thought, and if he judged her he must disapprove; but he did not judge her. He did not come to her with judgments, or with a place for her or a name or a use for her. He came with nothing at all but strength and need.

He was looking at her. He said, “Irena, you know, that was the best thing that ever happened to met.”

She nodded, unable to answer.

“I suppose we ought to go on,” he said. He felt his left side with a thoughtful and disgusted expression. “Wish that would wear off.”

“It’ll take a while. It’s an awful bruise.”

He was looking at her again, uncertainly; then, with resolution, came to her, touched her hair and cheek, and kissed her mouth—not expertly, and not very passionately; but it was their first kiss. Better than the kiss she liked the touch of his large hand. She wanted to tell him that he was beautiful and that she liked him, but she was no good at saying things.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked. “I’ve got all the clothes on.”

“I always warm up right away walking.”

He waited for her to start off, making no pretense of knowing where they should go. She set off with a new access of confidence along the ridgetop, continuing their course beside the stream in the direction she was resolved to call east.

They walked steadily without speaking for a long way. The ridge, a long, lean spur of the mountain, curved somewhat to the left as they went; its back rose and fell, but the slant over all and always was downhill. The woods on the spine of the ridge were sparse, making easy going, and there were some long open stretches where it was pleasant to walk in the short, dry, brownish grass out from under the dark overhang of branches. At last the spur began to descend steeply, then abruptly. Failing to find an easier way they had to scramble down, clutching at roots and forced sometimes to slide. They fetched up at the bottom, in the streambed, a steep-sided, thickly overgrown ravine. They made their way at once down to the stream to drink.

Irena climbed back up the muddy bank to a clear place made by the falling of a big tree, and stood there considering. This stream was about the same size as Third River. If it was Third River, all they had to do was follow it and they would cross the south road—but this wasn’t Third River. This was the same stream they had been following all the way from its source, the spring among the ferns, below the dragon’s cave. It was flowing east or southeast, down off the mountain, in this canyon. Third River flowed west, past the mountain. This must be a tributary; it would meet Third River somewhere. It was running toward the left and Third River would run to the right, from this side, if she was facing south now—

She stood trying to work this out, how the streams could be running opposite ways, what direction she must be facing. A knot came into her throat. The names of the compass, north, west, south, east, were words without meaning. Whichever way she faced could be south. Or could be north.

Hugh came up beside her. “You ready for a break?” he asked. He put his hand on her shoulder. She flinched away from the touch.

He moved away at once, crossing the little clearing. He sat down with his back against the massive trunk of the fallen tree, and closed his eyes.

When she came to sit down by him he said, “Maybe we should eat something.”

She opened the pack and laid out the food that was left. There was more than she had thought; certainly enough to get by another day on. That gave her courage to say, “I don’t know where we are.”

“We never did, did we?” he said, impassive. Then, with visible effort, he moved, opened his eyes, asked questions and made suggestions. They discussed following this stream on as they had been doing, since it must join one of the larger streams eventually.

“Or if we’re going the wrong way we’ll come to the sea,” he said, meaning to joke, but his voice died off on the last word.

“The other possibility would be to turn left here,” Irena said, working on a second strip of mutton jerky and feeling enlivened by it. “Because I keep thinking we aren’t going east enough. And so long as we stay on the mountain we aren’t completely lost—at least we know where the mountain is.”

“But we don’t get any nearer the gateway.”

“I know. But the mountain is really the only landmark we have. Since we lost the sense of where the gateway is.”

“I know. It’s all alike. Like when I went past the gateway. I guess…I guess what I’m afraid of is that that’s happened again. The gate isn’t there any more. There’s nothing to find.”

“That’s never happened to me,” she said, defiant. “It’s not going to. I’m not going to stay here.”

He was pushing fir needles into patterns on the ground beside the fallen tree.

“That’s yours,” she said, trying to keep her eyes off his share of meat.

“I’m not really hungry.”

After a while she said, “You’re not leaving more for me, or something creepy like that, are you?”

“No,” he said, candid, startled; he smiled, looking up at her. “I just don’t feel like eating. If I did you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“You can’t fast and do a long walk like this too.”

“Sure. Live off my fat, like a camel.”

She frowned. She wanted to move closer beside him and touch him, his rough hair and tired, stubbly cheeks, his big, powerful, yet childlike hand; but she was prevented by having flinched away from his touch a few minutes before. She wanted to deny his self-denigration but did not know what to say.

His eyes were closed or closing; he had leaned back against the fallen tree. She said nothing, locked in self-consciousness and a deepening depression of spirits. When she glanced at him again he was asleep, his face slack, the hand on his thigh lax.

They ought to go on. They had to go on. They couldn’t sit down and sleep, or they would never get to the gateway. “Hugh,” she said. He did not hear. Then her anxiety melted in the fearful, passionate tenderness it had risen from. She went to him and pushed him over gently to make him lie down. He roused. “Go to sleep,” she said. He obeyed her. She sat beside him a while. As she sat she listened to the sound of the stream nearby, which she had not paid attention to before. It ran quiet here, flowing softly on sand or mud, the gentlest murmur. She began to realize that she was tired. She got the red cloak, which he had not worn once he had warmed up in the leather coat, and put it over them both as a blanket, and fitted herself against Hugh, and went to sleep.

When they roused up both of them were stiff, slow, unready. Irena went back down the bank to drink from the stream. She washed her hands and face, and the cool water was so pleasant, and she felt so ingrained with travel-dirt, that she found a shallow pool downstream and took off her clothes and bathed. She was shy of Hugh’s seeing her, and got dressed again quickly. He came down the bank farther upstream, where it was low, and knelt ponderously to drink. “Have a swim. I did,” Irena called, buttoning up her shirt, shivering pleasantly.