Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 19)

(It was either gonna be him or Gaius showing up)

Rönn looked between them, them approached and bent down. "Give me him, you make small fire." He took Tomhas gently, keeping the coats around him, and wrapped him in his massive furry arms. "Why he do this?"

Ky still couldn’t speak but she forced herself to obey. Her hands trembled violently but she managed to gather wood and start a small fire. She almost killed it a few times from rushing it and feeding it too fast but she managed to get a fire started in a few minutes.

(Rönn’s more helpful he can actually carry him back lol)

(Indeed he can! Gaius would have shown up on a horse though--man can't walk into the woods with a wooden leg he's just gotten used to!)

Rönn moved himself and Tomhas a little closer to the fire but kept enough distance that it was only warm rather than hot. Tomhas groaned softly.

(That’s fair lol)

Ky was still sobbing, staring at him helplessly. “Closer.”

"Too close can kill him," Rönn said grimly. "We start slow, get him warm, then go back to Keep. You get warm too."

She glanced down at herself and realized her own hands were blue, entire body still violently trembling. She obediently scooted closer to the fire, wiping at her eyes as she stared at her father’s limp body.

The heat from the fire was beginning to melt the snow from his clothes and beard. Rönn watched him quietly, seated on the ground.

She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her face then blew her nose, still trembling and crying but very slowly calming. Rönn’s presence helped. He seemed to know what he was doing. He lived up here millennia. He knew how to help someone get warm safely.

He scooted a little closer to the fire after a few minutes. "You have pot or thing to hold water?" he asked her.

She shook her head miserably, patting her pockets to see what she had. She pulled out the knife and snotty handkerchief and rune bone and showed it to him. “I… I didn’t know… I… sorry….”

He dipped his head. "That okay."

She slipped the knife and bone back in her pocket and started to put the handkerchief away as well. Then she hesitated, noticing the blood on it from where she’d wiped her face. Gods, she probably looked like a fucking barbarian with her own blood smeared across her face. She scratched at it, trying to make the dried blood flake off.

Rönn watched her. "You pray to god?"

She glanced at him, then glanced away with a blush and nodded silently.

"Who?"