She reveled in the closeness, cherishing it. There was no true need to guide Trygg along a path he could have travelled well enough on his own. But fingerstips were well threaded into the reins in case there was something to spook him. Twice fallen had been enough for that much attention to it.

Hooves clomped loudly against the cobbled stones and larger paving ones until they fell away and more soil and snow were beneath them. Her silence held for a long, long while until they were nearly at the great wall and moving through a break in it. Cold, she shivered and handed reins to one hand and pulled her cloak better and in closer to self.

It was hardly anything she minded and endured it without complaint. Her hair worn long and not pulled back, the only ornamentation to it was the lengthy, slender white braid that threaded down from a minutely scarred, right temple.

Already tinted features pinkened at her nose and cheeks.

Skirts of unbleached white overlaid with heavy green winter cloth hiked from their lengths that reached her boots to nearly her knees as she sat so on the large horse.

" 'dar...what is remembered" Of your time away from this place...away from me?" The question finally found a voice after musing over it for a while's time. Slight turn of her head, she spent attention over it and sought his face. Forms shifting with Trygg's movement beneath in following the well-travelled but uneven path.

The scent of Panther was in her senses and breathed it in deeper, exhaling it in a soft, warm breath against the frigid air. Her smile was there to be seen and she eased back just a bit more while she waited for an answer from him with gentled patience.

The nearness was simply wonderful. Everything from her smile, to that gaze that found him told of how light it made a heart. Still, a sober nod was given to him when there was mention of having nothing remembered of those years away, save memories. The small one simply could not imagine it, but mourned it all the same.

She warmed when the weighted warmth of his cloak was drawn about her. "Your cloak was used, often, before Katt gifted this one and these boots last winter." Words were hesitant. Perhaps he would find that her pining for him was claustrophobic or tainted on some level. S'jira simply could not help it. Perhaps she truly was one of those those when they truly loved from a heart as well as the soul— it was for a lifetime. "Your scent was on it...and it held memories. It held...warmth."

Wind started blowing and with it, a renewed smell of snow was there to sting at their faces. One hand took the reins and her other tucked back under the layers of his and her cloaks to where his arm was that embraced her at the waist. Slight lean of her head lilted in against the side of his face.

Even as Trygg started to protest at the feline sort riding atop him.

"There...take ease, Trygg..." Lowly, most quietly speaking with the large horse that bore them both to his back. His equine head jerked back, more than annoyed at having no seeming choice in the matter and tossed his thick, dark mane about. Then abruptly, drew up short and started to paw his right, front hoof in against the frozen, hard ground beneath. Over and over again while shifting his weight beneath them. "Calm...it is not too much further..."

Trouble frown alighted along the line of her brow and turned her face away form Panther to lean just a bit forward and try to calm the horse with her hand against his neck.

As soon as Panther had slipped down from the back of Trygg, the small one immediately mourned his absence with a brief look of protest. Already reaching over and opposite, she pulled his cloak all the more about self as all the while she watched him.

The wink surprised her into a laugh as it seemed playful, even moreso on such a cold night as it was. But it instantly cheered and warmed her. As soon as he set off at jog, she pushed her feet back and urged the horse into quick stepping that lacked anything a finer, gentler sort of horse might. It wouldn't have suited the large horse to prance about. As it was, s'jira held tight on the reins as he chewed at the bit and wanted to set off running.

Here and there, she drew Trygg to the side to avoid snow laden branches of trees and kept up with Panther. Darkly colored eyes glinted with amusement, suspecting that he must be feeling a little better.

It occurred to her then and said it aloud. "One day, it is thought to show you how fast he runs. Without reins!" Called out with laughter in her words. Had he seen them run before and without saddle or halter at all? She could not remember a time he had, but tucked it away for later to show him in the warmer months perhaps. "He is most happy when not so....bound."

She teased Panther with letting Trygg head out a bit ahead of him, then eased back to a trot again. Wind marked her cheek pinkish-red and her hair hung long and dark to blend in against his cloak.

