[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
“You didn’t have to let me sleep.”
I looked up from nursing Lin toward Thom, who limped toward the cookfire, leaning on his crutches and looking like he was still a little more tired that I’d hoped he’d be after he’d fallen asleep again. I managed to smile, though the slight shift in his expression told me very quickly that he’d seen through the attempt at pretending everything was fine.
His gaze flicked from me to Tala and then back again. “What’s going on?” he asked quietly as he slowly lowered himself to sit next to me, laying the crutches on the ground next to us.
“Same shit, different day,” Tala murmured, sparing me from answering. Thom looked at her, his brow arching slightly.
“Oh goody,” he said, then sighed. “That does explain while you’re calmly making breakfast as usual.”
“What the hell else am I supposed to do, really?” Her smile was wry, the words without acid, without rancor. “It’s just another day.”
“We don’t really know exactly what’s going on,” I said. “Not yet, anyway. Probably soon, but not yet.”
“Just another day,” Thom said with a grimace, echoing Tala.
“You’re damn straight.” She handed him a plate a few moments after he’d sat down, then headed to refill her coffee and make him a cup of the same. “We need better defenses, though.”
“As soon as I get healthy, I’ll get right on that.” Thom sighed and leaned his shoulder into mine. I reached up to run my fingers through his hair, smiling weakly.
“It’ll happen,” I assured him softly. He snorted.
“Of course it will. Just takes more time than I want it to and it’s time we don’t have in that much abundance if winter comes this year like it did last year.”
“Well, at least we had last winter to make mistakes,” Tala said, bringing over a mug for him. She sat down with us, cross-legged with her back to the fire. “We won’t make the same ones this year. It’ll be okay, just like it was last winter but more securely. Warmer.”
Thom snorted softly as he lifted his mug. “Warmer,” he agreed. “Hopefully a little less horrifying when it comes to problems and storms.”
“Something tells me we’ll be able to have one but maybe not the other.” Tala smiled and shrugged. “Either way, we’ll be all right.”
Her optimism warmed me but did nothing to alleviate the sour feeling at the pit of my stomach. They weren’t back yet. That was either a good sign or a bad one—hard to know either way.
I was hoping for one but suspected the other.
