They play it slow, even though she claims she likes fast, because they have time. Time to cart ice through the city gates, visit the green slopes and sparkling waterfalls. They dig up the happiness, fresh and loamy. Happiness is a golden mist settled on the valley, and they are immersed in it. It is his ring on her finger, his arm around her waist. Happiness never lets them feel cold. She is the apple of his eye, or carrot, if you'd rather phrase it so.
Their relationship progresses deliberately, unhurried, in a languid stream of perfect instants. Like the moment when she wakes with him beside her, where he has always belonged, it seems, his broad chest rising and falling in synchronization with his soft cervine snores. She teases him about the snoring. They relish the superfluous time, thank the Gods for blind faith and giggle together in quiet appreciation of what they have gained.
And so it continues like that, ruby laughter and warm, unimposing compatibility; except for the moments when the two of them falter. Like the moment when he is chortling and swinging troll babies on his legs, and she remarks gently, "You'll be a wonderful father".
"I can't say I know anything about the profession", he says, his voice coltish, just a playful jab, but somehow, suddenly, there is a brittleness in the air. He glances at Sven, who gives him the bravo, you dolt grimace, and when he looks back at her, her face is unsmiling, her eyes welling. She curls her arm to her chest, and her hand trembles as she revisits the instant, years past, when she learned that joy can only exist when it coexists with misfortune.
He knows it, too. He recalls it back from a time that might as well be a different life; the stiffness of his father's hands after they pulled him from the water, the blue sheen of his father's skin against the pale of the ice. The event's entire incomprehensibility – how could someone exit so suddenly from a place he was so vital, so vibrant? How?
So he holds her in his arms and kisses her forehead, silently, respectfully, in acknowledgement of what they have lost.