Weather interrupt

As the storm grew stronger, the visibility grew proportionally weaker. They could no longer see eachother if the distance between them extended more than a few meters.
Njoro felt uneasiness build up inside her, a feeling that would surely cloud her inner vision, if it were to become any stronger.
This would not do them any good. They needed her vision to be as clear as possible to be able to move securely ahead.
Pi had halted his dogs just ahead of her. As she caught up with him, he looked at her with his ever-smiling eyes and told her in his assuring voice: "We might have to take a rest for the day. This storm's not gonna give in for the next few hours, and the light will soon go."
He made it sound like he was passing on some really happy news, like the birth of a new child in the family, or a greeting from a very good old friend that sent you his warmest love.
She was freezing cold, she felt exhausted, and increasingly anxious about the whole situation. But her slight negative charge didn't stand a chance up against Pi's considerable positivity.
"Let's just wait here for Mungpuk and Sha-Ton. We'll have to dig a snow cave. I can start right away."
As she watched him get to work, she wondered whether this was going to be another one of those terrible nights, with icy cold and wet clothes that had to be taken with you inside the reindeer-fur sleeping bags to be slowly melted by your body heat. Or would they use some extra fuel to make the fire big enough to hang their clothes to dry inside the cave?
She knew what she’d prefer.
She let the dogs loose, and fed them some of the bear meat from the sledge. They had two whole bears split between the two teams, so food was not the biggest problem. Not that she didn't dream of fresh vegetables or a dish of spicy dal and a cold (yes, cold - provided the surroundings and the dal was steaming with heat), sweet lassi.
They always kept some of the dogs tied up, as any curious polar bear would get the dogs trying to chase it out on the ice again. But not tonight. No bear would walk around in this weather, and if it did, it was more likely that it would just curl up and go to sleep next to the dogs to keep warm. At least she thought so from her own, freezing perspective.
"You can start moving the equipment and food inside."
Pi had their shelter for the night ready. She knew that what was just another hostile heap of snow less than an hour ago would soon feel like home. She crawled through the tunnel and into the main chamber, put out the skins to sleep on, and rigged the lamp for burning the walrus fat. She hated the smell. It got into their clothes, hair, mouths. She felt like the rest of her life would smell like this when they got back home. If. She shrugged, and abandoned the thought immediately.
"Can you feel the others?" Pi's head was in the entrance tunnel, surrounded by the fur-hood of his coat, making him look like some kind of fur sun.
"I'll try."
She sat up and rigged herself in the middle of the cave, kept her back as straight as she could, closed her eyes, and let the pictures come to her.
"It seems they've done the same."
"Ok? Far back?"
"No. Something about a dog with a wounded paw. Wait. Sha-Ton must have left the picture for me... There's something blue there... Morning. Still waters. The two of us tied to this cave in some way or other... Shit."
"What?"
"Nothing. Noise.", she lied. The last picture was actually of the two of them tied together, but no way she'd pass that one on. What an asshole Sha could be. They were the only ones on the trip with proper skills on the insight, so they had to look after all the communication. But he kept putting in small, teasing details for her, maybe hoping that she would forget to filter the pictures and burst the bubble to Pi. The last thing she wanted was for Pi to know that she was the laughing stock of the rest of the whole entourage due to her mixed-up feelings towards him.
"I think he's saying 'wait till the blue light dawn tomorrow, if the wind has stilled, hang on in your cave, and we'll catch up before moving further'."
"Aha! Good. Good. Let's eat. And make a fire to dry our clothes."
She actually looked forward to yet another pot of stewed bear. And the smell of the walrus-fat lamp.