Excellent. 

After the food is eaten and the leftovers packed away, Samora starts up a Marching Chant. The incantation is less like a sentence than a song, at times wordless, at times telling the party of their own strength and endurance with a bright, clear tune that makes it easy to believe. Jogging along deer paths and stomping through underbrush becomes as easy as walking up a well-made road. 

The food is good, but the song is lovely.  Marc hums along happily for a long while, until it's been enough hours without a conversation that he wants to talk to someone more than he wants to enjoy the music and the wonderfully effortless movement.  Not that he can exactly have a conversation, with Samora busy with her magic, but it's not very hard to get the more talkative hobbits to teach him some words in the local language as they walk.  He doesn't remember them perfectly, but he picks things up well enough over time, enjoys the interaction, and doesn't mind being laughed at when one of his mistakes turns out particularly funny.

The ability to say "I am walk many fast" isn't going to be very much use even once they correct all his grammar, but once he has even a bit of the language, it'll be easier to pick out more just by listening to everyone talk.

The hobbits thinks his accent is hilarious and are happy to do language lessons until they stop for supper and sleep.

This time Aragorn trusts Samora's qualifications as a watch-stander enough that he and Marc can get half a night of sleep each and still have coverage in two directions. Does Marc want first half or second half?

Oh good!  He'll take the first watch – the Sun here goes down earlier than his own did, so he's not sleepy in the evenings anyway. 

(He tries to explain this to the hobbits in Westron, for the sake of practice, and they all get into an entertaining muddle about it until Samora rescues them.)

Before the hobbits go to sleep, Samora deputizes Merry to make sure she has a fair share of stuff to carry tomorrow, even if she's impaired at the packing-things-into-bags part.

He will graciously do her this favor.

People are delightful. 

Samora and Aragorn agree that the best time to start on teaching Bill the Pony to Air Walk is during the lunch break, as all three of them need a shorter lunch break than the hobbits and doing it on the march would slow them down more. She prepped two copies this morning in case Aragorn wants one on himself to get the hang of it, demonstrate to Bill that it's safe, etc.

Aragorn would like to start by being the one to hand Bill his bucket of oats and then giving him a good brushing, but after that Air Walks for both of them would be excellent.

She tells Aragorn that the Air Walks last ninety minutes each and Bill that he's a very good boy who can do anything, gives them both Guidances, and stands back to watch an expert at work.

In the morning Marc gets Merry to tell him the Westron names for all the things in their baggage, and then gets into joking arguments with him about who should carry what.  (He doesn't actually want to deny Samora her desired fair share, though he's not sure how much that is.  Less than his, surely, but maybe not much less.)

He will also watch the Air Walks curiously, ready to help if there turns out to be need.

Aragorn wants his a few minutes before Bill gets one, to get a feel for it and also to get above the trees and survey the area. (If what he sees up there is surprising, he gives no sign of it.)

Then when Bill's spell is up, he tells Samora to watch everyone's backs and turns his focus entirely on the pony. His body language changes, and suddenly Bill is completely focused on him in return. They walk together over level ground, then over a slight dip that Aragorn doesn't go down into, and Bill is looking at Aragorn and not his own feet and doesn't go down either. And they turn, and drift slowly upward, and by the time Bill notices he's six inches above the ground. 

The first time they try it, Bill whinnies in alarm and runs back to ground level, and once there needs petting and calm deep-voiced reassurance to try again. The second and third attempts aren't much different. By the fourth try, he's willing to stand still in the air, and from there it's only a little additional coaxing to take a step. And then they head back down, calm and controlled, before Aragorn's Air Walk runs out.

Well that's really rather adorable, in addition to looking like a very fun sort of amazing magical thing to do.  Marc is definitely looking forward to getting to try it himself when they go over the river, and tells Samora so, grinning.

In the meantime he makes sure to do some watching for other dangers rather than getting entirely distracted, but he does ask Strider if he thinks it possible to teach Bill to walk through the air on his own rather than only when accompanied, and if having a second person so that he could go between them would be any help, even if on the ground.  It might be useful, if the river crossing goes less straightforwardly than they hope.

"A wise idea, if not for tomorrow then for the day after."

Oh good, they are planning on more practice. 

In the meantime they have another Marching Chant's worth of walking until the evening camp and supper, and afterward Marc can ask Samora all the Air Walk questions he couldn't bother her with while she was concentrating on the magic.  It's just such a fascinatingly touchable thing for magic to do - not a spell that simply does what it does and perhaps carries you along with it, but something you need to work with, and learn how to work with, on the same physical level as you might do any other thing.

"How does it work, exactly?  Do you just find the air solid under your feet no matter where you put them, or does it only stay level?  What happens if you fall?"

"So the funny thing is, today was my first time casting it on anyone. I've never actually tried it. But I've heard you can decide where the 'ground' is or how steep of a slope you're on and it just works, so long as each step carries you forwards at least as much as it carries you up. So you can't climb an imaginary ladder but you can walk upwards in a spiral. I'm not sure what would happen if someone else was air walking and tripped you but my guess is that you'd land on whatever level you'd been standing at."

"Ah, that's true, it wouldn't often be the most useful thing you can do, out of so many of them.  So, no ladders, and you can make a spiral staircase but you can't jump off of it?  Well, I can try that when you do it for everyone," grin.  "I really want to know what it's like to fight like that.  Not that I imagine there's reason to do that very often."  

"I have occasionally fought in the air, but it was with a different spell my friend Phrenk has that lets us move up and down and sideways freely as fast as we can run. And it was all indoors, so my fancy maneuvers were limited to staying on the other side of Phrenk and Marshall from the enemy while they closed to melee range."

"Oh that's even better!  Of course you'd have more than one.  But I expect it's for the best that there's a calmer way to walk on the air, for the pony's sake."

"... Do you ever do those things just for fun?  Or is that not something your goddess would want?"

"We're supposed to do something enjoyable for its own sake at least once a month. I have a good bit more downtime than that, because I tend to run out of combat spells for the day before I run out of things to do that aren't combat. I've flown for fun once or twice, but I'm more likely to spend an evening talking and singing and drinking with whoever's at the inn, or reading in the library, or doing some itemcrafting if there's a project we're in the middle of, or just walking around town enjoying the fresh air. How about you, what do you do when time isn't the thing you're short on?"

"Talking, drinking, singing, and walking around I am all quite happy to spend my time on.  Exercise, of just about any sort anyone's ever devised, though I do prefer the practical ones.  Temple services, or just prayer, though I don't imagine I'd do more of it often if an hour a day was required of me.  I'm not much of a scholar ...by which I mean I've never read an entire book."

"If we're ever not walking from first light to last, we should spar. I expect you'll get me ninety-nine times in a hundred, but I'm used to that from sparring with Marshall."

"We should."  He was rather hoping she'd offer.  "Though if you expect to get me even once ­– which I think you are right in, by the way you move – you will likely get me many times more than that, before I get used to striking at a woman without holding back.  Which I clearly should get used to.  I mean you no insult, it's just that I know I will need the practice – and that is a flaw you should take full advantage of while it lasts."  He sounds more cheerful than apologetic about it, really – he doesn't think she's the sort to be insulted instead of just hitting him until he improves, which will be far more enjoyable for them both than acting awkwardly polite about either side of the problem.

"Taking advantage of the enemy's flaws is a very Iomedaean way to win," she grins back.

"Oh good."  He likes her.  And feels like he knows her, now.  She's really a very knowable person.  "If I'm lucky perhaps you will find more of them."

"What else are your people like?  The prescription to enjoy yourself once a month certainly draws a picture."