Herbalists' Cache though winter be a brittle beast

<3

 

despite the sliver of scent that reached her, the halfling started just so with a nervous jump of her heart, her ears perking skyward with alarm. forcing herself to calm as the acrid perfume of fear budded from her pores, the midwife pressed back against the earthen walls as a soft tempo of footfalls made itself known over the whiteout.

"oh, yes, of course," the brumal sylph lilted, her words little more than a wisp of sound. even so, her whispers seemed inexplicably loud beneath the cover of darkness - every sound amplified by blindness. "vere ye lost? in ze storm?" 

"zat is most kind, ser." her tones remained hushed, pallid gaze flickering about in the fruitless endeavor to make him out. 

her eyes failed again in their struggle against the abysmal ink of the hour of the bat; which left only the occasional brush of his fur against aerin's own as they accidentally bumped in their sightless state and his own similar subdued baritones. 

"vhat is yer name?" she dared to inquire of her faceless companion after a moment, hoping it might still the last stutters of her quavering heart to put a name to the stranger in her den.