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Earendil pulled the blanket back and shivered in the coolness of the room and, rubbing his arms once more, he joined Lin at the window.

It was indeed quite white outside, but he could see through it just enough to realize that the snow outside had piled up - high. Their window faced east, towards Timaeus and Alyse's house, but the house wasn't in sight, and even the trees that were nearer were difficult to see. What shocked him, however, was the depth of the snow that had fallen overnight. He couldn't tell exactly how much it was, but he was willing to bet it was at least as deep as Lin was tall.

Words escaped him, and he could only stare. He had never seen so much snow ...

Earendil couldn't tear his gaze from the snow.

"I don't know if we should go downstairs and see exactly how much there is," he murmured in a bit of a daze, "or if we should just crawl back into bed and try to stay warm."

Indeed, he was beginning to shiver again. There were no fireplaces in the bedrooms, and with how strong the wind was, it was quite cold - and he had never really warmed up from the night before.

Earendil nodded and reached for his cloak, intending on using it to keep warm while they searched for Haradhel. But it was still wet, the coolness of the room preventing it from drying properly, and so he left it where it was hanging.

"Let's just go quickly," he murmured, turning towards the door instead.


Despite having stayed up quite late the night before, Arahad was already awake and looking out the window of the door. He glanced up when he heard Miyuki coming down the stairs and smiled warmly at her.

"Good morning," he said cheerfully. "Have you looked outside yet? We're snowed in!" He laughed and pointed at the window. Snow was piled up almost to the top of the door, and only a very small bit of the window was still uncovered.

The hall was slightly warmer than the bedroom, but it was still quite cool, and it didn't help Earendil much.

"I'm sure she'll be up," he murmured softly. "She's usually the first one, and it's quite late, to be fair."

He headed towards the stairs so that they could head down to the kitchen, where he suspected Haradhel likely was.


Arahad chuckled at Miyuki. "The sky. Come look out the window in the playroom, you'll be able to see a lot better there, the window's bigger."

He held one hand out to her, offering to lead her.

It was much warmer in the kitchen than it had been in any other room, and Earendil felt his shivers slow immediately.

Haradhel was in the middle of preparing breakfast, her back to the door when Lin and Earendil entered, but when she heard Lin call her name she turned around and smiled.

"Good morning," she said warmly. "Glad to see you made it back last night. We were a bit worried, but Arahad promised to go looking for you if you weren't back by a certain time."


Arahad grinned and brought Miyuki to the playroom, and once they were in there he motioned for her to stand on top of one of the desks so that she could see over the top of the snow. It was quite dark in the room, the windows a solid gray wall except for where the snow hadn't yet reached, and through the space all that could be seen was white gusts of snow blowing past.

"We're going to be here a while," Arahad chuckled.

Haradhel's eyes grew slightly concerned. "Of course," she said without hesitation, brushing her hands on her pants. "You should have asked last night, then you could have been warm all through the night. Come, I'll go prepare a hot bath for you."

"Thanks," Earendil said gratefully. "I more than need it."

His eyes flickered once more towards the fire in the fireplace before he turned to follow Haradhel back upstairs.

Arahad laughed at Miyuki's assessment. "Indeed," he grinned, standing next to her and peering outside as well. "I'm sure it will blow itself out by tonight though. It's rare we get storms this late in the year, but they never last long."

Arahad tilted his head slightly, his dark eyes thoughtful.

"Well ... usually if we do get a storm this late in the year," he murmured, "it's followed by warmer than usual weather ... so if the storm continues into tonight, the snow from it could be gone in a week. Of course, the ground would still be soggy, but it's better than being snowed in for months."