donges | WINTER IS COMING

The sun was setting.

And with it the temperature began to drop, though it was already so low they could see their own puffing breaths. Seymour had long since tucked his hands into his sleeves and attempted to huddle them over his exposed chest at the same time. For all his dexterity he met with indifferent success here. Though he relegated his attention to the single window, which displayed only a sliver of sky over the mountain of snow heaped outside, from time to time Yuna might have felt his creeping gaze...

...Since she held the only blanket. A thick, scratchy grey wool thing. He had offered it to her as soon as it was discovered; either out of chivalry or to antagonize her, or, more likely, both. A decision he had come to regret.

A rescue party would surely come - was surely en route already - but the night would not wait.

He began to loathe the high open collar of his robes and scrunched down into them, his wide lips pursed. There were a few chairs and a cot in the shelter which might be broken down into firewood. A slow exhale steamed from him and he gazed at her levelly.

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How many times had she asked by now? 'Are you sure?'

Of course, the chill had hit her immediately, with her blood of the islands, and clothing to match. She wouldn't, and hadn't, uttered a single complaint, but Yuna's body betrayed her with shivers, and inevitably, shoulders slumped against her attempts to maintain poise. Strength. The blanket came as a welcome gift, one she profusely thanked him for.

Still, there was only so far that feelings of generosity would warm Seymour from within, and Yuna's own optimism did little to heat the air around them. It was an optimism that had lapsed into silence, a nervousness quietly ebbing its way onto her with every moment that passed, promising the disappearance of the sun. It had been in distraction, the time she spent with her eyes downward, studying the wool of the blanket around her, but when she looks up and meets his gaze, an effortless smile crosses her face. A smile of sympathy.

'Is it really okay?' No - she wouldn't ask again. Sometimes, actions just had to be taken. Standing from her chair, she lets the blanket fall from her shoulders, its weight heavy upon her arms. It's effortless, though, to take the two steps towards Seymour, to bring the blanket about, to carefully wrap it around his shoulders...

"There is no reason you can't use this too, even if you are stubborn." A little teasing from her, just a little to keep their spirits up, but Yuna's sincerity, and concern, is evident by her hands kept upon Seymour's shoulders.

"I am not stubborn, Lady Yuna."

There was a childish note in it. Even though he settled gratefully into the warmth of the blanket, which carried her scent, he attempted - and at this closeness, she would even be able to see the attempt - to pull himself tall and formal rather than slouchy and greedy for heat. Though this meant dragging the blanket halfway up her head, mussing her hair.

"I did not feel it was necessary--" An interesting dance began in which he tried to fold the blanket down so it would not disturb her while hunching it more tightly over his own shoulders. Not much range of motion, and his thick, silky sleeves bunched between them. "To take what I did not need."

He looked down upon her and his grey eyes were at once cool and unusually bright. They were standing very close to each other. She was still mussed. A sharp pang of regret split his heart for the oncoming darkness of night.

Meticulously he smoothed a lock of her hair back into place.

Not stubborn. Either it's the words themselves or the tone he uses that causes Yuna to laugh, a laugh that is almost genuine in its warmth. But she's laughing at the whole situation, isn't she? The snow, the cold, the muss of her hair, the forlorn hope of rescue, ever distant as she knows - as they both know - the snow drift ever increases around them…

But it's at his touch that she quiets and glances away in a brief moment of embarrassment at her own actions, actions far too casual to take with someone of Seymour's status. It's in the same moment that she pulls her hands back from his shoulders, leaving the blanket to Seymour's responsibility.

"You... would use it, though, wouldn't you? If you had a blanket of your own, I mean. That doesn't seem too unneeded." And there - she looks back up at him. It's a polite way, she would think, to suggest that his chill hadn't gone unnoticed.

Her hands - her hands, though - they quickly find work at his sleeves, smoothing them as best as able where they would bunch against them both. It's unconscious, any of the moments where her touch would linger against his skin, but even the smallest amount of warmth...

Edited 2014-03-09 07:07 (UTC)

Seymour had no doubts about their rescue, himself; he had much to do and it would be done. His plans would not fail on a point like this. It was destined. How little he understood of what she felt. He watched her laughter silently, with wry ill-humor in his half-smile. Was she laughing at him? Yet his potential sulk dissolved in the close-by shaking of her small body.

Often had he dreamed of a moment like this. Though the context was not so... rustic. The dark, dusty wood of the cabin and its close ceiling and buried windows and freezing cold were nothing like the palace bedrooms he had envisioned. There, in luxury -- he pinned the blanket in his grip; it was wide enough to lap them, at least. She spoke and her soft voice was once again teasing, which surprised him; her familiarity surprised him. Too, as she fiddled with his sleeves. It was not unpleasant. She knew what he was, and still...

With a serious bow of his head he replied, "If there were a second blanket, I would have given it to you also." This was true enough. He would have been twice as smug about it, too, and relished his own chill twice as much for what it signified.

"Is this not uncomfortable?" A little gesture of his hand between them, a nod at the thick crumpled bulk of the blanket around her neck. The two of them, huddled toe to toe like this, standing nearly on top of each other.

Uncomfortable? Of course, but not for the obvious reasons. The blanket wasn't as heavy as Yuna's awareness of the lack of distance between them both. She glances down once more, at the movement of his hand, her fingers lingering on the hem of his sleeve.

"No... I... -I wouldn't need two blankets, you know." And despite her confirmation of comfort, she finally takes her hands back towards herself to adjust the blanket, plentifully draped across her neck and shoulders. Or, she would have, had she the room, and in the moment that she fails to reach her arms up beyond Seymour's torso, his bare chest just before her... Yuna laughs, this time more casually.

"Two blankets would be too much for me, I think. No, I'm okay like this. But... are you, Maester Seymour?"

"I am touched by your consideration."

With long fingers he tucks back a fold of blanket which threatened to swallow her cheek. Studiously bland - and not laughing with her - he follows the fold of the fabric slowly at some length. In a distracted sort of tone, he adds, "It is enough for the moment."

He unfurls himself from her cocoon and his hand braces for a moment at her waist as he tucks the blanket back around her.

"Bide."

He pushes the cot close to the hearth and begins to disassemble the wooden chair. It is old and worn enough that it nearly falls apart in his hands. His breath fogs before him, but before long he has a little pile of wood which he can pitch into the fireplace.

A problem: when was the last time he had started a fire with his hands instead of a spell.

WINTER IS COMING

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effortlessly topping him smh

~nbd~

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