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Being outdoors at any point during the winter months was high up on the list of things Tybalt didn't enjoy; digging a hole in the hard-packed ground within the Barton Woods surpassed even that, he decided, but in this case, it was necessary. He had to get rid of the pile of bloody clothes he had woken up to days previous, after all. The smell had started leaking into the hallway, and the sight of them unnerved him besides. So, although he still hadn't recovered from the events that had spurred his sudden growth--and he still hadn't properly adjusted to that, either--he had no choice but to get rid of the evidence.

Burning was out, he had decided, on the off chance that some idiot would see the smoke and decide to call the fire department. Stuffing the clothes in a bag with some good-sized rocks and throwing it into the ocean had held some appeal--it seemed fitting, too--but he hurt too damn much, and he hadn't tried flying with his new-and-improved wings, so that was out too. That left the tried-and-true method of burying the evidence; armed with a shovel and a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, he had set out far enough away from home to hopefully put him out of suspicion's way.

Three hours and a handful of pills later, he was finally done. Thoroughly exhausted, he dragged himself out of the woods and towards the lake. Despite the cold radiating from it, it was the shortest way home, and at that point he would have swam across the damn thing--if he had been able to swim at all--if it meant he'd be able to get back to sleep that much quicker.

The irritating noise of the shovel's tip dragging along the cold, hard ground might very well have been the only thing keeping him from sleepwalking. He wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings, so focused was he on the prospect of home and warmth and bed, and he didn't know he was so close to the water until he stepped in it--literally. The cold shock brought him from almost-asleep to wide-awake too fast, and he yelped and staggered back a few steps, dropping the shovel in the process. Unfortunately for him, it fell into the water, and the resulting splash chilled his unprotected feet even more.

"Bloody hell," he muttered, trying in vain to shake his feet dry.

Tybalt was no longer too tired to be aware, and he stopped his useless attempts to get his feet dry as he heard someone approach. His wings flared--instinctively, defensively, and painfully--as he turned towards the figure, and his hand immediately closed on the hilt of a dagger that wasn't there. That, too, was instinct, one he would have to work himself against until he could touch the knife again without feeling disgust and the barest hint of guilty pride.

It seemed he wouldn't need the weapon anyway; this newcomer looked harmless enough. Disturbingly familiar, too. He returned the girl's smile with a frown and tensed as she knelt before him. His foot twitched when she touched it, the talons of the other digging into the ground in agitation, and again as she drew the water from it.

That, too, was familiar. Curious, he reached down to grip her chin, tilting her head up towards him. The skin and hair colors were different, but the eyes, the little wings, the power...that was the same. The pendant around her neck was the same, too, he noticed, and his grip loosened.

"An' when were ye plannin' on tellin' me about this little development?" His voice was quiet, and he was still hoarse, but there was no malice in his tone.

"I noticed," he said, withdrawing his hand as she stood and crossing his arms over his chest. "But not much, aside from color," he teased, looking her over. He took his inspection further, walking a slow, even circle around her and eyeing her with an almost wary appreciation. She had changed on the outside...but not where it mattered, it seemed. Th' more things change, he thought to himself, shaking his head and smiling.

Her retort startled a chuckle out of him as he completed his circuit around her. "I wasn't," he admitted, "I was plannin' on surprisin' ye with it...but certainly not here. I gotta ask, Vid, what're ye doin' out here in th' cold? Without pants, no less!"

"Well, bein' as it's so cold out, I won't ask fer proof." Charitable, for the moment, content with friendship and pleasantly almost-numb, the medicine kicking in. It was strange, looking into her eyes--too much space, he thought, nowhere to properly focus. Pretty color, though.

He spread his wings obligingly as she began to mimic his inspection, unfurling them as much as the barely-suppressed pain would allow; he would probably regret even that later, but "vanity" was high up on his list of committed sins. Tybalt turned his head as she walked, always keeping an eye upon her. "Consider me--an' me feet--grateful." More of a thank-you than most people could have claimed to recieve from Tybalt.

"Cool," he repeated, the slang making him sound odd to himself. "Course I do!" he admitted easily, all but preening over the compliment. "Don't I always?" A wide smile and a wink accompanied the rhetorical question, and he peered closer. He could still see traces of the old Vidya beneath this new skin; it was reassuring. "You look...rather cool yerself."

Tybalt's smile became fixed and terse as Vidya touched his wing, and he indulged her for only a brief moment before he pulled the appendage away, settling both of them as carefully as he could against his back. Harmless, he told himself, she's harmless.

"Aye, I 'spose it is a bit chilly out," he agreed, very close to freezing his tailfeathers off and not willing to admit it. "D'ye have a location in mind?" he asked, hesitating before offering her his arm, a not-unexpected wave of deja vu passing over him.

Coffee...coffee sounded good. No less than perfect for this kind of weather, even if the drink itself was almost too bitter for him to stomach. It was mostly the concept of warmth that held any amount of appeal anyway. "Aye, I know just th' place," Tybalt said decisively, starting to lead them away from the lake, back the way they came--

--and then his foot hit the fallen shovel, and he paused. What would he do with that? It had to be returned--no one used it, but he couldn't leave any kind of evidence out in the open--and home was too far out of the way. With a tight frown and a swift shake of his head, he pushed the tool deeper into the water, getting his foot wet all over again. He mentally marked the location in his head so he could come back for it later.

Spring, maybe, when the water wasn't ice cold.

"C'mon, then, off we go. Hope y'like sweets," he continued, steering them towards the path that led back into town.

Irritation, nervousness, and the faintest bit of anger coiled within Tybalt's gut at Vidya's inevitable notice of the shovel. He hoped her perpetual curiosity didn't lead her to ask the obvious question of just what the shovel was for and mentally scrambled for an answer just in case; luckily, the obvious turned into the unexpected and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"Aye, put it in, then," he said after a moment of thought, his forcibly nonchalant tone completely at odds with tension in his shoulders, in the defensive position his wings had arranged themselves into. "Best t' leave it in there, for th' meantime...quicklike, now; this cold ain't doin' either of us any good."

Tybalt took a step away from Vidya in order to let her do whatever it was that allowed her to work her magic--he had seen it before, but not on this sort of scale. "Ah, but there're sweets an' then there're sweets. What I've got in mind's more th' latter than th' former," he said, the segue out of the dangerous realm of unwanted questions causing his falsely casual tone to become that much more genuine.