Time is running out, she can't carry on as she is. Mother and Beth are entertaining in the other room, stalling, waiting for her to return from the kitchen. Her eyes are pulled to the pamphlet on the table, rescued by Carver from the Chanters board.
Sparkling green light dances above them, the morning sun and the trees joining to bathe them in bright promises. He's snoring gently, his head buried in the nook of her shoulder, curled into her, the salt air and exhaustion teasing at her resolve, the soft weight of his raven feathered coat enveloping them, sheltering them from the breeze that is carried in by the tide.
The dawn light comes in through the thin curtains. He's snoring in her face, his breath stinks of ale and rotting meat. Her full belly shifts and she can hear the other children shrieking and running through the small house. The wind shakes the window panes, and cold air blasts through the gaps. He grunts, rubs a rough hand over his dark stubble and rolls over, taking the sheet with him.
He lowers himself into the stream, taking his position between her legs, and she runs her fingers through his soft hair, washing the past away, cold water gently spilling down his back, running rusty with blood and dirt from another life time. She presses her bare chest against his back, glad for today, glad for everyday they're together.
With no chance of sleep she rekindles the fire, pumps the water, stands on aching legs boiling oats to a thin and greasy porridge, tends to the livestock, the wind whipping her hair into her face as the eldest children walk into the village for their morning classes at the chantry.
She lays with her jacket unbuttoned, hair billowing around her, drifting to sleep under his gaze. He traces gentle fingers across her bare stomach, following the splayed trails of knotted skin which meet just below her navel in a crash of unfeeling pink flesh. Softly he kisses her scar, wishing he could have done more, glad he did enough.
He grunts in her general direction and she hands him his food for the day, knowing she won't see him until it's dark and he's drunk. She turns her attention to the washing, the churning, the cleaning. Later as she sits by the fire, her swollen stomach stretching and rolling, she wonders where this all went wrong.
Wrapped in each others arms, they talk quietly, the embers casting a gentle wash of light across their make-shift camp. They plan for tomorrow, they plan for the next week, and eventually as sleep welcomes them into its folds, they dream of their future, together.
All she ever wanted was a home, all she ever wanted was family. Yet she's always in pain, an ever expanding void in her chest where love should be, but he was never going to love her; the way he'd looked at her family she'd known she would always be inferior. When her eldest boy told her about the explosion in Kirkwall she wept; the cat climbed onto her shoulders and purred gently into her neck.
It's been six months since her Dad's funeral and she has to decide tonight. Marriage or the Army?