Starlight's Glitter -- as she was nicknamed by an elven woman she had rescued from a cave, whose crush on her she had never quite realized it, even centuries after the last surviving elf took her final breath -- was making up stew with a surprising amount of certainty. This, being something that was done outside sometimes, she had watched thousands of times, and done tens of times, and usually they had less ingredients than she at their disposal.

She was known as Little Mercy by Eoforhild, and at the moment she was wearing the taller woman's apron, at her insistence, "so she would not burn herself", as if this little fire could cause permanent harm. However, she wore nothing else-- she had little fear of nudity, and she was beginning to suspect that Eoforhild liked to look at her body a little more when there wasn't a blanket nor rags in the way... interestingly, just having an apron on seemed to do little to detract from her mate's attention. She smiled over at Eoforhild as she stirred the pot of stew once again with the large, long-handled spoon she had been granted to use for this task.

Eoforhild sat on a chair nearby, watching her new property make stew, with a slightly complicated expression-- her Little Mercy had just thrown in far more ingredients than she herself would've used for a stew, even more than twice as many, which would've at least been understandable... even if she had only used twice the ingredients, though, she was going to run out of food more quickly than planned... feeding two people naturally used up food twice as fast as feeding one.

Still, Eoforhild's logical planning was somewhat distracted by the young woman's half-naked body as she cheerfully prepared soup for her Owner and Mistress... someone being naked with an apron certainly wasn't anything Eoforhild had ever heard before, but perhaps it was too private for anyone to discuss... it's not like Eoforhild discussed coercing young women to do her bidding with anyone, although she somehow suspected she was not the only one.

Mercy nodded a little, the ingredients chopped and stirred to her liking, and turned back to Eoforhild as she stepped away from the cauldron. "Is there anything else you would like me to do, my lady?"

Eoforhild had taught her to call her that, and she smiled as she unashamedly addressed her like royalty. "Mmm... kneel on the floor next to me here."

Mercy obediently kneeled down, following Eoforhild's gesture... or perhaps just a slight bit closer than she had gestured, but gestures are vague, after all. She smiled up at her mate adoringly. It was nice to be close.

Eoforhild looked down at her, obediently kneeling on the cold stone floor without seeming remotely troubled by it, and furrowed her brow a little... exactly how had people been treating this cute young woman, that she was already used to this? She had looked forwards to seeing her squirm and try to do her best to stay still and look up at her all pleadingly and ask to be allowed to sit in her lap... but Mercy was just being cheerfully obedient again. "The floor isn't uncomfortable?" She reached down and stroked Mercy's head.

Mercy's smile widened, and she rubbed her cheek against Eoforhild's thigh. "A little. But it makes me so happy to be with you, and I've been more uncomfortable."

Eoforhild's brown furrowed. "How did your previous family treat you, that you're used to this?"

Mercy simply looked up at her quizzically. She wasn't sure what the right answer was here.

Eoforhild sighed. "Of course you wouldn't know the difference between how other families treated you and your own did...." The stray she had picked up was naive of most of the ways of the world, it seemed. She leaned down, wrapped her arms around Mercy, and pulled her up into her lap. "Does that feel better?"

"Yes! Warmer and softer." She settled against Eoforhild, pleased. Sitting right in her mate's lap did feel more right.

Eoforhild hugged her close. "I need to go out and get more supplies, soon."

"Oh! I'll go with you."

"No. I only have one set of proper winter clothes."

Mercy didn't know how to respond. She didn't really need clothes, but she could hardly say that to Eoforhild without revealing the reason she had come with her was false. "Can't you just stay here?"

"...people need food to survive, my Little Mercy." Eoforhild stroked her cheek with her thumb.

"Yes."

"We're people."

"...yes." The little goddess of eternal cold was not sure if this was true, strictly speaking, but she could hardly deny it without blowing her cover.

"So I need to go get us more supplies," explained Eoforhild patiently.

Mercy nodded. "Makes sense. Can I come?"

"...no, because you don't have proper clothing. You stay here and watch the stew, and eat it when you get hungry, and I'll be back before you know it."

Mercy squirmed in Eoforhild's lap, but finally nodded, and slid out of her lap. "You'll be back soon?"

Eoforhild leaned down and kissed Mercy on the lips. "I'll be back before sundown tomorrow," she promised.

The moment Eoforhild stepped out of the door, Mercy put on her rags, and followed her. Now, she could easily have covered herself in a storm of snow, or transformed into an icy wind, but that might have made things more dangerous for her vulnerable human mate, and if she had changed into an animal, she might have ended up hunted by the very one she sought to protect... so she decided to just move silently. It was less than five minutes before Eoforhild glanced back at the house she had left behind her, with her newest and most precious piece of property, a girl who she-- a girl, that is, who was standing not ten feet behind her.

