Once more, he snapped the kerchief loose. Once more he took her hand into his. Once more he wiped her fingers down. Once more, he placed a kiss to her knuckle. Then they were off.

The chai still warmed Bebin's gut as they crunched through the snow blanketed earth. As did the curry so wrapped in its pastry. Butter spice and sweetness there like a balm about his lips. And try as he would, keep his mind clear of such comforts, there their lingering weight was. Permeating through the whole of him, like the anchors to his bones against the numbing cold they tread.

Could hardly hear the river beneath its raw skin of frost and ice. Could hardly feel its rush and churn, through the souls of his booted feet, which did tread across so solid an earth.

Bebin wrapped an arm about his Captain's, braced her shoulder with his. "Why does it feel, oh Captain, that for all the courage I have, years of experience afield," their feet go on crunching his eyes fall to his hand with digits curling and uncurling. "I am not prepared for this?" he whispered to her gently.

Mary calls back. Strong and sure as she trudges through the ice.

Bebin nods. Sets his eyes forward, toward the golden lights in the distance.

The ground beneath Mary shifts with an odd step. She slips. A yelp escapes her. A flutter of feathers, dark shape darts from some place it had hid. Catches Mary.

Bebin already has his sword half drawn, body already coiled to strike. But he can see Mary's eyes. Wide and full of fear as she stares at the dark shape that caught her.

Black taloned claws, with a long ebon beak all spade. Eyes of silver. Scales grey. But parts not right. Feathers mismatched. Fallen out. Skull showing there about the eye.

"A, corvodii?" Bebin asks.

Mary, still in its clutches. Blinks. Looks down to see how the short being still holds the basket steady against her. "Um," she sounds. And the feathered one rights her up. Clacks its beak, and snaps the raggedy midnight cloak over its person. "Th-thank you," Mary finishes, and looks to the mill and its frozen wheel.

The patchwork corvodii points its beak down to the basket. "Grub?" it asks. Clacks its beak.

Mary blinks.

Bebin sheaths his sword.

"Well," a voice too warm and too confident for how gentle it sounds out in the cold. "I see you've found Quiliam," the mop of straw colored hair atop the young man's head. The wistful tenderness about his eyes. "Hello Mary,"

"Oh, um, Legault!"

Quilliam, a thing that looks half dead, moves with jitters and jerks, before it turned smooth strut and stride hop. "You give up the grub?"

"Oh um," Mary looks from side to side. Other little faces and shapes peak through the door.
 
The warmth of her brave knight's embrace wraps around her like a shawl. Selene walks down the path in sure steps used to the ice, but even so, she lets herself bump against Bebin's side every now and then. That uncertainty whispered between them is not allowed to linger.

"The moment that you see him, you will know exactly what to do," she say back with her own softness. "Of this I am certain."

Ahead, Mary calls to them, a twist round on the wrong foot, and falling right into a feathery shadow. Selene is left standing free as Bebin shoulders in front of her, gripping the hilt of his sword.

And then, all of a sudden, with a clack of its chipped beak, the young Quilliam reminds them all of what mattered most.

"And to think..." Selene says quietly to herself, though what she had thought was left unsaid.

She steps past Bebin, robes trailing behind her in the snow. Brushes her fingers against the edge of Demeix's cloak, pauses there only briefly to glance at the face of the lost knight. Sees the look in his eyes deepen, gives back her own melancholic smile. Silently, she leaves the two of them to face each other. Father and son.

Selene goes to help Mary take the heavy basket off of her shoulders and untie the lid's clasps. Pies still warm and crisped despite the cold, thanks to the runes which Selene had scribed along the basket's rim.

"I do believe your brave rescuer deserves a reward."

"R-Right, of course." With Selene's encouragement, Mary passes a pie to the not-so-patient Quilliam. Despite the corvodii's attempts at being delicate, its claws still puncture little holes in the delicate pastry, bleeding red gravy.

The littler ones huddled around the doorway are hesitant to come out. The first brave shape to step forward is a young girl, stout and round with creamy fur as fine as cornsilk draped at the tip of her swinging tail. She looks near devahi, save where her eyes should be there are scaled growths which layer over her brows into second and third sets of horns. Even so she can navigate the path well enough, stopping right in front of the basket, which is nearly as tall as her. She puts stubby little paws along the edge of the rounded wicker and stands on tip-toe to smell the lovely steam wafting out of the basket.

"Do you want one, too?" Mary asks with a laughing little smile. Lifts a pie just high enough for the girl to reach it. "There you go, dear."
 
A clack clack. This way and that. Quilliam shook his head. Silver eyes wide as they watched the flaky pie crust give up its juicy gravy. "Brave Quill," a crook rumble from his throat as he cradled his prize close. "Rewarded," He bobs his head. Trident spread toes splayed against frost, crunched against snow. He hop hops away. From what or where, who knows but Quilliam. Away. From the others. From little hands and big hungers that might want some of- a bump against Quilliam that sets him to stop.

A little dazed. The little corvodii, half his skull showing through molted black feathers, looks up at the big frame of an aurochs with the scars of pulled stitches across their lips. A great eye at the center of their skull, wide and open as it stared with its iris the color of arcoiris gleaming with all the spectrum of chroma. So many ripples across the waters there contained across the veil of that eye so transfixed.

"Seu," quarks the corvodii, beak pointed all the way up to spy the big bull who stares down at them. Soulful brown eyes, sad for all the world to see them looming there in the dark. Warmth there, amidst all the cold about them. Quilliam's beak cuts down. Points up. Clawed digits clutch closer the prized pie.

Seu stands silent. Just goes on staring. All three of their eyes blink together.

Quilliam eases his hold. Slow and grudging. Offers up the pie. "Want some, Seu?" the little corvodii, stitched back together, holds up the pie.

Hulk that he is, Seu shifts down. Broad shape bending like a wave might across deep waters. Pink nose brought closer to the pie. White steam swirling there about it. A strong pull, and pull from his wide nostrils.

"No meat." Quilliam says, matter of fact.

A nudge of that big nose against the buttery crust. The scarred muzzle, dotted with needle holes, and slashed by wire cuts long silvered over, moves over the pie, and scoop it up all at once.

Quilliam squarked.

Bebin stared daggers at the young man and his easy smile. Noticed how his blue eyes avoided the obsidian flints cutting right toward them. "Oh, mundeya!" daggerous grin cut across his black bearded face. "Don't you go and pretend you don't see me.

An emberic smile kindled across his lips. "Ki hal chala, bazurago,"

Sure steps tread quick across the ice. A broad arm wrapped about the boy's narrow frame. The embrace came quick and all at once. A wrap and a squeeze that wanted nothing more than to hold all the warm life there between them. "Foolish boy," A pat. Pat. As tears welled up about the corners of his eyes. Rolled down his face.

Legault stood wide eyed a moment. Hard to breath. Until he relaxed. He worked his arms about the broad span of the man who he had spent so many years with. Let his head rest against his. Mentor's. The closest thing he had to a father. Took in the scent of him. Iron and pine, made crisp with ice, mist, and snow. "I missed you too, Bebin-ji,"
 
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