With the hopes of maintaining that grin on her face, so that it might add warmth to the pin pricks bubbling deep beneath her, it was but brief and subtle. An ember that faded and glowed before being shut out. She wasn’t sure how to react to the pair of auburn eyes staring across from the water’s face. She saw a stranger, a wild thing. There was frost about her darkened muzzle, light freckles dashing across her face, rusted red. She cringed slightly and with a shrug dipped her head and forced a smile in response to Roland’s voice.

Sia was neither graceful nor bulked with immense power. The snow was tricky, though after days of toiling and fighting against it, she’d found a way to maneuver through it. Sure-footed, quick enough to escape; rather flee than stay to fight. It was always move, move, move… no time for thinking, wondering. Dreaming in itself was dangerous in more ways than some, a guilty pleasure, a release and a prison. Carefully she shifted her eyes on his reflection as he continued, his gaze focused elsewhere as she watched carefully, intentionally.

The low light gave off warm, bronzy highlights. There were sharp edges that appeared exaggerated from the shadow. It was odd how she recognized the yearning that had - at once - bloomed between herself and the stranger that was Roland. Innocent as it sought to break any superficial appearances, for the sake of reaching out, making sure, that he was real. That he was really breathing, warm and beating with life. Not like the dead world around them, where the trees held no sympathy for the weary, void of shelter save their naked trunks to bear. Cold and numb, unfeeling and rough.

Sia shifted her eyes to stare out into the inky water’s of the lake. So there was a reason why the sun forsook them, or rather something that had taken it instead. “The Gods.” The words were heavy in her mouth; too heavy to swallow. There were reasons to be calloused about it, latent pains that wafted into the air through a strained whisper. “That’s hard to believe.”

Despite his pessimistic predictions, Sia didn’t know what to expect. Her certainty remained, as it was, neutral and unyielding to the idea of Gods. She would have to wait it out, take it one day after the other as always. But this news was frustrating, adding fuel to the unease manifesting deep inside. Would it never end? Roland’s thoughts prevented her tongue from moving due to these growing fears; to have the warmth of sun, the light of day radiating beyond the skies!

His question, while innocent in itself, caught her off guard. For a moment it felt as if she had been alone all this time, upset about the sun, about the indefinite stay of the shadow, dark voids consuming and expanding unwanted thoughts. Her glance was at first wild, a truth that spoke in her eyes that was all too sad in response. Her gaze weakened, feeling foolish and immature about the faces she would see in the spinning universe inside of dark places. “Yes.”

She was holding her breath; harder for her to breathe. For a moment she broke contact with the bright blue eyes ahead of her, before she gathered her resolve. “I can’t… form words to explain why. Just, I’d hoped the sun would shine. Because all this time I thought I’d gone crazy. Chased from one end of the globe to another… perhaps this was hell.”

And she missed them, she missed them so much; friends that had become family, a stranger that had become a father.

“I’ve stopped running. But, there are… things that-.” Sia tore her head away and glared beyond the shadows surrounding them. She felt embarrassed, and instead of trying to laugh it off she had succumbed to silence. There was no use trying to explain it, and perhaps the only reason why she tried was entirely selfish. An opportunity to connect thwarted by nonsense.

“- never change.”

“Do you not feel… trapped in this darkness? As if, our eyes make images from the things we cannot see. Things that swirl about and go bump in the night. I can’t… help but feel trapped. I have been romanced by the freedom invested in sky and plains that hug the earth. Not void and oblivion.”