The snow didn't stop that night, or the following day. It occasionally slowed down, but then picked up. On the third morning of waking up to it still snowing, Jale decided they would stay in the forest and try to wait it out. She wandered off to go hunting, and left the other two to tend to a fire during the day.

Which meant that Soren tended to the fire, while Tanden looked over the map Soren had bought him, and jotted down notes on another piece of parchment. Tanden had said many times that he had no interest in writing about his travels, he didn't have the patience for that. However, this trip had slowed him down considerably. There wasn't much for him to do, he didn't have books to read about other countries. His Tallenese was coming along slowly, and he knew plenty of words, just not how to put those words together to make sentences.

But even though it seemed like Tanden should be bored, he didn't act like he was. He peppered Jale with questions whenever she would let him, and he flirted with Soren whenever she wouldn't. Even now, when they were stuck in the same place for the whole day, he had found something to keep himself occupied with.

Once Soren had gathered a pile of wood large enough to last their fire for the rest of the day, he brushed snow off of the log Tanden was sitting on and sat beside him. "What're you doing?"

Tanden tapped a spot on the map. "Jale told me we're approximately here. So we're further into Sunland—Tallen Tiya, than any Teltan has ever been. But we've hardly seen any other people, just a few other carriages days ago."

"It's a big country," Soren said with a shrug. "I'm sure the cities will be full of people."

"Oh, I know." He traced his finger across the map until it landed on a tiny dot. "This is the village Jale wants to stop at, to buy some more supplies. If the snow stops, we could get there in two days. She's been saving furs from some of her kills to trade, and there's a whole crate of dried fish we haven't even touched. Apparently, ocean fish are a delicacy around here."

"Makes sense," Soren agreed. "Would we stay in the village for a few days?"

"I'm not sure. It would do the kyloe some good to be in a barn for awhile."

Soren glanced over at the animals. They were using their broad noses to dig through the snow, looking for food. Earlier Soren had melted snow for them and put it out in their special pot. Every once in awhile he would check on it, and break the layer of ice that had formed on top. "Makes sense," he agreed again.

Tanden folded up his map and notes and tucked them under his jacket. "She's going to be gone all day. Maybe we could set up the bed in the sleigh and have some fun. It's been a while."

The suggestion was tempting, and it would pass the time. "Well... all right. Just let me stoke the fire a bit, aye?"

"Aye," Tanden agreed with his usual stunning grin. "I'll get the bed ready." He did just that, and Soren fed some more logs into the fire before joining him.

It was very light in the carriage, and warmer than outside. Soren wasn't surprised to find that Tanden had already taken off his jacket and tunic, and was undoing the lacing on his pants.

Soren left his boots in the corner and crawled onto the blankets. "You're going to get cold," he teased, as he unbuttoned his own jacket.

"No, mate. You'll warm me up," Tanden pointed out. But he left his pants alone to help Soren take off his jacket. He pulled Soren's tunic up over his head, and paused, with his hand over the tattoo Ara had painted on Soren's chest.

They hadn't had a chance to look at each other's Morcean tattoos since leaving Till. Soren let his gaze fall on Tanden's. The design had started to fade, from dark brown to a redder tone, but the edges were still fairly sharp. Soren nudged Tanden so he would lie down, and planted a kiss on the temporary tattoo. "I love this."

"Because it reminds you of Ara?" Tanden teased, as he tangled a hand in Soren's hair. "He would be your eeto. Actually, wait. I don't think that's possible."

Soren chuckled and gave the tattoo another kiss. "Still caught up on that?"

"It's fascinating, don't you think?" There was very little that could distract Tanden when they were this close to having sex, but apparently the whole eetorikey concept could do it.

"Aye. Fascinating." Soren agreed, and he meant it, but he wasn't so easily distracted from the task at hand. He gave the tattoo another kiss, then sat up and finished untying Tanden's pants.

"Regardless, if we lived here, you would be my favourite eeto," Tanden decided. "No matter how—"

Soren put his hand over Tanden's mouth. "Captain, I mean this as respectfully as possible. Shut up."

Tanden pushed his hand away, and propped himself up on his elbows. "I wouldn't be able to talk if you were kissing me."

"Aye, obviously. But I'm going to be a little busy," Soren said pointedly, his attention going to Tanden's pants again. "But I'm not going to do it if you keep talking."

Tanden lay back down. "Sorry."

