Rite of Fortitude for Pandora, Xinji and Calliope

It was still dark outside as Lynn woke up. Today was the day! She was up to do a long journey with her Tokota Xinji , her friends Sapphire and Isabella and their Tokotas Pandora and Calliope. Lynn stood up and packed a lot of provisions rashly. Soon she had packed all the things in a quite big saddle back. Only a few minutes later, she was already running  together with Xinji, a tawny tokota, to the meeting point for the journey start. As she saw Sapphire and Isabella standing at the meeting point , she started screaming: "Hi Sapphire! Hi Isabella!". Out of breath she came to a stop in front of them. "Sorry that I'm late" she said while trying to catch her breath. Xinji greeted Pandora and Calliope with a loud but friendly bark. The two Tokotas answered with a bark too.
"We can talk later! Let's go now!" Sapphire said amused and grabbed the halter of Pandora, the merle Tokota female.  "Yes let's go now!" Lynn answered and followed Sapphire and Isabella that started riding in the direction of the forest. "We have five days time to reach the village and therefore our goal" Isabella said while walking. "Will be difficult I think" Sapphire said.
"We can do it for sure, right?" Lynn whispered to Xinji grinning. He barked approvingly. "That's my boy!" she said loudly and laughed.
The three rode into the forest. Lynn looked around herself. It was a beautiful morning in this snow-covered coniferous forest. Here and there they saw animals running around, looking for eatable stuff. Sometimes Calliope tried chasing  a bird and gave Isabella a lot of trouble or Pandora got afraid of sudden movements in the bushes, but other than that it was a nice walk through the forest. After some hours riding through the forest, Lynn had terrible back pains. "Can we do a break please?" she called to Isabella and Sapphire. "What's up, Lynn? We only rode about an hour yet." Sapphire said.
"Three hours, Sapph" Isabella contradicted.
" Oh really? Three hours? Well anyway... I think we should go on a little longer. Otherwise we won't make it in five days. ", Sapphire answered.
"But I have back pains from riding. " Lynn said while rubbing her back with her hand. "Very terrible back pains!"
Sapphire sighted. "...Alright" she said with a kind of disappointed tone.
Together they searched for a nice sitting place and found three big stones. Lynn climbed down of Xinji's saddle and took one of the stones to sit down. Sapphire and Isabella also climbed down of their saddles and sit down on the two remaining stones. After some minutes eating and drinking, Lynn folded out a hand drawn map. "We are here right now" she said and pointed to the sketchy drawn forest on the paper. "If we take the path through this mountain pass we can make it in five days. One day to reach the end of this forest, three days to cross the mountain and another day to reach the village." she continued and followed the path on the map with her finger. Isabella and Sapphire nodded approvingly. "Where should we camp?" Sapphire asked.
"I think the safest spots should be here, here, here and here." Isabella pointed on certain spots on the maps.
"Alright!" Lynn said and put the map back in her pocket. "I think we can continue now!"