When it seemed she might be lost in the watching of him again, she saw the cottage coming into view with its small storage outbuilding and two-stall, enclosed barn.

His smile was met with hers that hadn't left her in some while. A nod to him, a watchful and wayward path of that attention upon him before she finally nudged her shoulder in against Trygg who was being stubborn at first about heading into the barn.

Then hooves clomped against the winter-hardened soil as they walked towards and into the simplest of barns. As soon as she had him inside, she tied the horse's reins to a post of the stall while he wasn't in it just yet. Then hurried to uncinche the saddle. Leaving the weight of it on him just a moment's time or more, she stepped up onto a stout stone and then a sturdy crate she used for just this purpose, and pulled the saddle off of Trygg's back. With care, she put the saddle over the unused stall's side and draped the blanket next to it.

Murmuring in her words to the animal, she encouraged him into his area that she had left clean; already mucked and fresh hay. She would not be in so very quickly, but did hurry a bit to brush him down and filled the wooden, hanging bucket well with feed before patting, rubbing that equine forhead of his.

The door of the plain, little barn was then pulled closed and latched well so that any blowing wind would not shove it back open. Then sprinted the minor distance from the barn to the houes.

The thatch roof already had a thin layer of ice and snow, with a few ice cycles hanging here and there from it. But it was nothing more than it had been for the Dying Season so far that year.

What was different was that Panther was there...and much time would be spent within those inornate, but warm walls. She pulled the door open, just long enough to steal inside and push it to closing. Soonafter, the rope-latch was shoved into its metal fast to secure it.

Shivering, teeth chattering, she spent a quick look about. How she smiled to find him already looking as if he had matters well in hand with the main, gathering room's hearth and fire.

"So very cold!" Laughing aloud and teeth still chattering, she wasn't about to take the two layers of cloaks from about her. Not just yet. Instead, she say to shuttering the single window that faced the dooryard of the place and turned back to wander over to where he was.

"Is there need for anything before things are put away...?" A glance moved to the packs that were doorside, of food and spices, clothing, and else.

The room they were in was all one very large room with two separate purposes: the kitchen area to the left of the door's way and the gathering room to the door's right.

In the kitchen's area was a table made of thick and roughly hewed wood, that by all appearances seemed well enough made to stand strong and stout for decades to come and would fit comfortably four people at it. To either side of the table were split-log benches with the flat part up smoothed down and splinter-free for sitting on the the bottoms of it still wearing its bark. At the center of the table was a round, bronze oil lamp set into a wood bowlful of white stones. There were shelved that lined the short wall to that far left and immediately there beside the door was the single window of the dwelling.

A basin was opposite the window, to the other side of the table where slots and shelves mounted on the wall about the counter allowed for plates and mugs to drip-dry after watching. Just enough space of a counter was there for preparing something to eat, for a few people, but no more than that. And storage areas were immediately to the left and beneath of the counter.

To the right of the door's way was the place the small woman often was. Though there was a bedchamber and more area for storage at the back of the small cottage, she often slept on the pelts hearthside. In front of the fireplace was a single chair that seemed to have been made by the same craftsman as the table and benches as it shared the same thick, rough way, big enough for her curl up into when there was want for it. She had it covered in small pelts to the seat of it and draped with a roughly woven blanket to its back and arms for warmth and added comfort. To the immediate left of the chair was a little table that didn't match the chair, seeming more delicate, though as simple as the rest of the furnishings within. More shelves were here and there to the walls and a mantle of stone was on the fireplace.

On the mantle was an array of items: a flute, a small painted house that was so tiny that it must have been for one of the winged creatures from the Glen, a panther figurine in a low-bourne crouch, a vase with a rose wilted and dying that naevein had gifted her with, and an oil lamp with a squared foot supporting upon its metallic, fluted stem a rounded base and lid.

Hanging on hooks and nails to decorate were things by her hand: a beadwork picture of one of the fae-like creatures she had seen in the Glen and a half-worked, dark green dress that was meant for Kitty, and beside the cloaks on its own hooks was the elfin bow and quiver full of arrows.