Her eyes narrowed, and she walked towards Mercy, staring down at her with narrowed eyes. "I thought I told you to stay and watch the stew. Have you decided to give up on my hospitality?"

Mercy blinked, eyes widening as she realized she hadn't followed a command. "No, I forgot!" She had her mate for little more than a day, and already she was about to mess up everything. "Please let me stay?"

Eoforhild paused. She hardly had the heart to turn the girl out into the cold, much less for a mistake... but at the same time, she couldn't have her defying her orders, especially when she seemed to have no real survival instinct beyond clinging to Eoforhild. "Strip off your clothes and kneel."

Mercy pulled off her rags and kneeled in the snow, and looked up at Eoforhild with a mixture of hope and fear... she was giving her orders... was that good?

"If you wish to regain my favor, address me as 'my lady'. Are you getting cold?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Would those rags have protected you from the cold for long?"

"No, my lady." Already, the sensation of cold was seeping back into her, making her shiver... nothing she couldn't get used to again. She was used to being cold and alone, even if she'd prefer to be warm and with her mate.

"Would my house have protected you from the cold for long?"

With four walls, a roof, and plenty of firewood? "Yes, my lady."

"And what is the one thing that I told you you had to do to be allowed to stay in my house?"

Mercy blinked. "...Stay and watch the stew?"

"No, to follow my every order. Of which staying and watching the stew was one of."

"Ah! Yes, my lady."

Eoforhild grabbed Mercy by the arm and hauled her up to her feet, and started walking back towards her house, half-dragging the shorter woman through the snow naked, leaving the rags behind. "I will give you another chance."

"Thank you, my lady!" Being half-dragged wasn't comfortable, but the snow shifted and moved beneath her feet to make her slide along a bit more, so Eoforhild dragged her back to her cottage without further complaint.

She opened the door, and glared down at Mercy icily. "Now. You don't have any clothes, and if you go out, even you should know you'll freeze to death. You're going to stay here inside until I come back."

"...yes, my lady...."

Seeing the naked girl sniffling and looking up at her with tears in her eyes, she wrapped her in a hug, her voice becoming gentler. "I'm sorry I had to be mean to you... but you seriously won't survive out there with just rags."

Mercy nodded. "...no human would survive out there with just rags... I just want to be with you so much... my lady...."

Eoforhild kissed her property possessively, and the girl melted against her. Eoforhild pulled back from the kiss, and smiled down at her. "I'll be back before you know it. You've spent your whole life before without me, what is a couple of days?"

Mercy blinked at that. "...are you a philosopher?"

Eoforhild laughed. "No, too much of a pragmatist to philosophize. You just be a good girl and wait here for me."

"Yes, my lady!" Mercy looked up at Eoforhild with hope, an emotion she wasn't used to-- because, of course, hope is an emotion one can't have with certainty. Hope is a shining wish born out of the dark cave of fear.

Eoforhild gave Mercy one more gentle kiss on the brow, and left again, closing the door behind her.

Mercy shivered and stared at the door. She finished making the stew -- she burnt it, but just a little... the enclosure made the heat from the fire stronger in a way she hadn't realized, but there was nothing else to focus on, so she was quick to catch it.

She sat in the chair, and stared at the door some more. She kneeled on the floor for a bit and stared at the door, to remind herself of how Eoforhild had told her to kneel on it, but it was uncomfortable, and after a little while she sat on the chair again.

She could leave any time, and stop waiting for her mate... but if she did, Eoforhild might never let her back inside. She could force her way back inside, of course, but even she knew that would irrevocably change the nature of her relationship with the woman.

So all she could do is wait, in the chair, in the bed, pacing, singing and telling stories to herself... it wasn't much more boring inside the little house than inside, because there were all sorts of things to look at and sniff that she wasn't used to, but she missed her mate's presence. Sometimes she snuggled into the covers to sniff more of her mate's smell, but it wasn't quite the same. She had spent an eternity waiting for nothing in particular without a care in the world, but waiting less than two days for Eoforhild to return was so hard.

She hoped the world outside the door wouldn't harm the one that had chosen her... she had saved countless people, and watched countless more die even with her help, and even more die without it... and she could do none of that for her mate without breaking the one rule she had laid out for her.

If her mate was going to freeze to death, she would at least like to see it happen, is what she thought at first, but then the thought just made her cry.

In the end, she made a little nest of the covers on the bed, and watched the door relentlessly, too worried to sleep, and too immortal to have a real need to.

"My lady," she said softly to herself. "Mine."