I grimly add ‘climbing any mountain’ to my long list of worst ideas ever. There wasn't a part of me that didn't feel foolish for boasting that false, naïve courage – as if my shrinking self could be courageous. While the stranger gaps and struggles for an explanation, I experience an unwelcome wash of heat which flowers across my face. A distressed sigh is the last he'd possibly overhear before our bond corrodes away. Flustered, my body squirms and pulls itself tighter against the wall. Regretfully, these optics sink into the rocky terrain. The longer we stand idle, the more my coat begins to crawl with damp anticipation and discomfort. To make things worse, there is a distinct pounding in my head as the blood quickens.

When he responds doubtfully, I hopelessly wish to shrink into the stone; disappear, become like a bug on the wall -- or better yet, transform into something gracefully and lean. Like the hind, with her sure, strong legs and tempered heart. But more than anything I yearned to be moving forward again. Sadly between him and the lack of exits…moving isn’t on the current agenda. He continues to stand in stupor, looking this way and that – these lungs drag a breath of thin air as I force myself to sharpen. Glancing up, my soul summons another string of magic. These time when my talent reaffirms itself, I thicken the cord and harden our link; aiming to solidify my presence in his mind.

In the continued attempt to wash away his doubt, my conscious cracks open the floodgate – allowing him a glimpse of the stormy emotions colliding within me. He’d feel my terror of high places, how it erodes my courage and sickens me; the meek determination that brought me here and the desperation to make him see. Even though fear and resolve are powerful emotions, they are raw colors and instinctual surface types. Before he can think to dive deeper, taking more than what’s been offered, I cut them off and seal the gate until there is nothing but a trickle. “No more than you,” I reply, lukewarm and far more assertive than I felt. A quick upsurge of guilt consumes me like the plague and I battle to stay neutral in our bond. As we stagnate hundreds of feet in the air, my ability to think straight is impaired. Plus the pounding in my ears makes it nearly impossible to tell if his response is born from bemusement or a spiteful disposition.

Had we been on the ground, my answer might have been to laugh at his poor taste at a joke – maybe even go as far to tease along with the unusually clad man. “Please,” I quiver, reddening at the sound of my desolate plea, “Can we keep moving?” the soft side of my body is firmly squished against the mountain-face, forcing bits of granite to jab painfully into me.