Kara stands dead still, hands on her knees and head down, completely surrounded by the yellow mist that she wasn't strong or quick enough to escape, waiting for it to affect her. To kill her. To do something.
Trying to suck air into her lungs without breathing in the smoke is useless, almost as useless as attempting to see through the smoke. It has draped itself across the space so thickly that she can scarcely see more than a couple of feet in front of her, everything else hidden from her view.
Other than her inability to see though, there doesn't seem to be any effects on her. Seriously, there isn't a single thing wrong with her other than her tiredness and lack of breath from running away from the smoke that doesn't actually seem to be harming her at all, it's just super thick and blocks vision.
Based on the light powdery consistency of it and the way it is sticking to her clothes, dusting her over and attaching itself to her hair, it's some kind of pollen. It's a good job that Kara doesn't have hay fever because if she did then she'd be sneezing left and right.
It becomes suddenly very obvious that just because she isn't affected by it, that doesn't mean that nobody is because up ahead she can hear rapid sneezes, one starting just as another one ends, incessant and loud.
Kara follows the sound, intuitive enough to gather that one of the others got caught up in the smoke too, and by her deductions, it has to either be Lena or Alex and since the sneezes are particularly feminine and also really cute rather than the huffy sneezes she grew up listening to whenever Alex got a cold, she knows that it's Lena.
She squints as she forces her way forward, calling out in the hope that Lena can hear her, which she should be able to since she can hear her sneezes. "Lena?"
"Over here!" Lena replies, really quite unhelpfully since Kara can't see where exactly 'over here' is.
"Lena, keep talking, I'll follow your voice," Kara says, keeping her volume loud enough that she knows that Lena can hear her clearly.
"Ok, I'm walking to you as well. I'm just retracing our steps back until I find you."
The pair shuffle closer and closer to each other, wary of walking too fast and accidentally hurting themselves, calling out consistently in the world's worst game of Marco Polo.
Kara keeps on heading forward, following the angelic sounds coming from Lena's mouth and letting them guide her, calling back to her when Lena stops talking.
They mustn't have been too far away from each other because it doesn't take long at all for them to find each other, Lena still sneezing every once in a while, hair coated with tiny yellow specs of pollen, just the same as Kara's is too.
"Lena, are you alright?"
Lena nods shakily. "I'm good, it's just making me sneeze, is all. Are you ok?"
Kara is hasty in her attempts to reassure Lena that she is, in fact, just fine. "I'm alright too, I'm sorry I couldn't keep up with you guys, I'm not a hundred percent yet and couldn't keep going."
Lena drags her into her arms roughly but Kara isn't fighting it, loving the feeling she gets from being engulfed in Lena's warm embrace. "God, Kara. I was so scared when I turned around and you weren't there. It felt like my heart was being pulled out of my chest and I just had to come and find you, there wasn't another option.
"Wait." Kara leans back out of the hug, arms still clinging to Lena's thought. "You walked into the smoke to find me? Did you risk yourself to come back? Lena, you can't do that, it's too dangerous!"
"That's too dangerous? Kara, this entire mission is dangerous. Coming back for you isn't because it's more dangerous for me to be without you. I'm only a good person when I'm with you. You are what keeps me sane and good and smart. I'd be a dumb, evil bitch without you." Lena grabs Kara's shoulders tightly, accentuating her points with tiny shakes that get stronger the further into her ramble she gets.
Lena's eyes are glazed over with emotion but through her quickly forming tears and the pollen cloud, she can see that Kara is smiling, tears in her eyes too. "Lena, that is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me."
"Really? Of all the things, that's the nicest?"
"Yeah. Rao, I love you so much." Lena's lips are overtaken suddenly by Kara but she has no pull away almost immediately, twisting her body to the side as fast as she can so she can let out an almighty sneeze.
Kara jumps back at the sound, taken aback. "Oh, I forgot where we were, we should keep going forward and try to find the others."
Lena wipes her eyes, lamenting when she rubs pollen into them in the process, making them itch and water like crazy. Kara links their arms together, her other hand holding onto Lena's too as an extra anchor point so she can both help her keep going with her eyes watering and to keep them together so they don't get lost.
It should be pretty simple, getting from point A to point B, even with limited vision. They are in a ravine for Rao's sake, they just walk forward, there are only two directions they can go and they aren't planning on going back the way they came. No way José.
Of course, as with everything else going on with this mission that is a complete and utter mess, even after everything that they planned forward, it isn't that simple. There are only a couple of things that are actually still part of the original plan, like the reason they are there, and the water bottles Lena designed and…yeah, those things.
