"I suppose we should keep going," Vell said to Sonder after only a few minutes beneath the large tree they had taken shelter under.
"I thought you wanted to rest?" she asked.
"I did. I still do. I would also like to find somewhere else to do it. Perhaps somewhere actually dry?"
He stepped out from beneath the tree and let the full force of the rain hit him.
Sonder followed.
As luck would have it, they didn't have to wait long for the weather to change.
The rain grew lighter, then stopped altogether. The wind died away so suddenly that Sonder noticed it at once. The branches above them ceased their restless movement, and the forest fell quiet.
When they looked up, the clouds had darkened.
They spread across the entire sky, swallowing what little light remained. There was no break in them, no patch of blue or even a lighter shade of grey.
They seemed to have gathered into one enormous mass, hanging low over the land.
A rumble rolled across the sky.
The thunder lasted a long time and seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Then another rumble followed.
One faded into the next until it was difficult to tell where one ended and another began.
Yet there was no rain.
In some ways, it was better than what they had endured before.
They were no longer being soaked by rain or battered by the wind, and there was no hail striking the road.
Sonder watched the clouds, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
She had experienced strange weather before.
Still, there was something unsettling about the sky above them.
It looked as though the world had gone dark in the middle of the day.
"Well-" Vell began, then stopped himself. "Better keep quiet before some bad luck strikes me. But I am not entirely convinced this is better."
She turned her gaze to the road.
It stretched ahead into the gloom, disappearing between the trees.
She had wanted their journey to be simple. There didn't have to be sunshine and rainbows, but constant rain and wind followed by dark clouds and thunder were definitely not what she had wanted.
But then she looked at Vell, standing beside her with his wet, bedraggled hair, and a small smile returned to her face.
"Should we keep going?" she asked.
Vell gave the sky one last, unhappy look.
Seroti couldn't be that far away, not after all the time they had already spent traveling.
Just another day, and they would be there.
Even if they had no money and knew no one there, they could stop at a tavern to rest and dry off. That seemed to be Vell's top priority at the moment.