The snow fell heavier than Liffey had ever seen. She had experienced hard winters before, but never one as hard as this. She felt stranded, hunting what little she could and breaking apart old furniture in the abandoned farmstead to use for the fire-pit. She hadn't been able to leave the house in a day or so, after a particularly heavy night of snowfall that left the windows hidden behind snow. She felt as if she were going mad, knowing it was daytime yet having to keep herself busy by candlelight in the darkness.
She had never been fond of reading. Her limbs always seemed to buzz with energy that she could never manage to get rid of, and Liffey had always found that she could never sit still long enough to get through anything substantial, unless it was research she was truly invested in, and the few books left laying around the house were hardly anything more than books about homesteading, and someone's old journal entries. And yet, she still found herself reading them to pass the time, even though hunching over in the dark hurt her back, and trying to read the old writing in candlelight hurt her eyes.
Still. By far, Liffey knew that she had had worse winters, even if this one felt hardest. There had been winters where she was colder than this, winters where she was hungrier than this. She could not help but feel a little bit guilty whenever the only true struggle of this winter was her boredom. They were well-supplied; they had enough broken wooden chairs to use for the fire until they would be able to go outside again.
Sure that they might be off by a few days at least, they celebrated a quiet Yule in the home anyway, splitting a small and simple meal and recounting tales of past celebrations. She'd slept the rest of the afternoon away, dreaming of herself back in Bree again, but visiting Winterhome for the holiday season. She'd danced and sang and eaten more than she'd eaten in months, and when she woke, it was with a deep sense of melancholic longing for home. But the winter would not last forever, and soon the roads would be clear of snow and the weather not too cold for travel, and they could finally arrive at Edoras in Spring.
