What could only be described as snarling that was slowly growing louder quickly brought the peacefully sleeping eldar to full attention. In less than a second, she was upright, darting her eyes left and right, trying to identify her potential aggressor, then quickly reaching for her shuriken pistol as she went from sitting to crouching in a split second, one foot ahead with her knee close behind, but there was nothing. The snarling continued rhythmically, she started to listen out for the footsteps of whatever creature was apparently encroaching on prospector 3, then slowly advancing past the sleeping guardsman, only to realise the snarling was coming from him. Confusedly, the still armor clad eldar looked at the human, who's head and back were awkwardly contorted in a position that can only be described as the result of moving in one's sleep. His mouth was open and from it, came that snarling sound. Confusion turned to aggravation as she realised the guardsman had just woken her up at what appeared to be quite early in this planet's morning, she remounted her pistol against her hip and sighed with desperation as she thought about what to do with this. At this point, the eldar knew with absolute certainty that if he continued to make this noise, she would not be able to sleep any further, but then again, the slowly brightening sky would also make further sleep difficult and with that, she decided it was time to start the day.
"Tymon!" she said with a hushed whisper, then immediately asking herself why she was whispering at all when her intention was to wake him up.
"TYMON!" she now yelled causing him to stir a bit, though he was still asleep and 'snarling'.
"Tymon! Open your eyes!" she commanded with her now signature impatience, though again, the guardsman did not respond. Seeing the futility in her yelling, she tried to shake him awake by his arm:
"Tymon!" This slowly brought him to consciousness as he started to straighten himself out on the makeshift bed, stretching his arms upwards and out of her grasp before instinctively putting one arm between his eyes and the sun which was just starting to reveal itself for the day.
"Mmmm?" Was all the half asleep Tymon responded with as he finally stopped snoring.
"Open your eyes!" she commanded again.
"What?" Tymon mumbled in return as his eyelids slowly started to work again, revealing a pair of slightly bloodshot eyes. The eldar tried to stammer up a response explaining how he was snoring, though she failed to put into words the noise Tymon was making in his sleep.
"You woke me up" she ended up saying, rather matter of factly.
"Whatd'you'mean" he mumbled once more, the sentence sounding more like a single convoluted word than anything else as he propped himself up against his elbows.
"You were…" again, unsure of what to say, she had to pause as she formulated her answer.
"You were making noise while you rest" Tymon, now somewhat more conscious than moments prior, responded:
"What like, sleep talking?" the eldar, not knowing what Tymon was talking about, recoiled her head slightly with a raised brow and a look of mild confusion at the term 'sleep talking', but she gave him a quick yet stunted response:
"It was like... a... animal" Now Tymon was the one looking confused through his barely awake eyes.
"What the frack are you on about?" he answered, grimacing and squinting as the sun met his eyes once again. At this point, the eldar was at her wits end, still partially waking up. She considered trying to imitate the disgusting sound the human was making, but opted against it.
"Forget it, I don't know the word"
"Okay…" he answered through a heavy yawn as he laid his head back down, "I'm gonna try sleep again" As soon as his head was against the stretcher, the eldar glared at him, not that he took notice, and that impatient and demanding voice returned with a vengeance:
"Do not rest now Tymon!"
Still lying down against the stretcher, Tymon scoffed.
"Look… Knife-ear... I don't know what the time is on this gakhole but… I swear it's like six in the morning" He yawned once more, muttering through his halfway closed mouth. "So I'm gonna try sleep a couple more hours" There it was again; Knife Ear.
At this point the eldar had had enough, unholstering her shuriken pistol and pointing it straight at his face, nudging him with the wide barrel. This opened his eyes, but the half awake look on his face turned to one of confusion as his still partially sleeping mind processed the fact that the weapon was once again trained on his face.
"Get up Tymon" was all she commanded with a very cold voice as the choiceless and heavily squinting guardsman propped himself up against his arms once more while the eldar continued to keep the weapon pointed at him.
"Seriously if I don't get enough sleep I'll be of no help to you" was the first clear sentence he spoke for today, though the attempt at explaining the uselessness of a sleep deprived human was instead seen as an act of defiance.
"I am not killing you to help me! So you WILL help me!" with that, she shoved the weapon further into his face, however Tymon was more concerned with what the eldar was trying to say this time as he stammered up his answer.