The three stood up shaking and stretching their muscles and then climbing up the saddle again.
Hours and hours they were riding through the forest only taking a few breaks. Step by step not only Lynn, Isabella and Sapphire got tired and lost strength, but also their three Tokotas couldn't walk anymore. Calliope, the black half mane tokota of Isabella snorted with every step and stopped from time to time from exhaustion. Isabella encouraged her to continue walking. Also Xinji and Pandora were growling at their handlers to show them, that they are tired. "Come one, Xin, please! " Lynn begged. Xinji snorted as an "ok". They forced themselves to walk till it was already dark. The end of the forest was near and they took camp on a clearing. As fast as they could they built up the tent and went to sleep very soon.
The next morning was hell for all of them. Their muscles were arching and their minds were blank of tiredness. Isabella awaked of her daze first. " Sapph, Lynn! Hurry up!" she called. Sapphire was still rubbing her eyes, when Lynn already was fasten the saddle on Xinji. "Here, Xin, some food for you! We have four more hard days before us." Lynn said and gave Xinji a piece of meat. Xinji ate the meat as fast as a vacuum cleaner. "Hey, you will get a stomach ache, if you eat that quick!" Lynn scolded him. Xinji ignored the scolding of Lynn and shacked his body. "Can we go?" Isabella asked. "YEEeees!" Lynn grumbled.
"You know that we have to reach the village very soon!" Isabella said sounding kind of annoyed. Then a long discussion started between the two.
It ended with the words "You really never are at time, Lynn...", when Lynn turned around to get some help from Sapphire. "Sapph, what do yo--" she stopped talking. Sapphire disappeared and so did Pandora. "Where the hell did they disappear to!?" Lynn said loudly.
"She was here just a minute ago. They can't be gone too far. Let's search them!" Isabella said.
"Yes!" Lynn answered and swung herself on the saddle. "Look there are footprints of Pandora in the snow!"
With these words they followed the track. "Maybe they have gone ahead? The footprints go to the mountain we have to pass." Isabella hoped.
"Hmmm... Maybe..." Lynn said. Some hours later they were still searching for Pandora and Sapphire and it began snowing too. Beautiful snowflakes were raining down from the sky and fell on the ground, but this was actually a bad thing for them. The footprints started to be covered by the new snow. "We have to hurry and find them, Isabella!" Lynn shouted. They already started to climb the mountain as they followed the track. The snowing got harder and the sight got bad too. All footprints were covered up quickly and there was no sign of Sapphire and Pandora. "We have to search for a save place. A snow storm is nearing" Isabella said sounding worried. Lynn nodded to agree. "I hope Sapph is fine..." Lynn said.
Isabella and Lynn quickly found a cave and took shelter in it. It was only a very small hollow and the coldness was leaking everywhere, while the storm outside got worse. They sat down on the ground taking a short break. Also eating a few things to get some energy.
Suddenly they heard a loud squeak. "What was that?" Lynn asked looking to Isabella as another squeak could be heard. The black half mane Tokota Calliope stand up barking at Lynn and Isabella. Then Xinji joined in. "They want to tell us something!" Lynn said. "We have to go where the squeak came from!"
"But it's dangerous to go outside in this bad weather!" Isabella said.
"We have to go! Maybe it's Pandora and Sapph" Lynn explained almost screaming, because of the loudness of the storm outside.
"Ok, you are right..." Isabella nodded and climbed up the saddle on Pandora. "Come little girl, show me were the squeak came from." , she said softly.
Together they rode in the terrible storm outside. The wind was blowing hardly and both Isabella and Lynn were freezing even in their thick clothes. Seeing was hard and hearing too with the loud blowing of the wind. They took every step slowly, because they didn't want to lose each other.
Finally Xinji was barking to show that they have reached what they were searching for. "Sapph!" Lynn screamed. Sapphire was kneeling in the snow reaching out to a little snow fox cub that almost fell over the gorge. Now his life was depending on Sapphire as he was hanging over the cliff only save from falling thanks to Sapphire holding it. Lynn jumped of the saddle and helped Sapphire standing up and took the fox cub from her. "What are you doing outside in such a terrible stormy weather!? Well enough for now...Quick we have to go back to a save place now!" she called and looked out for Pandora. She saw her standing near Sapphire together with an adult snow fox and two more little cubs. Lynn looked confused. Sapphire was starting to explain the situation, when Lynn told her that she could explain it later and they would bring the foxes with them. Together they went back to the cave. Everybody was cold and wet, when they reached it. Their teeth were chattering loudly and produced an echo in the cave. Sapphire wanted to explain everything that happened once they have taken off the wet clothes and eaten something. When they finished that, they sat down on a small blanket and Sapphire started to explain that she wanted to go ahead to play a little prank on the brawlers and then saw the fox family and followed them. She said that she actually wanted to wait for them, when it started snowing, but she wanted the fox family to be save and therefore continued to follow them.  Then the thing happened, which the two already saw, the little cub almost falling off the cliff. Sapphire put a lot of detail in her explaining. Especially the cuteness of the fox cubs and her regret of playing this prank on them. She saw over to the foxes once in a while. They were lying in a corner of the cave drinking milk by their mother and gave of a warm feeling.  Lynn and Isabella also watched the fox family sometimes and listened to Sapphires talking silently and focused until she was finished.
"But even though... don't do something stupid like this again!" Isabella said loudly and a little angry, but relieved. "It could have been you falling from the cliff instead of the little fox"
"I know... I'm sorry!" Sapphire apologized with little tears in her eyes. Isabella took her in her arms. Hugging her. "It's ok" she said trying to comfort her.
"We have to stay together now and we also lost a lot of time. For today we can't walk anymore. Only three more days till we have to reach the village. Tomorrow we have to be fast" Lynn said and everyone prepared for sleeping as it was evening outside already.
"Good night!" Isabella said, when all of them were lying in their sleeping back. "Good night!" Sapphire replied and this was the last thing Lynn heard, until she fell asleep.
The  next two days were hard days. After seeing off the fox family they were trying to get the time back and walked as fast as they could with only very few breaks being made. They were quick and no real complications occurred. On the end of every day they had hurting muscles and tired minds. When the fifth and last day of the journey came they stood up very early. It was still dark outside. The stars were shining bright and they looked up to see them from time to time. Once it was daytime they had reached the bottom of the mountain.

It became a nice and sunny day and they could see the village on the horizon. Everyone was enthusiastic with the goal before their eyes now. The Tokotas walked faster with every step they were nearing the village. "We are almost there!" Lynn said happily. "Yeah!" both Isabella and Sapphire said at the same time.
"Let's see, who is first there!" Lynn yelled and gave Xinji the signals to run. The other two also started to join the race with a cheerful laugh. "Come one, Xin! Faster!" she said also laughing. The wind was blowing in their faces and gave them an awesome feeling. Xinji ran with all of his might, till he and Lynn reached the village some steps before the others. But everybody had a big smile on their face. The long and hard journey had ended. All efforts were worth for this one amazing moment.