The oblivious messenger

-Yes, it's really her.
If he'd had something other than Lalli's voice to confirm that the cat wasn't an illusion, Emil could have been reassured. That very same voice had estimated that their path and that of the others would start converging sometime the next day, which would increase their chances of either catching up on them or being caught up by them. However, if Kitty had really just come into the house in which he had settled with Lalli for the evening, the other members of the crew couldn't be that far. Finding them could be as easy as following Kitty back to wherever she had come from. There was just one problem: he wasn't sure he'd be able to follow her back, regardless of whether he took Lalli with him or not. The latter option also had the drawback of leaving Lalli unguarded. As Emil was thinking the situation over, Kitty came to happily rub against him, and he petted her. She felt real enough. He couldn't see any way around it: if he wanted to see the others again this evening, they would have to be the ones coming to him and Lalli. The latter's voice spoke:
-You, me, the loud woman, the big man, the stupid novice. We are the only people here, right?
Emil had gotten used to the idea a while ago, but still didn't like thinking about it too much.
-Why are you reminding me of that now?
-You have a knife and string with you. Tie a piece around her neck. That can make them realize that we are alive and close to them.
Emil did as Lalli told him to, but Kitty ran away before he was able to properly tie the knot.

Kitty had apparently found stray piece of string during her scouting round, and was now enthusiastically playing with it. Someone in the group was in a good mood, at least.

Kitty came back, with neither a piece of string around her neck nor anyone else from the other group in tow. This time, Lalli had remembered seeing a sealed pot of ink and a set of paintbrushes in the house. Emil's own contribution had been to use a small strip of cloth to bear the message and tie it around Kitty's neck. Unfortunately, Kitty once again ran away before he was able to make the strip of cloth secure. Emil hoped that the fact it was cloth instead of string would keep it from getting untied as easily.

Kitty was now playing with a strip of cloth that had a smudge of something black on it. Mikkel took a look at it, and came to the conclusion it was old ink, made wet again by the fact that Kitty had been dragging it through the various puddles around their campsite.

That was it! This time, he was either drawing or writing something on the cat's very body, and he was perfectly fine having to wash her afterwards if it meant Mikkel was examining Lalli while he was doing it. Less than minute later, Emil was hoping that a thick line of ink running along Kitty's left side would be enough of a clue for the others.

There was probably an art supply store or something similar nearby, with still-intact pots of ink inside. The cat had probably wandered into it and broken one such still-intact inkpot. Soon after the attempt to wash the ink off had caused Kitty to go hide somewhere out of sight, it started pouring, and the sky gained the degree of darkness that required all three of them to be inside the tent.

It looked like Kitty was going to spend the night with him and Lalli. Emil had done all he could think of, so he was going to settle with hoping to run into the others tomorrow.

Now Kitty was missing. Mikkel didn't even bother trying to convince him she'd be back in the morning. Reynir needed to actually know this time. Somehow.

xxxx

That dog had definitely been a hallucination. Emil had noticed something strange about its eyes even before trying to touch it as it walked around to house, only to have his hand go right through its back. In addition to this, it hadn't actually left the house, just vanished into thin air after a few moments. Lalli's voice reacted to the event by coming to the conclusion that the others knew where they were now. While the statement gave Emil hope, he didn't intend to change any of his plans for the day based on it. As soon as he finished the meager breakfast made out of food scavenged the previous day, he tied Lalli to the rug, and started pulling him, Kitty walking by his side. He heard noise coming from outside, which prompted him to let go of Lalli and make sure there wasn't anything dangerous on the other side of the door. Emil barely had time to register that the being running straight towards the door was indeed human before thinking of opening the door wide enough to prevent an outright collision between it and Reynir. Once Reynir was inside, Emil noticed there was someone else outside, standing still, staring at him. After about a minute, Emil grew impatient:
-Will you please come in already? Lalli needs help.

Mikkel looked at the half-empty explosive charge:
-You've been using those to start fires? Little wonder you've been hearing voices. But if they're not keeping you from working, dealing with them can wait until we get to the outpost.
As Lalli had guessed, the others had been mistaking them for dead for the past few days, which had made Mikkel and Sigrun curious about what, exactly, had happened. As he was unable to understand it himself, Emil stuck to the few parts that he was completely certain had occurred. Sigrun, who had turned out to not be very far behind Mikkel when Emil had first spotted him, had seemed unable to do anything else other than listen intently. Meanwhile, Reynir had been fiddling with a couple of wood curtain rods, some thick string and one of the rugs from the house, making some kind of stretcher-like object.
-By the way, how did you find this place? Kitty went back and forth between you guys and I several times, and I tried to put a sign that we were nearby on her three times.
Mikkel pointed at Reynir:
-When the cat didn't show up, this one went to sleep claiming he could use magic to find her. Then this morning, he dashed out of the campsite the second he got out of the tent and led Sigrun and I here.