A few days had passed since the winter celebration; the time of year when all in the clan gathered together to celebrate the shortest day of the year with much drinking, food, music and merriment -- along with plenty of brawling. This winter Pren and Gwennol, his wife, spent amongst the people of the Avanc Clan after having been reunited only a few months ago. Like the rest of the people there, they drank and celebrated and slept late into the next day where they rested lazily. The day after that there was a hunt, where Pren left Gwennol behind with the other village women to go hunt some avanc for food, supplies and decoration for he had managed to take the lower jaw for himself. Now, it was time for the couple to go for a small walk in the dark evening, to look at where they shall be heading too next.
The thick mud, despite being frosty and hard on the top, squelched under the heavy foot of Pren, leading the way for his wife with a torch in his hand, sending the glowing orange embers floating in the cold wind. Gwennol followed behind, wrapped in fur over fur and with a thick hood on her head with just her auburn hair seen poking out from underneath.
"How much longer do we have to walk?", she asked out as they exited the marshy lands, now getting onto a slope where a white dusting of snow was seen on the ground.
"Just to the top of this hill.", Pren grumbled out as the wind blew at his hair, usually tied back though due to the lateness he let it free, the rough dark locks whipping at his eyes and war-painted forehead. He paused, waiting for Gwennol to catch up and offering her one of his large muscled arms to hold up the incline.
They carried on and soon enough they came to the flatter summit of the small hill, where the snow crunched under their leather and hide boots. They stopped on the top, the sky dark and cloudy with little moonlight to be seen though enough to see the shadowy outline of the land and the cold flakes of snow that danced about on the winter breeze.
One large hand held the wooden base of the torch whilst the other was set about Gwennol's much smaller hand, feeling the slight burn of the glowing embers on his tough skin of his biceps though soon cooled by the icy snowflakes that fell afterwards. His wife tucked well into his side, cold and finding warmth in the large mass that was Pren.
"Look around, Gwennol.", Pren grumbled out lowly, using the torch to gesture ahead to the shadow of a small valley in the side of upraised hill. "That is where we will be heading too soon enough our journey. To Wulf's Cleft for a short stop. Though next we shall be heading to Barnavon, to the Oxen."
Gwennol peered out from underneath her hood to look towards the shadows before she spoke out,
"Now that we've seen it, can we return to the warmth of a fire?"
Pren looked down to her with a slight grumble though a grin was present underneath his untamed beard. They turned and went back down the hill, through the muddy bog for a couple more nights rest with the Avancs.
