The wind whipped against him. The fabric of his cloak cracked loudly as it snapped against itself. Snow had begun to fall heavier than before, and the sun was well on its way to setting. Shadows cast by the rocks now consumed much of the path before him. The peak above was no longer visible, the stone merging into the black sky. He decided it would be futile to climb any higher today.

He sat beneath an outcrop of stone, and held himself tightly. unprepared in all ways except in his constitution. His stomach rumbled loudly, but he heard only the whistle of the wind through the rocks above. Soon, the light had vanished near entirely, and he could see little more then the vague shapes of his surroundings. He tried to picture what they looked like a moment before, reconstructing the image in his mind, but the more he grasped, the more they slipped away. And so he closed his eyes and listened instead.

He heard the sound of snowfall, or at least the way it dampened everything else. But it was not quiet. The wind threw off its blanket of silence with howls matched by wolves in the distance. He listened to his breathing, and the sound of the blood in his ears that came and went as he tensed and shivered. He tried to live in the moments between gusts of wind; from one to the next.

Crack! His cloak slapped the rock.

"I need only make it until the next gust."

Crack! The fabric twisted upon itself, and became entwined between his huddled legs.

"What a lovely thing to have this cloak, at least"

Crack! It lifted and whipped against his back.

"Only one more."

Crack!Crack! The sound of two cloaks whipping in unison.

His eyes shot open. He could suddenly see. A figure stood over him holding a lantern. The heat from it tickled his face gently, and he yearned to grab the flame; to let it envelop him completely. He resisted.

"What are you doing?" the figure asked. It was a woman.

"Climbing the mountain."

"You are sitting under a rock."

"Yes."

"What are you doing?" She asked again.

"Sitting under a rock. Shivering, I suppose."

"Why?"

"Because I wish to be climbing the mountain."

"Why?"

"Because no man has climbed this mountain before."

"I see. I too am here to climb the mountain."

"Why?"

"Because no man has climbed this mountain before."

"I see." he said, his voice sinking low, "that would make us competitors then. Only one of us can be the first to climb this mountain."

"We will be competitors in the morning," she replied, "tonight you are shivering, and I have warmth."

And she did have warmth. She had a camp in a cave, with food, and blankets, and fire. He ate, and they talked until he forgot what the wind sounded like. Eventually, when the food was gone, and the fire was all but out, she showed him she had warmth more to give, and they spent the rest of the night entwined.

He awoke to light streaming into the cave, in a pool of which sat the woman. She smiled at him, and the cave became brighter still. "I suppose we are competitors now once again," she said, "perhaps it can wait until after breakfast?" She gestured toward some beans on a pan suspended over the fire.

"Somehow, my desire to compete seems to have walked from this cave in the night," he said as he stirred.

"Yesterday, you sat like a gargoyle perched on the frozen ground, resolute on climbing the mountain. Today you have no interest?"

"Yesterday, I imagined myself climbing down the mountain, triumphant but alone. Today I wish to climb down failed and with company."

"My company?"

"Who else?"

She smiled. They ate. Then they left the cave. The wind was gone, and the sun was warm on their skin. The trip up had taken him many days, but as he followed her lead, the climb down proved nearly complete after only a single day of laughter, and bashful glances. He wondered briefly how he had missed such a direct route up the mountain, but was ultimately too joyful to care.

Eventually, they came to the path that connected the mountain to a nearby village through the forest. As the land flattened, his mind filled with thoughts of the future. He had no doubt, though only a single night and a single day had passed, that he was to marry the woman he met on the mountain.

He looked down as he walked, and thought about the house he would build her, the might of his spirit turned away from adventure, and towards domestic life, a thought that had never so much as peeked into his view before that day. He endeavored to be a more determined husband than he ever was a mountain climber. He thought of how he would become better at everything he did, so he could do all things in her service, and to the quality she deserved. He planned to shave his face more often, and clean himself more thoroughly. He thought about how he would support her in sickness, and how he would defend her against the evils that wandered the valleys of this world. And finally, he thought of the right words to express this. He mulled over sentences and adjectives for a small eternity before he turned to tell her his intention, to tell her that he would devote everything he had to her. But she was no longer beside him.

He looked around, but she wasn't behind him either. He would backtrack through the forest for hours, but would never find her, for she was in a cave on the mountain, waiting. In time he came to know this. In time he understood why it really was that no man had ever climbed the mountain before. But he would never emerge from the forest that connected the village and the mountain. There now stands a new sapling somewhere in the undergrowth there.