A pair of siblings, ten and thirteen of age, had gone missing. This had been in the midst of a busy yesterday, wherein the actual time of their disappearance eluded everyone. The lone father had come back to an empty home from a day’s work, it already late in the afternoon and with the dark fast approaching.
In way of both blessing and curse, the night hadn’t been clear. It wasn’t terribly frigid, but snow had fallen and would yet, if the persisting overcast above was anything to go by.
Stare bouncing betwixt the ground and the surrounding endless evergreen, Oliver tried to keep his mind from the fact they might well not find the wayward sisters. Himself and one of his kin had happened upon the predicament on their way through, purely by chance. Before he’d had the time to properly even consider the practical futility of it all, he’d already offered to join the effort.
That had been earlier this morning, from whence they’d raked the woods amongst a number of others who’d come forth as able and willing in the village. Their shapes weaved in and out of the gloom ever so often, voices calling for Anja and the younger Silja fading to a distance, without an echo.
Exhaling a cloud of steam, he swept some of the powdery snow off his shoulders and glanced at his company, Syr Isander’s steady presence some paces to his left. He couldn’t but feel a little guilty then, watching him trudge through a layer of snow that even for him reached halfway up the shin. This had been largely at his urging after all, had it not? A whim on which he’d failed to consult his fellow beforehand, like any which inconsiderate bastard.
“ Suppose we get lost ourselves— “ He started in jest, regarding the man with an easy smile. “ Think you can forgive me for having wrought it? One should hate to freeze to death ardently despised. “
Isander
In way of both blessing and curse, the night hadn’t been clear. It wasn’t terribly frigid, but snow had fallen and would yet, if the persisting overcast above was anything to go by.
Stare bouncing betwixt the ground and the surrounding endless evergreen, Oliver tried to keep his mind from the fact they might well not find the wayward sisters. Himself and one of his kin had happened upon the predicament on their way through, purely by chance. Before he’d had the time to properly even consider the practical futility of it all, he’d already offered to join the effort.
That had been earlier this morning, from whence they’d raked the woods amongst a number of others who’d come forth as able and willing in the village. Their shapes weaved in and out of the gloom ever so often, voices calling for Anja and the younger Silja fading to a distance, without an echo.
Exhaling a cloud of steam, he swept some of the powdery snow off his shoulders and glanced at his company, Syr Isander’s steady presence some paces to his left. He couldn’t but feel a little guilty then, watching him trudge through a layer of snow that even for him reached halfway up the shin. This had been largely at his urging after all, had it not? A whim on which he’d failed to consult his fellow beforehand, like any which inconsiderate bastard.
“ Suppose we get lost ourselves— “ He started in jest, regarding the man with an easy smile. “ Think you can forgive me for having wrought it? One should hate to freeze to death ardently despised. “
Isander