| @Evelynn Decipio |

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	While Eve brushed the snow from her sleeves, Pericles, like a statue, allowed it to collect. It dusted his fair hair, blending with its off-white shade yet catching in the low light, shadows playing over nightmare-darkened eyes. Light and dark juxtaposed on tranquil features for the impression of a frost-bound corpse. When a flake caught in his eyelash, a blink banished it to his cheek. It melted against the freckles there. Being told he needn't worry about her earned a shrug, no further words offered to argue against. It was the move he made when agreeing to disagree. Pericles let his admittance simmer in the air between them. On the other end of narrow-eyed look, he was unemotive albeit open, awaiting her judgment with veiled apprehension. If she was looking for something else, she wouldn't find it. There was nothing more to tell. In that same moment, he caught a glimpse of that distant look, as if she'd gone somewhere else in her mind. He had seen it for some time, the first instance he could recall being the wake of her animagi ritual. Pericles had originally assumed this was a product of stress. Yet it had come and gone enough times since to rouse curiosity, if even concern. He ducked his head with an attempt at catching her eye. In quiet wonder, as though the thought wasn't meant to have left his mind, he murmured "Where do you go...?" The worry she'd told him to do without was woven through his words. Before Eve could be put in the position of answering, he redirected to her isolation episode. She had wanted to be alone, Eve explained. Peri arched his eyebrows, lightly urging her on. That much was apparent- the why was not. But at the drop of February, with the way her eyes avoided his, he made the connection easily enough. Either it was directly related to the loss of the letter's recipient, or the loss of someone else. He wouldn't dig, instead accepting the superficial answer as progress. What was more unexpected was the reason why she'd become an animagus. Detachment from self, an escape from emotion; their drives had been polar opposites. For Pericles, the ritual was a means of accepting an intrinsic aspect of himself. Our animagus shape is representative of who we are at our very cores, he once explained to @Mahlioz Evethisawe. The eagle was a part of him as much as he was part of it. Granted, it did offer a respite from thoughts and feelings, yet he used the transformation to get a birds-eye view of himself. His time in the tree led to revolutionary realizations. Eve's was designed to run from them. She had attributed the cougar to her hermetic predilection, solitary creatures that they were, and his bird could say the same. Yet the pale eagles also had an instinct for lifelong bonds. "Do you want to be alone right now?" Pericles tested the space between them, reaching over it with his words. "Or is hot cocoa still on the table?"
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She knew she had been evasive with her answer, that his statement declaring the absence of an explanation as to why she had spent a day and then some away from the tent had been his way of asking, even if it hadn't been direct. There was no ignorance surrounding his hope that she would satiate his curiosity and pacify any lingering concern with a detailed explanation. Her provision of crumbs would hardly curb a hunger for answers. She knew that. She also knew that he knew he had risked an empty plate by avoiding the direct approach. It left her with a confusing mix of feelings.

On the one hand, relief was apparent. By giving her that out, he'd permitted her the option to hold onto her secrets, had expressed an understanding that she might not want to talk about it. There was a certain gratitude with that. Whether intentional or merely a by-product of the indirect approach typical of muggle socialites and their wizarding pureblood counterparts, Pericles always seemed to lean towards a more hands off approach with her. Gently curious, but never probing to the point of intrusiveness where she felt the need to be on her guard.

On the other hand, she couldn't quite shake an itch of annoyance about how he so often danced around intent. The feeling of how sometimes the words he spoke and the expression he bore--or lack there of--veiled whatever thoughts he was actually having. While his reservation and calm demeanor were qualities that attracted her to his companionship, she did find him hard to read at times. Frustratingly so. Silence stretched taught between them, like a bowstring ready to snap, and Evelynn struggled with trying to decide if she was glad for his restraint to pry further, or wishing that he would.

In the end, her gaze gradually drifted back towards him, lifting to catch his eye, hopeless in any attempt to read whatever thoughts lay beyond it. When he finally broached the quiet, spanning the gap with his question, he didn't receive an immediate reply. Her gaze slipped past him to the darkness of the camp beyond, shrouded in falling snow. Did she want to be alone? For the sake of the question, she considered it for a moment, but ultimately shook her head, reeling her focus back to him with a quiet, "No." Even if the conversation had teased an explanation for her recent absence, her reason for being in the snow in that moment was to make sure he was alright. She felt no reason to abandon that now.

Pivoting slightly in the snow in a silent invitation for him to close the distance, she inclined her head back towards the tent. "Is hot cocoa made with water all right? Unless you know how to conjure milk.." She waited for him to come abreast before stepping off to retrace their steps, rubbing her shoulder against his in the process. "Are you a marshmallow sort? Or mint?"