Sleepy Fox Hollow The ice man cometh.

He stared at that empty-eyed skull, with its sagging cheeks and rat-bitten little ears, until Maegi called to him. He startled more to her voice than the enduring company of death, and as he lifted his chest and propped himself up with his forelimbs, he finally tore his attention away from the body. She was close; drifting closer, horror-stricken face and all. What happened?

Mou wondered what was going through her mind. Revulsion was obvious - it was something they shared - but what else? Doubt? Did she think that he had done this? Found this foreign creature with its leather straps and too-similar-face, its exposed viscera discoloring the ice and stone with red-brown. The body was frostbitten. Freezer-burned, more like it; the cavern acting as a shelter while winter's chill froze out the death.

He opened his mouth to answer her, but. He didn't know what to say. The first words Mou wanted to use with his beloved did not have anything to do with such foul themes. He moved, shifting to his feet, sliding up beside her to eagerly share her space and find comfort in her warmth; more for his own sake than her's, immediately.

But then he drew his lips across her cheek, a soft love-nip. Sithis brought me here. It had to be Sithis; working through the void, calling for him. He would not have found this cavern without the daedra's influence, Mou was certain of that. He didn't care for the body even as he said this, he was watching Maegi - wondering, intensely, if she saw what he saw.