"At least he didn't have you long enough."

"Thanks." He doesn't quite need the comfort, but he's not sure it was for him; he leaves it.

"You're welcome. Anyway, I don't think Yellow could have caught me himself, and Thorn - my previous master - well -" Shrug. "So the hypothetical doesn't work but it's a very kind sentiment."

"I wish it hadn't happened at all, then. But things happen, and I'd rather wish I could do something about them than wish them away without a trace. So, I'd rather wish it was me instead."

"That's an interesting constraint on your wishing behavior."

"It's... it's a thing I've kept around from the time after Belinda died. I wished to myself that it had never happened, and it just made me feel worse. So instead I wished that I could break my enchantments, or that I could kill my master, or that I could do something about it. And that made me angry. And anger, I can... work with. Misery makes you useless, but anger and hate, they're like a fuel. Hate can burn through steel."

"I can get plenty angry about things not having been all right of their own accord."

"Well, there's ways and ways."

"Yeah. And I don't find anger productive anyway, so sometimes I skip over it when things fail to have been all right of their own accord."

"That's fair. I don't get angry often, because it's not very often I'm powerless anymore. Benefits of being very, very good at killing things!"

"I am afraid that here you may have to settle for being good at beating things up. Or pointlessly destroy plants, I suppose."

"Works for me. I can get the same results by just being very, very careful about everyone else in the world who isn't you, here. Which might get exhausting, but I'll be busy and you're good company."

"Thank you."

Ari keeps his weightlessness on so he can walk atop the snow. "If I work out a diagram I can get you warmed up until sunrise tomorrow. This isn't me saying "do you want me to do this," by the way, this is me telling you that I'm doing this so you know who to thank when you're not miserably cold anymore. Not that you need to thank me. Basic human decency and all that."

"The Snows is usually early morning," says Promise. "Sometimes it goes through a cycle, but then it tends to stop at early morning again for a long time. You may wish to give your estimates in hours. Anyway, soon I'll have the place's harmonics learned well enough to do a patch of warmth by sorcery."

"...There's a difference between "the amount of time until sunrise" and "at sunrise," though. In my magic. I'm going to want to test that at some point, but it'd definitely last for at least 24 hours. When are you going to have the warmth set up, you look like a sad kitten and it's distressing. Do you want some of my human clothes to put on over your leafdress?"

"I'm not sure it'll fit closely enough to help very much, but yeah, if you can spare something, I'll be about half an hour learning the harmonics well enough to do basic warmth as needed - anything longer-term will take more detailed familiarity."

Ari promptly takes his shirt off. He considers for a moment, then takes his pants off as well. He hops into Promise's snowy burrow and drapes the shirt over her shoulders, then hands her the pants. "Are you familiar with the function of this wondrous invention? It is called pants."

"I've seen them before." She shimmies into them. They are hilariously big on her. She considers the shirt, then decides that it's also big enough that she can get it on over her folded wings. "Here's hoping I don't need to take off suddenly," she says. "Thank you."

Ari nods happily. "You're welcome! I'm always ready to take my clothes off to help the innocent."