This Is Hell.

If he was not stuck in the desert he might regard these strange formations with suspicion and unease but as it is he has maybe 30% of his brain online and so much of it is dedicated to telling him he is in pain and any not-wholly-negative aesthetic change in the landscape is a plus at this point.

Wow, this is terrible. Poor everyone. She is vaguely miserable with heat and she is used to it, comparatively. The geology is so pretty, though.

Lev feels fine! It feels like a warm summer day in Savannah. His skin does not chafe; his sweat is light. He is grateful and worried.

Zoe feels like she is dying with every step and RESENTS Lev his light attitude.

On the fourth day, Zoe feels like she has never been so hot in her life. Her clothes cling to her body, no longer even wet— all sweat has long since evaporated from the husk her body is becoming. Blinking her eyes no longer lubricates them against the dust, so she leaves them closed for long moments, forging ahead blindly, listening for the motorcycle. Her head pounds. Her feet and bottom ache. Even her hands are stabbed with sharp pains in this—

Zoe has taken a huge, bloody bite out of the fleshy part of her thumb.

Zoe comes back to attention with a small lump of warm, wet flesh in her mouth and a rivulet of blood running down a forearm.

Zoe stares at her hand and shrieks, then starts choking on her own thumb chunk.

Sister Waletta brakes hard, crosses herself, and stares blankly for a moment before hurrying over to see how bad the damage is and what needs to be done about it.

Oswald feels deeply nauseated. There isn't much food in his stomach and it's important to keep it all down but he can still feel some of it force its way back up his throat.

Zoe manages to cough up and spit out the missing piece of her hand. She clumsily tries to put it back while wailing.

Araari freezes up entirely, chanting prayers to herself. She feels.... distant, and detatched, and not much of anything. Probably she should do something? Eventually she manages to move again and help Sister Waletta bandage up Zoe's wound. She's very efficient at it and also for the rest of the day she continues feeling like she's somewhere behind, frozen, watching her body do things.

Mordred looks at Zoe for a few long seconds, not really processing where the blood is coming from, and then says "Oh fuck."

Some time later--

Zoe sees that she is being watched from a far-off hilltop by a single camel rider silhouetted against the far-off mountains, who’s openly observing them with a pair of binoculars. From his dress, he looks like a native Afar.

Oswald sees the man and also that [cw body horror] his entire body is covered with scars.

Well, that's disturbing. Um. "Does anyone else see the man watching us?"

(In the distance, a thick pall of flies rises off a jackal’s body, lying ignored on the ground.)

"Yes, I see him."

Magnificence Does Not Like This Place and is still very confused about why Zoe has decided to bite herself.

Zoe feels VERY similarly.

Why Do Humans Bite Themselves.

A Mystery.

So Many Unknowns.

She fears that her hand won't heal enough for her to use it in her routines anymore, but she is too dehydrated to cry.

Mordred has wanted to bite himself more often than he hasn't for the last few days and honestly Zoe is profoundly relatable.

"Let's not... focus on him too long," Oswald says after a moment. "I'm not sure he should be sure we've spotted him. Those are a lot of battle scars."

"I'm not sure they are battle scars - remember the, the thing the person asked about Anemone's hands when we were in LA -"