"W-What? No I mean~"
"YOU WILL HELP!" she would not even let him finish his perplexed sentence. Tymon, seeing how hopeless it would be to argue with the stubborn xeno, simply decided to obey her initial command as he sat upright, letting his arms fall to either side of him as his legs relaxed with an aggravated:
"Fine…"
Lowering her weapon, she waited for the guardsman to get up and ready to go, her eyes fixed on him, though he simply sat there, the tiredness on his face seemingly replaced with irritation.
"Will you get up?" she asked, that same impatience as earlier present both in her voice and upon her face. Though the guardsman did not, he just opened his survival kit that was still mounted to his hip, even throughout the night, and pulled out that same nutrient brick that he was snacking on yesterday, taking some bites.
"Hm?!" again, the impatience was apparent.
"I'd rather not starve while carrying around your crap" He said, angered and completely ignorant of the fact that his mouth was partially full when he said this, revealing the heavily chewed piece of nutrient brick in his mouth. While she still listened, she could not help but recoil in disgust at the sight that was the half chewed piece of food which was only more visible when he spoke.
"What if I collapse and accidentally damage something" he retorted with a sarcastic smile once he swallowed his food. At this moment in time, the eldar wanted so badly to point the weapon to his face again and pull the trigger, though she realised he was making a valid point, he would be no help to her if he was with an empty stomach.
Before long, Tymon was on his feet and strapping his flak vest in around his chest, preparing for the long hike over to the eldars encampment while 'knife ear' simply sat near the opposite corner of the tent, waiting for him. Though before the guardsman bothered to go outside, he made his way over to the heater in the middle of the tent, realising it was still on and quickly turning it off before picking it up and checking the battery readout on the back. Only one light was on this time, its colour red and beneath the number 1.
"Gak" Tymon muttered under his breath, this caught 'knife-ear's attention.
"What is gak?" she asked, looking up at the guardsman holding the heater. It took him a moment to answer as their first major problem began to dawn on him.
"Nothing" He answered, though his co-survivor stood up, insisting with her previous question.
"Tell me what is gak!" Tymon, annoyed and tired, rolled his eyes and sighed.
"The heater's got one night of power left…" It took 'knife-ear' a couple of seconds to properly understand what the mon'keigh meant, even longer to formulate her response. Like their conversation yesterday, she knew what she wanted to say, yet she simply had no way of saying it, until she eventually managed to put a response into low gothic.
"We can make more power?" Tymon looked up at her with a quick 'hmm?' As she finished speaking, but quickly looked away again as he thought about the 'plasma microgen' crate that he had left untouched, letting the heater fall gently out of his hands and onto the floor again.
"I mean…" he trailed off, his voice growing almost cautious.
"We do have a generator… but I've never set one up before... and it's not assembled" There was a flicker of hope on her face, but it quickly dissipated as he finished. Tymon however was deep in thought, running through potential solutions to this issue;
He could try to bring the microgenerator online, though despite the fact that they usually came with a manual, he had never actually set one up before and had seen the damage an improperly activated microgenerator could do. However it was entirely possible that the 'plasma microgen' crate had a couple of possibly charged power cells. Another option that came to mind was to try and get to one of the other prospector sites, see if there were any charged and usable power cells lying around there, though his train of thought was interrupted by his co-survivor. Seeing no way how she could possibly contribute to a solution to their power issue, the eldar decided to, in her eyes at least, not waste any more time;
"We… still need to come to my camp" she said, pointing at the exit of the tent which snapped Tymon's focus back on her.
"Alright, but I'm taking my weapon" the guardsman stubbornly stated as he reached for his weapon.
"You will not!" answered the eldar with an aggravation similar to what Tymons face was betraying, but the guardsman retaliated with a fierce yet sleepy defiance:
"Oh for frak's sake… Yes I am" he answered through half closed eyes as the eldar's hand was hovering over her own weapons' handle.
"No you not!" she responded, a stern unwavering expression on her face, only for it to be quickly wavered by Tymons response as he sighed:
"Wouldn't it make sense if we could both defend ourselves?" The logic that suddenly replaced his previous defiance took her by surprise as she quickly rethought her standpoint. Sure she managed to successfully subdue him when they first encountered each other, but not without great risk considering that he still managed to get a shot off on her head. She then recalled the day before where he startled her, armed and with every opportunity to shoot her at that point in time, yet he did not.
