Lucia was busy hanging skins over the fire when he came in. It seemed as though fall had skipped over Karaya without a pause, leaving the bitter chill of winter in its wake. The villagers spent every moment of daylight doing everything they could to prepare for it, and the clan Chief herself was helping by hanging freshly-washed skins inside a tent to dry over a fire. She was growing weary as night fell, hoping against hope that her work was almost through: the more skins brought to her, the better for the village; the less, the sooner she could rest.
"Almost finished," he said, dropping his load to the ground near her.
She didn't reply. She never did.
Her labor had made her warm despite the frost on the ground outside. But the moment she'd felt his presence she'd grown cold all over, as dead as the animals whose hides she worked so fervently to dry out so they could be put to better use. Was that how she saw herself? As something useful, nonetheless dead? Full of purpose, but empty of all warmth? Where's your heart?
She recalled his words well.
Beecham left but returned just as Lucia was starting on his latest pile. He set down his new stack of skins nearby and picked one up, taking it to hang on one of the ropes that hung across the tent.
Lucia stopped in her tracks. "What are you doing?" she demanded with some indignation in her tone.
"Helping," he said warmly, softly. He turned his back to her, never having met her gaze. "It's going to be a cold one," he remarked, his breath visible in the air.
"You don't have to do this," the Chief said more softly, taking up another skin. "You've worked hard today." It was only an implication that she had been watching; she was careful not to say so in as many words.
"No more than you," he said, his lips daring to curl into a smile. "You do so much for us all."
She had no answer for him. They worked on in silence until they were down to the last skin. As Lucia reached down to pick it up, he quickly took it into his own hands. Their eyes, at last, met.
"I'd still do anything for you," Beecham said very softly.
"And I'd still want more." For a moment Lucia's eyes shone with warmth. And in the next she was walking away, leaving her heart behind, where somehow she knew it belonged.