(She's! Been napping!) 

She does have at least a year's worth of Just Being Held to catch up on, though, and this is great for that.

He pages through the Acts, and maintains the vent hole, and holds her.

It's too dark to see well how snowy it is, but the wind quiets, eventually.

"V- Miss Urdina. I think we can dig out now."

She stirs in his arms, yawning. "I like being called Venn," she says with a shyer-than-usual smile, and then - oh, she has to stop hugging him now.

It does not seem like a very digging compatible activity, yeah. "...Venn," he says tentatively.

 "That's me, yes." Biiiig grin. "...may I call you Blai? When we're alone, anyways."

"It is my name."

"Blaaaaaiiiiiii," she responds agreeably, drawing out all the vowels. 

Digging time?

Yup. "One of us should stay back, to pull the other back in if there's a collapse, do you have a preference?"

Hmmm. "You're a lot stronger than me? I'm not sure I'd be able to pull you back if a collapse happened."

"Okay. Do you know how to do this in principle?" If not he can give her a quick lesson on how it's done.

The quick lesson is necessary and appreciated!

Dig, dig, dig through the snow towards freedom and/or allies... She will actually sing while she's doing this, both to indicate to ✨ Blai ✨ that she's fine and unbothered and so that if the others are within earshot they'll know where she is and call out (it's easier to tell that she's singing Iomedaean songs now that there's audible lyrics).

It is! He is paying more attention now since there are not very many other distractions in the environment.

Eventually she will be able to burst forth from the side of a snowdrift.

"Made it out!", she calls back through the tunnel.

"Coming!" He gets his backpack on and follows her out into the night.

It is still snowing, but not that hard, and it's not windy.

Time to look for the others?

"If we see some kind of flag up, yes, but if not we proceed to the fort we were originally bound for, as they will have done not finding a flag for us if they got out first."

Huh, okay. She nods.

(She hopes they're okay...) 

Venn continues to be alert and Not Chatty while on active patrol.

It's very slow going because the snow's so deep. Looks like no patrols have gotten this far since the weather turned.

They do catch one going the other way, though.

Have they seen Txell and the others?

"Yeah, they're about twenty minutes ahead of you."

"Any word on the situation with the wounded in #18?"

"No news."

"Thank you."

And they can at least at this point join up with a reasonably beaten path.

She's glad they're okay, and says so once the other patrol is out of earshot.

"Yes. I make everybody pass the quinzee class before they can lead a squad but it's never a guarantee."

They make it to the fort not too long afterwards. There's stew. Dawn is so close that Blai might as well spend channels here, pray, and only then proceed to #18.

She'll flavor stew for people, including ✨Blai✨.

And she'll sing in the mess hall, even if they don't need healing, because even a mundane song can lift hearts and spirits, and if she lets herself put a bit of her magic into it every so often to bolster their courage, well - she has some going spare, and it'll be good for them. (And it makes her happy, too.)

Blai would like chicken-and-dumplings stew with herbs in it maybe? He keeps a very professional amount of space between them.