"Like… what if one of those necron things attacked" this brought the eldar away from her thoughts as she scoffed at the concept of even trying to fight off any serious amount of canoptek on their own.
"We then not live" she said without any emotion.
"Uhhh… What about the wildlife then?" He said through a stifled yawn, 'knife-ear' would not initially dignify him with a response.
"What if some weird... Fething…. Animals attack us or something?" again, the guardsman made sense which once again left her surprised. Eventually the eldar acquiesced but set a condition of her own:
"Alright... but you are go first" growing irritated at her paranoia and distrust of himself, he agreed with a perplexed: "sure…" and with that, she simply stepped her way outside and waited near the tent's entrance until Tymon exited, lasgun slung over his shoulder.
It was not long before the pair were hiking through the viscous ground once more; Tymon with his worn but sturdy boots wading through the mud and 'knife ear' without the inadvertent assistance of her stealth systems, both in complete silence. Unlike their last trip however, Tymon seemed not to require a break as his legs mindlessly stepped on and on, in fact this time it was the eldar he was accompanying who needed a rest, however she refused to show it. Step by step, her legs started to burn and buckle, the mud proving to be difficult to wade through for extended periods of time without her stealth systems helping her along. Her steps slowed while Tymon slowly grew further away from her. However, now that his mind was fully awake if somewhat absent, his legs were again starting to feel the strain of the lengthy hike through the less than friendly mud, but just like 'knife ear', he was refusing to show any weakness. Eventually and inevitably, the eldar's legs buckled and she fell to her knees in the mud which engulfed half of her thighs and anything beneath. Tymon heard the resulting thick squelch sound, reminiscent of Rico's 'face first' encounter with the stuff and turned around quickly, only to notice the eldar on her knees in the mud looking exasperated.
"The frack happened to you?" Having never had seen the eldar even remotely physically taxed, he was mildly surprised that she was down like this, even slightly tempted to take advantage of her weakened condition and attack, though he immediately had second thoughts considering she had easily bested him in combat when they first met and his legs was in a similar state.
"I need rest…" she answered, almost embarrassedly through her somewhat pain stricken face. Tymon, while not panting, was sweating profusely as he took his helmet off and trudged his way over to a nearby tree to sit against.
"You me both…" he mumbled as he sat down.
The first thing he did was remove his helmet and wipe the millimeter thick layer of sweat off his forehead, causing some droplets to scatter to his left. With a similarly slow pace, the eldar got up and slogged her way over to that same tree, sitting beside him against the large trunk, though it was not long before she noticed a somewhat repulsive smell coming from the guardsman. She turned to face him, trying to ascertain whether or not it was him who was causing the odour, but quickly turned away again, recoiling at the smell that she now established was coming from him. She was no expert in the personal hygiene of any 'mon'keigh', but a scent like that as far as she knew, usually meant that there was a complete lack thereof. Choosing not to comment on it, she simply nudged away from him, further around the tree trunk and thankfully, Tymon did not seem to react or care, simply resting his head against an indent within the tree that seemed to be conveniently placed behind his head. After dozens of minutes of silence wherein Tymon simply stared at nothing while 'knife ear' coped with his odour, the guardsman eventually broke the silence:
"Right, lets go" he stated with a stalwart determination behind his voice as he got himself back on his feet. The eldar was not far behind as her still somewhat strained legs finally allowed her to stand.
"Lead the way" Tymon ended up saying to her surprise.
While 'knife ear' thought she was finally getting him to listen and accept her as the proverbial leader, Tymon, in actuality, did not have the general layout of the forest memorised. In fact he knew full well that if he had to, he could simply navigate his way back to prospector three with his dataslate sans the superiority complex ridden xeno, but he also knew that he would likely never hear the end of it from his eldar co survivor if he simply decided to march his way back. With a small sense of confidence and accomplishment, the eldar lead the two the rest of the way to her encampment.
A comparatively small amount of walking later and the two survivors were at the eldars encampment once again with Tymon, as previously, immediately taking advantage of the firm ground, falling into a sitting position and brandishing his water bottle which was still fastened to his survival kit. 'Knife ear' however was almost completely ignorant of the guardsman as she went straight over to the overgrown tunnel again and vanished inside momentarily, only to come out holding two portable but heavy looking cylindrical crates bearing the same colour scheme as her armour. The first thing she saw was Tymon with the bottle in his mouth, gulping away at what seemed like a monumental amount of the remaining contents, though quickly stopping as he brought it away from his mouth, panting for a second before putting the lid back on. Still high on that bout of confidence from less than an hour prior, she simply deposited one of the cylindrical crates in front of him, expecting the guardsman to understand her unspoken command, though apart from a quick glance at the crate, he paid no attention, again looking straight ahead.
