It has become harder to rush ahead. The thrill of the journey still calls to her, and burns in all the same places with all the same insistence. But in the rain and through these hills, the going is slow. She cannot remember being dry. She cannot remember being warm. She [i]can[/i] remember rushing headlong toward the horizon, which is why she looks so frustrated now. 

It is not that her legs aren't up to the task. She has strong muscles that can carry more than her fair share of the weight. She has the will to pull herself out of the mud over and over and over again. But the party has slowed down around her, and she is obliged to circle back and make sure that everybody is keeping pace. It is dangerous to become separated in all this downpour. Rest is called for frequently. Tents are pitched, though no one seems to have thought to learn how to set them properly. 

She can't remember their names. Or if they had any. It doesn't matter; she has their number and that's enough to get on by. She has a number, too. Is a number. Was a number. And a number is like a name, when you've got nothing else to use. She does the counting at every sodden campsite. First the golden haired dreamer, then the mice who cling so closely to her for protection (hers? theirs?), and then the girls she cannot help but call Sister even though none of them look alike or could possibly have been born to the same parents. Then the kindly sheep and the gregarious lion. At the Thirteenth slot she remembers to count herself, so her count doesn't fall one short and send her into panic. 

Maybe that is meant to be her number. But she is sick of it. Or maybe she's just tired of the rain, it's hard to tell. Irritation builds on her in driving waves until she is permanently wearing a scowl, and nobody wants to be around her very long if they can help it (except for Re. Da. Na). She is weary of the counting, of needing to count. She is annoyed that she never remembers to start the count with herself, where it would be easiest. She is freezing and burning all at once with the need for new experiences, new food, new weather new... even if not new sights, then at least new rocks.

She's come a long way to look at rocks. They could at least be nice enough to be different rocks.

The rain does not pass. The rocks change but little. It is always slow going when you're crossing the mountains, no matter how great the need of your journey. But as the rivers form close to their paths, closing some off and opening up new ones. As the avalanches of mud and rock slide free and threaten the entire journey in a way she cannot help but find entrancing and beautiful. As the water soaks into her fur so deep that it can never come out again and the endless noise of rain is the only music her ears will ever know...

She comes at last to the buildings. To mountains that some hand has shaped. To flowers and gardens and glass covering everything, or so it seems to her. Nothing changes, really. But everything does. She is caught up in a deluge that washes her away even though it does not budge her a single centimeter. Her clothes remain soaked, but these flatter her form. Her body drips from every crevice, but the water serves to soothe the itch that's hounded her from the moment she set eyes on her plover. Not enough to douse it, but enough to content her with the pace that they are making. Forward is, after all, still forward. 

But more than anything, the sound of the rain is different. As it plinks across walls and panes and the wonders of the pyramids it becomes more than just the rush of a downpour and the drumming on her aching ears. It is the sound of bells. She knows this to the very core of her heart: there's no more beautiful sound than a bell. It's enough to make her cry, though in the storm it's not a thing anybody else might notice. But she is crying just for her, and for the loveliness of this sound that soothes her body like medicine. 

She is washed clean. The mud drips out of her fur and her skin, her hair smooths out enough that she can keep it out of her eyes. She lifts a hand and calls for the tents to be pitched again. Time to rest and time to count. Time to eat cold food from a can and not even mind it in the slightest.

She begins the count with herself. That's the easiest way to make sure she gets everybody, after all. And then the Dreamer, the Mice, her Sisters, the sheep...

Someone new can be Thirteen.