Ningning stood by the creek, her breath coming in rapid, white puffs that vanished into the sharpening wind.
The second pot was full, the grey-black mud settled inside like a heavy, cold heart.
She looked at the third, empty pot sitting on the bank.
The trip down the slope had been easy enough, but the wind was starting to whistle through the bare branches of the trees, a low, moaning sound that suggested the weather was shifting faster than the morning sun.
"Doudou, what's the wind speed?" she asked, wiping a smudge of grit from her cheek.
[Gusting at twenty-five kilometers per hour, Ningning. The barometric pressure is continuing its slow slide. If you do this in two separate trips, you'll be fighting a headwind for an extra twenty minutes. Your caloric reserves are already at thirty percent.]
"Thirty percent." she muttered, looking at the empty pot. "If I go back up and come down again, I'm going to be too tired to even stir the salt in. I have to finish the haul now."