"Tymon!" she barked, the annoyance at the guardsmans' stubbornness and apparent absence returning.
"Hm?" was the unflinching response she received from Tymon as he looked up at her.
"Take it!" she commanded again, but this only earnt her a quiet groan and an irritated eye roll as the guardsman opened his bottle once more and took another swig as water sloshed around the rapidly emptying bottle.
"Now Ty~!" the eldar was interrupted.
"Just!... give me a break…" despite his tiredness, Tymon was again on the verge of breaking into another shouting fit, staring at nothing while his free hand was between the two until he allowed it to fall limp to the ground.
"I'm not in the mood right now…" he continued. The eldar managed to get a glimpse of his face and even to her, he looked like he had been through the warp and back with bags under his gently bloodshot eyes. In that moment, she felt his tiredness and put her crate to the ground, sitting down beside him but once again recoiling at his body odour, however this time he noticed and glanced at her for a moment before looking directly at the grimacing xeno.
"What?" he asked, sounding both confused and insulted. The eldar could not even look at the mon'keigh as she simply said the words;
"You reek" through her cringing facial expression. His confusion was quickly replaced with an annoyed embarrassment as he raised his eyebrows.
"Believe me I know…"
"Do something against it then?" she asked, confused as to why he did nothing about it if he knew of this issue. Dumbstruck at her response, he simply glared at her for a moment:
"sure... I'll just step into a shower... 'Cause there's definitely one of those on this fracking warp-hole..."
While his response was one of sarcasm, there was validity behind it. During his short stay on the planet, he had not come across a single body of water anywhere, nor did he see signs of any.
"There is... pool of water nearby!" she quickly shot back, though Tymon, while tired, seemed prepared for her response.
"Yeah~ but with emperor knows what floating about inside" The eldar simply scoffed.
"I'd rather not have some xeno parasite or~.. whatever swimming up my gak-hole" He continued, recalling one of his survival training lectures about impure water sources, though the eldar completely sidestepped his counter-argument at the word 'gak-hole'.
"W~What is gak-hole!?" she confusedly stammered up. Tymons first response was simply a scoff with a half smile as he looked down, but the eldar insisted.
"Tell me what is gak-hole!"
"My rear end!" Tymon sternly shot back but through a tiny bout of immature laughter, bringing a maddened expression to 'Knife ear's face before it once again grimaced at his response.
'Knife ear' was not having this as an excuse. Eldar, due to their physiology, rarely if ever would have to deal with body odour of any kind, so the very prospect of living with a mon'keigh that was starting to smell as bad as the forest's mud seemed unbearable to her. With that, after a moment of finding the correct words and formulating her response, she answered.
"I bathed in it and I am health!" confident he at least had an idea as to what she was talking about, though it took him a moment before he blatantly shot back.
"Well don't wail at me if you suddenly start gakking red"
Once again, the guardsman had pushed her to her limit, this time with his stubbornness and she immediately broke into a screaming fit.
"JUST BATHE!" she yelled, bringing Tymon to full attention as he turned to face her.
"YOU REEK LIKE GAK-HOLE!" the eldar continued, bringing her newly learnt piece of vocabulary to bear. The guardsman quickly got to his feet, raising his voice in return, prompting 'knife-ear' to get up too.
"Oh do I?!"
"YES!" Her hair gently shaking for a moment as she screamed her response.
"Well I can fracking guarantee you that it'll be even worse if I start PUKING MY GUTS UP!" He shot back.
"Tymon I~... GAAAHHHHHH!" With that exclamation, she suddenly started to speak in a language entirely unfamiliar to him, presumably native eldar.
"Oh and now you're speaking luna runes! Frack you!" After his snide half tired response, she unholstered her shuriken pistol and quickly pointed it to his face, catching Tymon off guard, though that did not stop him from reacting as he quickly shouldered his lasgun at her, putting the pair into a silence ridden stalemate.
