The guardsman strode towards the small vendor's cross-street after dismissing his subordinates with the barest of nods. Althalos recognized her voice before anything else, as he could still remember her cries as he wore them both out—even if her tone was more strident and hoarse. It was a sound that had haunted him for damn near a month. But the ragged dress on the gaunt figure with sunken eyes—smelling of the vilest of home-brews—looked nothing like the woman he had shared both bed and bond with. Her hair was darker, likely drowned in her own oils instead of kept clean. He almost turned to look at the other vendors to see if one of them was her for all that he heard that voice coming out of this woman.

But then she looked at him. The expression on her face was hard to mistake—bitter longing coupled with self-disgust. If he hadn't seen that look on his own face, he'd be at a loss to describe it. It was as familiar as a friend. He honestly didn't blame her when she brazenly broke out a soft-flask and took a large swig, but his sanity compelled him to protest it. "You don't need to..."

"Yes," her tone brooked no interference, "yes I do." She decided to finish off the rest of the flask then tossed the empty container on the clothes cart. She didn't even wait for it to land before whirling away to march off, nor motioned for him to follow. So much for having her throw herself at him.

Althalos followed her for nearly half an hour before she stopped at a pie stall. This was the first time she looked back since she had started the walk—either trusting him to be there or not caring if he was. Perhaps a bit of both.

"I assume you will pay?"

He silently nodded as he pulled out a coin—enough for a dozen of the fist-sized pies, if she chose them. Instead, she picked out the smaller thumbprint ones. They were delicate things, barely a snack for a small child. The vendor wrapped them up quickly and was giving him that and his change when she started off again, avoiding the conversation that must come for a few more minutes.

That wasn't enough to stop Althalos, especially since the pace she set wasn't near as strong as the one she had started with. "Where are you leading me?"

The voice that came ahead of him was quiet, tired even. "A greenscape, three blocks east. It has a place to sit, and I've a few things to collect before I give in, M'Lord."

"So I won't have to convince you to come with me?" He said it with a touch of amusement. The pressure of her bond was beginning to ease. Whatever had been in the flask took the edge off of everything, like most nights he had been freed. It didn't take an officer of the law to figure out that she drank herself to sleep.

By this point he had caught up to her, so she rolled her eyes at him for that comment. "I can't make a future for myself and then drink it all way."

"Then why this month?"

She ignored the question to walk to the green. About halfway in under a particularly gnarled crabapple tree, she pulled out a small wet-sack—the wax cloth holding up to the elements perfectly. He found a small hillock to sit on not but a few yards removed from her.

Althalos was surprised when his little thief began to strip out of the awful dress, hanging it and the one he remembered tormenting them both with on the tree. He had removed it slower than either of them had wanted. It left her in nothing but a slip of a nightgown—unfit for public wear—and whatever was beyond it. He hated that she looked so ill and he was as aroused as ever. If it was anyone but her he would be appropriately disgusted, leaving room for the more expected pity of her situation. She sat down next to him and took the offered pies, oblivious to the little scene she was making—or what she did to him.

"What are you doing?"

It took her a moment to respond because she crammed the thing in her mouth like any starving creature would. "Leaving behind that which doesn't belong to me. I come to you with all that I own, master."

Althalos cringed at that thought. "I am not your master."

"Well you certainly aren't my husband, either." She was slurring a hair and swaying, but managed to snag another pie before continuing on."What—besides your name—am I to call you?"

"Your betrothed. Your bond-mate. How did you figure that alcohol would deaden the bond?"

"I used to think my mother drank to escape her life. She did so to have moments to think. I don't know why she avoided her bond—or where I fit in around this mess—but she did everything she could to stay drunk all my childhood. There was no consistent man in her life—when I was 10, she sold me for a bottle of booze. I was fortunate it was a thief master and not worse."

"Why are your things out here?"

That got a weak laugh out of her. "The choice was either a warm bed with a gnawing need or be in the elements protected by the alcohol and the armbands on that dress. I was safe enough, if a bit miserable."

"If I hadn't found you so soon, you would have been out here, freezing to death. Have you eaten regularly?"

A snort and a derisive gesture was the first response to this question, before she managed to clear her mouth enough to retort. "Do I look like I've eaten? I've lost weight I didn't even know I had. As I said, I couldn't do this much longer, cold weather or not."

"But why this long?" Try as he could, he couldn't keep the whole of his longing and frustration out of the question. And the man had been doing well up until this point.

Some of the fight went out of her frame, as she answered. "To give the only family I've ever known a chance to hide themselves away from you. I'd have been begging to touch you weeks ago, if not."

"I wouldn't have made you beg, lass." He reached over to touch her just on the knee, but she swatted his hand away, promising more fight than either of them would want in the long run. "This may be your bond, but once involved, we're not wholly immune to it."

That got a bark of laughter out of the woman—rather bitter and raw sounding. "So you spent this time doing what? Living in a 'Skirthouse, trying to ignore me?"

That caused the young Aelif to pull back into himself, physically. "It's not funny."

She eyed him over for the reaction. If anything she showed a hair of pity for him—the last look he wanted from her. "That never worked for mother. I doubt it worked much better for you."

"I didn't drink until blind drunk and I was searching for you the whole time!"

She paused—almost believed him, even if it was hyperbole. His tone was too raw. "Just how does this bond work?"

"The first few days after we were together were tolerable, right?"

"Yes, so I'm supposed to bed down with you twice a week? It's obvious between you and my own mother's behavior that you don't have to remain faithful to it, save by choice."

Althalos chose to ignore the jab for the moment. "Until you carry my child, yes."

"What changes then?"

He had to shrug there. "Some still share a bed through that change, but it's by their own free will."

"What happens afterward?" This, this was his evasion when last they spoke. She could feel it, even in this muzzy state.

"The last stage, before the child is born?" He shifted himself to meet her eyes, if she'd look up at him. "You will build yourself a cocoon. Four weeks after you will emerge with our babe in your arms, unfurl these enormous wings, and fly off, never to be seen again."

She paused eating to look at his face to see if he jested any, but only met a grimly serious man. "I'm not drunk enough to believe this, you know."

"I'll get you books on it, and you can read it for yourself. We also have various living partners still roaming the lands. You can ask them, too."

"I'm not that good at reading." She sighed at the thought—but that one was the easiest to navigate out of what came tumbling out of her next. "I'm not really good at much of anything. And now you're telling me that I won't be good at belonging to you."

The young woman stood shakily on her feet, as she finished the last thumbprint. "Well, I'll only grow more sober. Lead me through whatever we must do to be done with it."

Althalos never used the Frostways of his kinfolk, but made an exception for the barely-clad woman at his side.