"Don't think about it, either," Soren chastised.

Tanden laughed. "Right. I won't," he promised.

They were still naked, snuggled up under the blankets together, when strange loud creaking groan ripped through the air. Soren's first thought was that it sounded like a mast falling down, which quickly turned into the realization that it was tree. Then there was a thud, equally loud and dull, and a low panicked moo.

In a rush, they got dressed and nearly flew out of the carriage. Soren hadn't done up the laces on his boots or grabbed his coat, but that went forgotten as he ran across the clearing to where a tall pine tree had come down. One kyloe was trapped beneath it, and the other had fled into the forest, Soren could see its shaggy body getting further away.

In the same moment, his eyes landed on Jale, who was running towards the camp. She skidded to a stop as the other kyloe ran near her. "Get her out!" she shouted, before turning and running after the second animal.

Tanden finally arrived at the tree, with a small axe in hand. Without having to discuss anything, Soren made his way through the branches to get closer to the kyloe. She had a few scratches, but seemed more scared than hurt. Soren spoke to her softly as together, he and Tanden worked to break the branches out of the way and make a space for the kyloe to get out. She tried to bolt a few times, and Soren had to alternate between helping Tanden hold branches, and holding the kyloe's blanket to keep her still.

When they finally had a large enough path cut, Soren tried to walk out in front of the kyloe and lead her along, but she was still scared.

"Cover her eyes," Tanden suggested. "We do that with horses sometimes."

The only thing Soren had to do that with was his tunic, which he pulled off despite the chill to gently drape around the kyloe's head. She calmed down after a moment, and let him lead her out from under the tree.

"Is she hurt?" Tanden asked.

"Just some scratches on her legs," Soren said. "She was in a bit of a dip. I think that might have saved her." Once they were safely away from the tree, Soren took back his tunic and pulled it over his head. It wasn't thick but it warmed him up a little bit.

Jale came back leading the other kyloe. As soon as Soren saw her he realized something.

"You yelled at me," he said. "In Teltish."

She froze. "Oh," she replied, in Teltish. "I guess I did."

Jale didn't stop to talk about the fact that she could speak Teltish. Instead, she busied herself looking over the kyloe who had been trapped, and rubbing ointment on some of the animal's scratches. When that was done, she went back into the forest to collect the small deer she had been carrying, before hearing the tree fall and dropping everything to run back to camp. So it wasn't until they were sitting around the fire to eat dinner that evening, that they actually got her to talk.

"You can speak Teltish," Soren broached the subject, while handing her a bowl of venison stew. It was smart, she couldn't ignore him when he was handing her food.

She held his gaze for a moment, her fingers brushing the edge of the bowl. Then she took it and nodded. "Yes."

Tanden actually felt more shaken than Soren seemed. "You've been making me translate everything for Soren, but I didn't have to! Why?"

Jale shrugged. "It was fun. Besides, you never asked me if I could speak Teltish. You showed up at my door and started in Morcean, so I followed along. It was particularly fun to listen to you two talk when you didn't think I could understand."

"Great Roe," Soren muttered. "You heard all that stuff about sex."

Jale laughed. "I did, yes. So it wasn't really a surprise when Tanden told me about your relationship."

"So... you didn't tell us you could speak Teltish, because you were having fun?" Tanden clarified. But he couldn't fault her. How many times had he pulled the same trick? It just usually wasn't this long lasting.

Jale stirred her stew, scooped up a mouthful, and let it cool for a second. "And I thought your translations could use some work. You are really good at Morcean, by the way."

"Oh. Thank you."

"You're welcome. At first I thought you might ask me if I could speak Teltish, actually. But you never did. I sort of wanted to see how long that would last. Then I figured out why you didn't ask." She paused to chew on a piece of venison. "You're very proud of your ability to speak multiple languages. So if it had just been us, I think you might have stuck to Morcean even if you knew I can speak Teltish."

"You heard me telling him off for annoying you," Soren said. He was thinking about this in an entirely different way, apparently.

"Yes," Jale agreed. "And I appreciated it. But I would have told him to leave me alone if I was really that annoyed. He's sort of like an excitable child sometimes. It's cute more than it's annoying."

Tanden just smiled, the comment wasn't meant as an insult, after all. "So what else don't we know about you, Lirajaleanor?

"Plenty of things. Finish eating, we can keep talking in the carriage."