During these days, Yves had done this thing where he told himself, “I will take a break when I see some suitable ruins.” Yet, with every approaching set of ruins, he had found reasons to dismiss them. It was self-deception disguised as determination. The first he deemed unsafe for rest, confident to find more secure shelter with the next. Bearable weather deferred respite at the subsequent ruins. He had thought something like, “It would be a waste to stop now. I should press on and rest when conditions worsen.” This pattern persisted. After two more days, when he yet again discovered discernible stone structures, he convinced himself, “I feel halfway allright. I should continue until I feel really sick again,” only to acknowledge, upon reaching the next ruins, that he was in so much pain that he believed moving his body, let alone getting up and stepping down from the sled, was an insurmountable task. As much as Yves struggled with the pain on some days, there were equally as many when he did not consciously register anything, neither within himself nor any changes in his surroundings.
By the end of his twentieth day, he reached both his breaking and braking point. At the brink of physical and mental exhaustion, losing control of the Levitation Staff and sled, Yves reached a moment of reckoning. He could not sit any longer. He could not stay awake. Yves understood he should not stop. Rest could mean surrender. He might never rise again. However, as he now came across another scattering of ruins, he knew they marked the end of the line.
Stone remnants of ancient Tairan settlements, overtaken first by humans and now by time, stood as simplistic caves. They whispered of respite. Passing these rocky echoes of a bygone era just past midnight, Yves brought the sled to a halt. He resolved to rest through the witching hour and resume the journey the moment the veil of Teharun would lift, no later.
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