The problem they are now facing is one that will haunt Lena's nightmare forever, and probably Kara's too for that matter.
The problem is that pollen isn't the only thing that came out of those vines, the pods also contained a nice juicy lump of nectar. The nectar that is particularly sweet and pungent. The nectar that attracts bugs.
An insistent buzzing and crude fluttering reaches their ears, loud and thunderous. Hundreds, if not thousands of wings fluttering all at once, zoning in on the nectar and zipping past them, following the dip of the ravine on their way.
Kara and Lena are forced to duck out of the way of the abrupt swarm, each bug massive, about as long as a football but not quite as wide. They just keep coming, always more to try and move out of the way of, more to dodge and cower from.
Instinctively, they move across to one side, pressing themselves against the side of the ravine but since the swarm is never ending and they just keep coming, some getting close enough that they are getting hit by wings or feeling the scrape of disgusting sharp legs against their skin.
"We need to get out of here, go up!" Kara shouts over the noise, steadying her legs and clasping her hands together in an offer to boost Lena up to the top. "You go first, throw down your rope and pull me up after."
"Not this time, you jerk. You're going first. " Lena responds, eyebrows furrowed in frightening demand. "You always get into trouble otherwise."
Kara can't argue with that and even if she did want to argue, now really isn't the time, they should really be getting out of the way. They have no idea what these bugs are and can't even begin to try and identify them because they are moving too fast.
Nodding and preparing herself, Kara watches as Lena braces herself, linking her hands together and looking up at Kara with wide eyes when she's ready. Kara wastes no time jamming her foot into Lena's hands and throwing herself up against the side of the ravine with all the strength she can muster.
Lena pushes up against her feet as hard as she can, flinging her up and praying that Kara's scrambling hands manage to grab hold of the top ledge and that she manages to keep her grip steady.
It seems as though Lady Luck is on their side because Kara's hands land right onto a thick root of some kind, her nails digging into it and the crumbling dirt around it nothing compared to her insane amount of willpower that is forcing her up, forcing her to do whatever it takes to get out, not just for herself but because every extra second she spends fighting to get up out of the ravine is an extra second that Lena is still stuck down there.
Heaving her pack off of her shoulders Kara unwinds her spool of rope and ties it in a loop at the end, tightening the knot as much as she can then dropping the looped end down to Lena, twisting the other end of the rope around her hands.
"Lena, grab hold!" She shouts down to Lena, feeling the tension of the rope change just a moment after.
Kara digs her heels in, pushing herself backwards to drag the rope, and subsequently Lena, up the side of the ravine. Her jaw clenches uncomfortably tight as she strains and the rope pinches her fingers, dragging against her skin and burning her flesh when it slips from her grasp ever so slightly, her sweaty palms not helping her to get a good grasp of it.
She isn't letting go though, there are about a thousand things she would rather do than let go, eating wasps would be one.
Lena appears over the top, face red and sweaty, her foot using the looped end of the rope as a foothold and her hands clinging to the rope even once she's safely at the top, grinning at Kara until her eyes fall to the bush behind the blonde.
"Kara, don't panic, just shuffle forward slowly," Lena says, eyes focused and hand outstretched for her.
Without question, Kara does so, holding her hand out to meet Lena's. She shrieks a little when Lena grabs her hand and pulls her forcefully enough to her that her butt leaves the floor and she tips forward onto her.
Looking back, she can see why Lena panicked, there was a scarlet plant behind her, about a foot behind where she was sitting.
In the midst of reversing back with the rope, she hadn't thought to check behind her, thoughts entirely on getting Lena out of the ravine and not on the reason they had stayed in there in the first place.
"Golly, I didn't see that."
"No kidding. I sent you up first to keep you out of trouble." Lena sighs, clinging to her shirt.
They sit huddled together, on the ground, hunched over out of the way of the flapping wings and able to see a little more now that they are up higher, the pollen dissipating into the air and settling down where it isn't.
They take a moment to catch their breaths, winding the rope back up and attaching it back onto Kara's pack. "We should walk along the edge and keep moving, then we can try and find the others. I just hope that they decided to either stay put or keep moving and not do what you did and come to fetch me." Kara says, no hint of accusation in her voice.
"Yeah, let's go."
They step away from the edge far enough that they won't get in the way of the bugs. They can get a slightly better look now that they are up higher and aren't as panicked and can see that they are large and a light blue colour, some slightly darker though and some even bordering on green. They have long dragging legs and massive eyes that can only be described by the word creepy.
