The man-who-was-a-bear remained in that position for moments that felt like hours to poor Winefride; her habit of nervously picking at her cuticles threatened to come back with every flex of calloused fingertips. The silence was imposing, an uncomfortable guest in the front room.

This little house must have belonged to a large family, back before the village was razed. Now it's temporary shelter: a place for warm fires in a brick fireplace and warmer, tanned furs circled around it for sitting or sleeping or throwing bones into the fire to see what their cracks say about the future.

Winefride shifted uncomfortably on her walnut chair, tempted to crawl over to that warm spot in front of the fire and ignore the distressed man across from her. But no — Klaus is her friend — more importantly, Lildrieth is her best friend, she thinks, and so she sits there and watches him.

"Winnie," his voice is plaintive and small, somehow, like a child. "She won't even look at me anymore."

She herself had noticed Lildrieth's isolationist tendencies had flared, but: "She might just be stressed about something... You recall, when she fled off to Aerie Peak—"

"Yes, but she took me with her, then," he countered, each word covered in bitterness, spat out like poison. She realized, now: it's not what Lildrieth is doing. It's what she's not.

"Go and make her look at you, then," Winefride said with a nod of self-righteousness. Klaus finally peels his head out of his hands and looks up at her as if hearing Common for the first time.

Silence returns but Winefride decides to conquer it before the man-who-was-a-bear could: "Sometimes Lidi needs to be pushed. You know that as well as anyone. So push her."

It was a wonder — she was right, he did know — but still, it was so hard for him to square sometimes that the woman who would jump from rooftop to rooftop without a care in the world could need to be pushed. If he pushed her she might tumble to her death. Perhaps that is what she's afraid of.

So he stalked outside and sniffed the air before remembering that was pretty useless with a human nose. More shame filled the core of his being; what else of him was humanly useless? So much, so much, so much so that Lidi couldn't look him in the eyes —

Until she was. In front of him, standing, those glowing holes in her skull boring one into him. The sun had set, he realized. His hands released their desperate grasp on his hair and he's sweat through his linen shirt. Belatedly, he realized Lildrieth is coaxing him: "Please, are you ill? Can you speak? Shall I carry you up —"

"I can walk," falls out of his mouth, and he does, away from the house and towards the woods and the moon. Lildrieth follows, for a moment wordlessly, before realizing more was not coming from the man-who-was-a-bear.

"Klaus, where are you going?" Her words are punctuated by the tiger that pads along beside her. It has had no problem matching his gaze. "Klaus, where are you taking us?"

A big rock seems to be the answer, and as they climb it both realize its taking them closer and closer to the moon. The sweet light of Elune caresses all three creatures. Klaus breathes in the cold night air and it burns his lungs.

Silence returns as a welcome guest. The weight of living peels away from Klaus's form and he feels like he's standing ten feet tall. The light of the moon — the sound of her gentle breathing — standing and knowing they stand together.

"I just wanted to do this again," he finally answers, so honestly, and now he cannot look her in the eyes for fear of what she might see. "The night was ours in the cold moonlight."

She smiled; the feeling of his coarse fur, as she snuggled into the bear, warm and comfortable, was a close memory. She sat, mimicking that position withe tiger, and beckoned Klaus beside her.