"Is this where we just shoot each other?" he eventually asked after dozens of seconds.
"You would die first" she answered with that same cold voice as previously, though Tymon remained unphased.
"And you would be injured on a necron planet" This once again brought back the silent component of their stalemate for dozens more seconds until 'knife-ear' this time broke the silence, seeing the futility in this stalemate;
"We should point weapons down…" she said, giving in to the situation, slowly regretting allowing him to be armed in the first place.
"Right…" Tymon slowly answered, lowering his weapon at the same time as 'knife-ear' and slinging the gun back over his shoulder while the eldar remounted hers on her hip and then there they stood, still facing each other, sans their weapons this time yet simply not knowing what to do until 'knife-ear' broke the silence once again:
"You need to bathe…" This quickly elicited another scoff from Tymon's lips as he looked away in partial embarrassment.
"You need to!" she persisted, subconsciously admitting to herself that it would only make her life easier on a trivial level. The embarrassed Tymon, still very weary of the possibility of indigenous parasites finding their home inside his stomach, was about to recite his point again, but stopped himself realising that they would just reach the same point they were at minutes prior. So, also seeing the futility in the situation, he answered:
"You're not gonna shut your trap unless I do, are you?" his again irritated gaze now fixed on her, though it took her a moment to answer as her lack of low gothic vocabulary failed her once again;
"Yeess?" she answered, almost inquisitive sounding as Tymon half scoffed half laughed at her response.
She doesn't even know what I mean.
Seeing that this argument will go nowhere but in circles unless he bathed in potentially parasite infested waters, he finally acquiesced:
"Okay, off we go" he said defeated, flinging his arms up beside him and letting them fall limp again, the thought of parasites congregating in his bowels sickening him.
"Okay, walk there" she answered, sounding almost relieved as she gestured to their right. Past the cave she had set up camp in, was an area that seemed almost overgrown but with a swath right through the middle where plants were either cut or pushed aside. Wordlessly, the guardsman made his way towards the parting of plants as the eldar simply stood by his side and waited for him to pass her and, when he did, she followed him a metre behind.
Again, the thought that Tymon was finally accepting her as the 'leader' came back. He seemed to have acquiesced to her demands for him to bathe, even though it took an armed stalemate and incredible persistence, though at the same time, she had trouble even fathoming having the issues he was concerned of. While he seemed burly, well built and fit, if he was truly vulnerable to natural microscopic beings that lived within the very substance his species relied on, he was in actuality incredibly fragile. That thought immediately brought into question his usefulness, sure he was physically strong and, were he not as predictable as the rest of his kind, he would likely win against her in a balanced hand to hand combat situation, but if parasites or other such microscopic beings put him at risk, what use truly was he. However, like clockwork, as soon as his usefulness was brought into question, that same part of her mind that kept yearning for company rapidly shut it down, this time under the pretense that she had already 'wasted resources' on him and that she may as well get what she can out of their coexistence. Though that did not stop her from again thinking she was getting through to him as the pair waded through the much taller grass, some of which, like the grass in the obelisks' clearing, was swaying to avoid them.
Ten minutes of the rarity that was walking on firm ground on this planet put the two into a clearing inhabited only by a small lake encircled by various flora; ranging from the coloured plants that receded into their little pods upon approach, to huge strands of the aversive grass. But the plants were not the only living things that rested here, for between the plants that made the floral ring around the lake were dozens of tiny but gently glowing winged insects, skydancing in erratic yet graceful patterns all over the enshrouding flora. Though that floral ring was incomplete; near the mouth of the entrance to this natural enclosure, was an area wherein the plants were none and where one would have immediate access to the lake.
"This it?" Tymon awkwardly asked the eldar who had emerged behind him less than a moment later.
"It is here" his co-survivor answered, having a rough but sufficient understanding of what the guardsman said. Tymon half expected the lake to smell of the half functional plumbing system of the cruiser 'Telion', aboard which he was assigned but to his surprise, the entire enclosure was odourless if perhaps slightly humid. After some moments of thought on how he would go about bathing in these foreign waters, he decided to pursue the first two things on his mind; privacy and the outright refusal to bathe in front of a xeno.
"Alright, off you go" he said, assuming she would get the indirectly spoken message.
"What?" The xeno confusedly sputtered out, earning her a more enunciated: "Off you go" but all she gave in return was a defiant and insisting response of:
"No I am waiting here"
"I'm not gonna skinny-dip with you standing there" he said, his own defiance matching her own.