They are careful not to walk too far away from the edge though, crimson plants littering the forest everywhere they look. They can dodge around some of them easily by simply taking a wide berth around them but others they have to go slow, manoeuvring themselves around them with painstaking precision.
Keeping their eyes peeled for their friends as they go, they keep moving, one foot after another towards the direction that the others ran in.
It's taking them a lot longer than it will have taken the others to move forward too, the others having a clear shot forward while they are being constantly slowed by the mass amounts of dangerous plants and the odd fuzzy patches of pollen where it's grouped together more thickly for some reason, making them move even slower so they don't accidentally walk into anything.
"We could be here for a while getting up to them, we need to find a way to get the message to them that we're alright." Lena determines. "Do you think they'll hear us if we shout?"
"Over the sound of the swarm? Not likely but maybe."
Lena looks over at her expectantly, already covering her ears and it takes Kara a dumb second to take the hint with an eye roll and a sigh, not appreciating the implication that she's the louder of the two of them, even if there are several points one could argue that would make it the truth.
Kara tilts her head back and lets out the loudest bellow she can manage. The sound builds up in her chest and bursts forth, an obnoxiously loud noise that forms into one word.
"Alex!"
Lena actually stumbles back a couple of steps when she does it, ducking away in a fit of giggles. Kara pegs her with a soft glare but falls into giggles herself, finding it equally as funny and putting up only the tinies but of resistance to hide the fact that she does.
Quieting down, Kara asks Lena, "do you think they heard-"
"Kara!" Alex's equally loud voice cuts through the air, travelling along and echoing in the ravine. It's coming from quite far up ahead so it's safe to say that the others are safe.
"How should I respond?" Kara turns to Lena in question.
Lena shrugs, "just tell her we're coming."
Kara rears back to answer Alex, giving Lena time to cover her ears again. "Coming!"
"Safe?"
"Safe!"
Lena snorts. "I wouldn't say that when you're less than a car length away from a plant that could kill you."
"That's alright, if I fall, I'll only fall a Kara length and a Kara length isn't as long as a car length."
"I really dislike you at times."
"I love you too."
The conversation ends there, Lena blushing at the declaration and Kara in a better mood knowing that the others are most likely good since Alex didn't mention anything bad in the two screamed words they got from her.
With the pollen settling they can see the end of where the bloom of smoke got, and the bugs have slowed down from this direction, only a few coming past now and few and far between so they don't have to panic about them now, deeming it safe enough to drop back down into the ravine so that they can walk back where they aren't stepping into the spread of The Scarlet Forest.
Lena drops down first, helping Kara down and then thinking for the first time about how it must have hurt her to have pulled her up from the ravine before.
"Did you get hurt pulling me up?"
Kara shakes her head frantically. "No, I wasn't paying that much attention to that, I kind of just had pure tunnel vision for getting you out of there and wasn't focused on anything else. Well, that and I had a mad amount of adrenaline going on. I don't hurt now, I just have sore hands from the rope but that's nothing to worry about."
Lena's happy to hear it and links her arm with Kara's. "Good, I don't want you to hurt. We'll dig you out some cream or something for your hands when we set up camp later."
"Oh please, ten bucks says that the others already set up camp."
"You're on. They will be sitting there packs ready to go so we can keep moving. Alex won't be happy for the delay as it is." Lena holds out her spare hand to Kara, who shakes it in an overexaggerated motion to make Lena laugh, a feat that is remarkably easy for her where it is like climbing a mountain for everyone else but that's what girlfriends are for.
It takes no time for them to be completely free of the pollen cloud and be meandering their way over to a massive boulder in blocking their path. They ease their way over it quickly, looking back over at the part of the ravine that they have travelled through with a relieved sigh, glad that there will be a physical block between them and it when they get over the other side of it to see more boulders for them to climb over, stretching as far as they can see.
"Why can't we catch a break?" Kara whines, knowing that they are going to have to climb over all of them now because it will still be less dangerous for them to do that than to leave the ravine.
"Because life is all about balances and nerds that like board games and Star Wars have to do stupid things like run away from massive bugs and climb over boulders."
Kara's shoulders slump. "Alex! Where are you guys?"
Alex doesn't respond but Kelly pops her head up from between two hefty rocks, looking eerily similar to a meerkat at this moment. "Hey guys, long time no see."
Kara and Lena look down into the gap Kelly popped out of to see the four of them and Kelex chilling in a hollow area between the boulders, some food going over a small fire.
Lena and Kara turn to each other, eyebrows raised in question.
"There are no tents up but there's food going. Are we counting this as setting up camp?" Lena asks.
"Yes we are, you owe me ten bucks."
"Damn."