(6) freezing.

[waywardious]

Even along the southern-most coast of France, winter has proven merciless this year. With temperatures dropping steadily into the minus twenties up north, in Paris, Claude had hoped (if nothing else, then for Vincent's sake) that Marseille would be gentler, freezing only around the edges, but they'd stepped off the train yesterday - onto a platform covered in almost as much snow as the Parisian streets. From their (separate) rooms in the Archambault Castle's western wing, they both have a white-covered view of the gardens that saw the house thermometers reaching their yearly low of minus fifteen degrees Celcius last night, hardly more than five degrees warmer now, late in the afternoon on the 25th of December. Christmas Day.

The sound of their boots sinking into the otherwise undisturbed snow between the orchard's greying olive tree trunks serving as the only audible background noise, Claude casts a glance over one shoulder at Vincent. At this hour, dusk looming at the horizon, he's been reduced to a tall, dark figure with the castle for background, clad in layers upon layers of newly purchased winter clothing. It hasn't even been a month. Talk about fresh wounds. So, although it was all sort of sudden (not least for them), Claude had made hurried arrangements with Céline only a few days after - that he'd bring a friend for Christmas, that she wouldn't need to make any special accommodations and they would be no bother to her, to her husband or their daughter.

She hasn't asked. Not once, not even at the introductions yesterday, although her gaze had followed the two of them contemplatively. Vincent and him. Later, after Mother had retired for the night and Catherine had agreed to tug Lilou in with her own cluster of children, she had seated herself in Vincent's temporarily abondoned chair while he went to refill their glasses. The hasps on the door between your rooms may be a bit obstitinate, but they do open, she'd said in her soft, round voice.

Trust Céline to keep his secrets even as she's revealing them. Claude smiles. Kicks a hard slope of iced-over mud with his left foot. Looks over at Vincent again.