"What is skinny-dip?" she rapidly shot back, her hands wide with confusion.
"Oh for~" Tymon groaned, his head in his hand as the seemingly widening language barrier grew ever more apparent.
"Look, just go back to your... camp thing, and I'll come over when I'm done, alright?" the guardsman practically commanded.
"No! I am waiting here!" her insistence remained, bringing out an annoyed confusion in the guardsman.
"But… Why!?" he almost pleaded.
"Because I don't…!" in her mind, her response was ready, though again, her limited vocabulary failed her.
"I don't know the words!" she said, sounding completely defeated as she was about to turn around and leave him to his devices, but the 'mon'keigh' answered.
"Of course you don't…" he said with exasperation "Honestly, at this point, it just seems like you want to see me without my armour!" That sentence, however satirical it may be, shocked her to the core as she realised what he meant and she refocused her attention on him.
"I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THAT!" the now deeply insulted eldar screamed as the pair erupted into another tirade.
"Well thank the emperor for clearing that up!" Tymon shot back, but all the eldar suddenly did was start speaking in her own tongue again with a desperate exasperation, eliciting another angered response from the guardsman.
"Oh for fracks sake…" he answered as he put his head in his hands, but this alien speech of hers was short lived as she answered once again.
"I do not believe you with weapon!" Once again, the guardsman was at a loss as to what she was trying to say.
"What the warp does that mean…" he answered, his face stricken with an ever more desperate exasperation until she eventually and with a stunted syntax, explained her point.
"You will shoot me when I… come to my camp" for a split second she might have seemed proud of her explanation.
"Wait as in…" the exasperation drained from his face as he finally realised what she was trying to say.
"You mean you don't trust me?" his response brought forth nothing but a dumbfounded expression upon her face which rapidly replaced her momentary proudness.
"What~what is trust?" This response almost brought Tymon to angered tears as once again, that language barrier grew wider, but he pressed on as laconically as humanly possible.
"You think… that I am going to shoot you in the back when you're gone…"
"Yes! Yes!" her face lit up ever so slightly with enthusiasm again as they came another baby step closer to understanding each other properly.
"Yeah, that means you don't trust me!" However Tymon in no way reciprocated her enthusiasm as she answered,
"Yes! I don't trust you!"
"Okay..." he paused for a moment. "You do realise… I will be naked and unarmed… in the water…"
"Yes?" the eldar answered
"Right… So tell me…" he paused again, now in complete disbelief at the fact that he was explaining this to her.
"What is a naked and bathing guardsman going to do to a paranoid and armed… eldar!?" he half screamed, momentarily forgetting what to call her by. The eldar was moments before firing back, but quickly realised that the human was again making sense, that was assuming he decided to bathe in the first place.
"So are you still gonna just stand there?" This was met with a stone cold, but somewhat embarrassed silence on the eldar's part as she did just stand there for many moments, but she eventually responded in the form of embarrassedly walking back through the path between the plants that brought them to the lake in the first place.
"Thank you!" he screamed behind her before exclaiming the words: "Frack me!" to himself once she was further down the path.
As soon as she was out of view, Tymon with a sigh, slung his weapon from his shoulder and laid it down beside him, then taking his helmet off and unclipping his flak vest, letting both pieces of equipment fall to the ground, her distrust simply leaving his mind wandering. Just one day prior, he had an opportunity to ambush her, one which he had opted against taking, even being the first to lower his weapon, yet she still refused to trust him. He quickly stopped wondering however when he reminded himself that she was still eldar, a sworn enemy of the imperium. Sure he had heard rumours that both species, on occasion had worked side by side under the guise of so called 'alliance' but, as far as he was concerned; it was public knowledge amongst the astra militarum that the eldar despised humanity as a species. With that, his mind wrapped up this train of thought with the conclusion that she did not trust him simply because he was human and she was eldar. He had practically been taught never to trust an eldar during basic training, frequently being told that their species was by nature manipulative and that they saw humanity as beneath them, it was entirely possible that she had a similar mentality. Yet ironically, she needed his help to prevent her from freezing to death the night before and he had not yet needed anything from her. With that thought, a small part of him began to question these teachings as he continued to remove his equipment and clothing in preparation to wade into the waters and clean himself off.
