Their children will learn to hope for a Caesar.
 

Perhaps it was reckless coming so close, so deep in the heart of the snow’s season, but the heart of a wanderer does as it pleases, carrying one’s body along with it, and homesickness was a powerful tether.  Breasting the almost chest deep drifts, my companion bounding behind me, our bond ripe with frustration and general weariness with the difficult journey, a dark, jagged scar marks our passage through the mountain halls.
 
Occasionally, another trail veers off into the woods, or up another peak; others still drive into other vales and hollows, some of which almost lure me with the promise of the winter beauty sure to be seen there.  One such location, a small rise leading into an ancient copse of pines, pines tall as mountains themselves, and sure to be coated in thousands of icicles glimmering in the light, actually does make me pause as its mouth yawns alongside me, beckoning.
 
Looking down the snow-hidden path I had been travelling, no clearer from here to miles ahead, as far as I can tell, I look back at the easy to miss trail, and wonder if the pines had managed to keep quite this much snow from reaching the floor of their small gathering, as they had in previous years I had visited them in Frostfall.  When Duir literally plows into me (the snow too high for him to see properly), and mentally grumbles about the entire situation, I redirect myself towards one of my childhood haunts, again pressing my way through the deep blanket.
 
Though the trees are not entirely laden with icicles, as the terrain levels out, and their tremendous figures come into view, they are at least halfway so; their crowns are laden with snow, the monolithic branches low hanging and weary.  Still, the early morning light pierces through their boughs, and sends small beacons of light spilling all about the forest, as it always had in previous years.  Like the trees themselves, the floor of the forest is also snowier than it ever has been, several inches crunching beneath Duir and I’s passing hooves, but it’s far easier to travel than the rest of the pass has been so far.
 
Pretty here, he says, looking about us at the northern world with wonder, why have we not come here before?  Other than snow.
 
"It’s complicated," I tell him, not wanting to get into that now; I fall into silence again, continuing through the wood as if I had not been interrupted, though his queries and comments continue, as well.

 [ OOC: I TOLD YOUUUUU ]