Now he is gone I can try to absorb what has happened. I am so used to his presence it seems strange to sit alone in the space two have filled. I thought the nights here were silent; now I hear the spaces where his breath is not, the rasp of his thumb over his emerging beard, his rare laugh.
Two days since the ice-folk gifted us this place. Our own fire, our own shelter. I am overcome with their generosity. Amlarad says that it is a gift for the 'lucky hunter'. We brought in a few susi pelts, certainly. But... all this? I was content with the use of their fires, sharing the spaces with them as best we could.
This place settles on me like a soft white robe. It is wholly new, and yet it already begins to sink onto me. There is a contentment in my own fire, though the solitude, for once, rubs at me like a barely aware midge-bite. A fire, a stack of wood, this shelter, the bucket and dipper, the iron pot. These gifts and the furs we sleep in. I feel as though I am rich, hear my sister's bare feet slapping against marble tiles as she runs squealing with delight in the cool shade.
A cold night ahead without another to keep one warm. There is shelter here from the worst of the wind driven snow, but no place for complacency. The clouds have delivered their latest white offering, the sky becomes clear, each star seems as brittle and sharp as an icicle.
He was supposed to return by sundown. I can do nothing in the dark alone in this frigid wilderness. I can only trust to his skill that he will find shelter, and use the firelight to finish my writing.
