Day 09 - Morrigan

I made it back. I cannot believe I made it back.
My thermal gear was seconds from failing when I stumbled into Fort Blanket. I am still shaking. I cannot decide if it is from the cold or from what I witnessed.
The moments returning are a blur. The long trek back, the tunnel guards shouting and raising their weapons, Frozen Boba rushing through the snow tunnels just in time to catch me as I collapsed from exhaustion. All I know for certain is this: we now carry something of great value, and it will be preserved forever.
Icecream and I had been hiking up the snowy mountains. The moment we reached the foot of the range, the wind changed. It whipped across the surface with a force that stole the breath from my lungs. It stung my eyes and burned my throat the same way it did on the day I first arrived, yet we pressed forward in pursuit of knowledge.
My new guide walked ahead with a steady pace, confident, but alert to the dangers of this place. He told me that if we were going to find her anywhere, it would be near a forbidden stone.
Forbidden stones, he explained, are her feeding grounds. On Fort Blanket’s maps they are marked as off-limits spawning stones, high in the mountains of Sector 4, which Morrigan has claimed for herself. Occasionally she will claim a new stone in a lower sector, and the cartographers then have to update their maps.
As we walked, we passed toppled dead trees. In the middle of a clearing was a shallow pit– a giant perfect circle, that should have been filled not too long ago by the raging snowy winds. Icecream warned me to keep my senses sharp, saying that my instincts in a place like this were stronger than his.
I remembered what Cattail once told me about sensing danger.