(LMCR) Mei Mei

The snow is thick. Awful, horrendous, to trudge through, and he's got his arm wrapped tight around his middle, his shoulders raised to his ears, and his teeth are chattering. He can't make them stop. His jaw is starting to ache.

The Fisherman had left to go back to the Marrows for something or another, and the Merchant had, hand wrapped around his elbow, gleefully suggested he stay here with her. Had said something about introducing him to snow, properly. Had smiled real wide about it.

Simon's not sure why he had agreed.

He should have known better. He likes the Merchant, thinks he even trusts her, but there is something bordering on wicked in her, and Simon had known it was going to be turned on him, he had, and still- he had stayed. Foolish. Stupid.

... he thinks he likes the softening of his edges.

He huffs. Pulls his boots up a little harder than necessary, and manages a few more steps before he has to repeat the manevour. The snow is deep. He keeps on sinking into it, and despite the heavy cloak and the thick sweater and the extra sweater the Fisherman had pushed on him back at the boat, he's still cold.

"Merchant!" he calls out, his voice landing odd in the snow around him. It makes him grimace. Makes something uneasy prickle up the back of his neck, and it's not quite a storm, but it feels like it could be one, any minute. Like the weather's got it's eye on him, and is considering.

He repeats his call. Raises his voice, pitching it high and loud, and he shivers, at the the way it falls. The snow swallows the sound.

He licks his lips. Nestles into the collar of his coat, and glowers out at the dark. She had dragged him out here, and then trailed off ahead, quick and nimble and much more used to the horror of deep snow, and then at some point, he had lost sight of her.

He hadn't been worried. They're on land, for fucks sake, and nothing's followed them out of the sea, has been able to. Nothing they haven't brought with them.

And not that feels like a mistake.

Like he should have known better, and he swallows, throat going tight, because sure, the Merchant isn't his responsibility, but it feels, suddenly, chokingly, like he's failed.

"M-" he coughs, wheezes. Swallows around the lump that's there, now, and then has to do it again, again, the motion not quite happening, an aborted, pained, thing. He hisses out air. Shakes himself.

Swallows.

It tastes like iron.

He squeezes his eyes shut. Snarls, quiet, because he's not doing this. Not now. He can feel it, clawing at his mind, pressing down on him, and he isn't doing this.

He refuses.

"Merchant!" he manages, and forces himself forward. Cold slaps him in the face, and he curls inwards, tucking his head down. "Where the fuck are you!"

The snow doesn't answer.

He keeps on going.

Doesn't quite know for how long he goes. He knows he walks, and he knows the snow continues to be deep and unmanageable, and he knows the wind gets worse and it starts to howl around him, his cheeks going cold and his nose pinking, and something awfully like fear starts to fester in his chest, and he imagines the Merchant, quiet and still in the snow, and so he keeps going, and he doesn't know how this slab of land can stretch so far, but it must, because he never sees the froth of the sea, the deep, the dark, the light of the pontoon. He walks. He just walks.

And then, abruptly, a hand slaps down on his back.

Simon yelps.

He spins around, nearly trips over his own damn legs, and he makes this odd, half motion, like he wants to reach for a weapon but then remembers he doesn't have one, and so he tries to lash out, except no, wait, he doesn't want that either-

"There you are!" the Merchant breathes, cheeks flushed and voice relieved, and Simon wobbles to a halt, and stares at her.

"There I am?" he says, and then, finding the bite. "There you are! Where the hell did you go!?"

She pokes him in the chest. "You're the one who got lost!"

"Wha- I did not!"

"You absolutely did. I've been looking for you for hours!"

Simon throws out his hand. "I've been looking for you for hours!"

She gives him a look. This narrowing of her eyes, a pursing of her lips. It makes him shuffle awkwardly on the spot, hand going back to pressing close to his body.

"Let's go back," she says, dropping the argument like it means nothing at all. A part of him wants to dig his heels in. Keep picking at it. But she reaches out, curls her fingers around his, and the fight leaves him entirely. His shoulders slump.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "It's fucking freezing out here."

She tugs him towards her. Simon's not sure how she knows which way to go, but he lets her guide them, follows in her wake. She keeps their hands linked.

"You look kind of miserable," she says, and he huffs. Burrows his face in the collar.

"I am," it feels easy enough to tell her. To admit to it. He's cold. His teeth aren't even chattering anymore.

"Were you just wandering around out in the snow?" her voice tinges with concern. He stares at her back, the extra layer of protection over her usual coat, the thick wool on her head.

"I couldn't find you."

Her hand squeezes his.

"Well," she says, voice lighter. "You've found me now, haven't you? No reason to stay out here."

He looks behind himself. At the snow, their tracks already covered. At the dark, endless, gaping. His feet ache. He wonders where, exactly, he had been wandering.

"Yeah," he says, and it falls between them, flat, quiet. The snow swallows the sound whole.

Eventually, they make it back to the pontoon. Quicker than he had expected. She drags him onboard, and bustles him into her private quarters, and it's warm, in there. Warmer. She tugs the clothes off him, wraps him in blankets, and then she puts a warm mug of something in his hand, and tells him to drink it, and Simon, forcing himself to look away from the door, from where the snow lies just outside the door, does.