At the moment he turned, with intent upon hanging the cloaks up, she snatched up one of the pillows — heavy with goose feathers — and assaulted him with it playfully. Impish smile and laughter to follow, her heart was very light that night.

Then shook her head at him. Another glance was for the bags and packs doorside, beckoning in their mute way to be put away. Instead, she strove to ignore them and watch 'dar in the way he moved. Not so very long ago, madness had nearly taken a firm grip on her with all of the worry and waiting of all the mourning and missing of him. But he had fought off her demons without even possibly either of them knowing the how or why of it all.

"You ...growled the first night of your return. It was thought you did not remember me." Even as she smiled, the words of hers were musing things. The quilt was pulled about slender shoulders, tightly as the chill was still with her. Up, she came, upon her knees and inched over to the hearth there before resettling to the skirtclad swell of her right hip. She had even been uncertain if it had been him at all that first night, until later.

Nearly giddy, she was still smiling and lowered her head and gaze to watch her own hand tucking up the ends of the blanket about her knees, shins and feet.

As her head lowered and hair fell about her face, it was like a lengthy veil in part, then a shake of her head in a habitual way, tossed it over her right shoulder and sought him out again with a watchful gaze.

"There is no reason to be sorry.....no harm was done." A lingering over the memory of it, she watched him well from where she was. "There was wondering if it was you...at first, then in if you held any memory of me as you were...."

Elder. She thought on it again for a fleeting moment's time, feeling nothing more than a child around him. Still, she took his jesting lightly and smiled. As he settled in near and made himself comfortable, she eased to meet her back against him.

Acutely, she was aware of his touch at her calf. It proved a small thing but purely distracting. Yet ears had heard him well. A slight turn of form, not to lose contact with him but to better a look to where he rested so near. About to speak and stilled self until his words of what he was deserving of had been spoken.

One hand, turning at the wrist, rested the back of it and fingerstips against the line of his jaw before trailing it down from there to his neck to finally stop for a time at his arm. Guilt strummed painfully against her heart and frowned just a little. "But...a waiting did not happen all that time..."

Then eased in to nuzzle against him before sitting back up, barely to move out of that posture that kept her so very near him. "And you are always welcome here. Or anywhere you would like to be." As that occurred to her, she smiled all the more. "If you find it too small a...cage, of such sorts, a larger home can be found for more room and rest." Just to tease him, as her heart was light enough these days to do so. "Katt says that ...I would be a very good mother...." A nod. Firm and mirthful all at once, half-expecting him to twitch or blanch at just the notion.

It was obvious that she was teasing with him, but eyes bore the truth of the words she next spoke as hands met with either side of his face. "And you are loved." Most watchful of him, to be certain he saw that she was not flinching at any of it, at all. "Now...it is wondered, do you tire" Are there questions for these lips to answer..." Is there need for food or drink..?" She would not hurt his ears with offering to play the flute pipes. One question after another was surely a bit much, laughing again in the wake of her own queries.

Were it daytime, and the snows not falling as heavy as they were and the wind howling as it was, she would have shown him that she can at least pull a an arrow by way of a bow.

Settled back against him, she could have found no better place to rest in all of RhyDin. She drank in the sight of him, so watchful as if she needed to memorize every detail lest he disappear before her very eyes like a dream that would leave her with the coming light of morning. But she was not trouble, at all.

Prattling, chattering on grew quiet. How she smiled when he took her hand and answered her as best that he could...when she afforded the pause for breath to do so.

She could have laughed aloud, giddy and purely happy to have him there. A nod, that he was content enough with the cottage. Even an endearing, eased look that he thought she would one day be a good mother.

But she favored him warmly and well as he spoke then of her lips. Need was answered to with a kiss and wrapped her arms about his neck with care not to bump against his jaw that might still be hurting from that happening between him and Kruger.

The scent of him was in her senses, known and remembered well. With the fire near and the storm beyond those walls, she could have been convinced to stay there as long as he desired them to.