The days are as difficult as ever, require enough concentration that any conversation that happens is casual and brief. Their primary focus is, as it should be, keeping themselves and each other alive.

Gustave never seems to fully relax, but it always gets a little easier to breathe when they've finished setting up camp for the night. He drifts over to Verso, leaving Maelle and Sciel to continue their warm and apparently engrossing conversation, and tips his head in hello as he takes a seat on the grass.

"You were really impressive today. Sincerely, I'm not sure we'd be getting along without you." The words are at odds with his dry, quiet delivery: effusive praise, like it's somehow become an inside joke.