Cramped as the fort was, Caius and Idunnir weren't the only people who chose to risk it and sleep in the town's other buildings. Jovis was another example. Whatever was going on with those zombies, it was a fairly distant threat. Especially if everyone remembered to close the village's gate.

  Said gate had been open when Idunnir led Caius to the town because someone just... forgot to close it... The individual responsible remained unnamed, but everyone had been giving Ippa dirty looks at the time and even Caius could read between those lines.

  The village was mostly deserted, but it turned out that wasn't actually because of the zombie threat. As Caius had observed, though not experienced, the winter was rather brutal this high in the mountains. Most of the population was seasonal.

  Caius happily erased the mental image he had formed when they found the village deserted. The one which had desperate refugees trudging through the snow, hoping to find refuge before the zombies found them.

  The two did relocate to a different house. Frida's, in fact. She had invited the two to use it. It was a definite improvement in smell. Not a large house by any means, it's owner was unwed and had no interest in changing that status.

  While Caius offered to sleep on the floor so Idunnir could have the bed, she insisted he take it. Admittedly he didn't fight too hard on that point, the idea of sleeping in a bed was very appealing.

  Until he actually saw the bed.

  Some furs over a straw mattress. Admittedly the headboard was pretty, with marquetry designs that looked like birds. Caius almost cried. It was as far from his soft, memory foam mattress and cotton sheets as you could get and still technically call it a "bed."

  Meanwhile, Idunnir was laughing at him. Well, he probably did look amusing, so he couldn't blame her.

  He had a very specific vision of how to take his revenge. Which involved him spending nearly twenty minutes explaining to the bed how it could improve itself. He justified the extravagance to himself by framing it as... seeing how complicated his requests could be. And he spoke in English to... see if that would work.

  Speaking a language that Idunnir didn't was definitely not an attempt to surprise her. Not at all. Hopefully the bed wouldn't melt like that rock had, explaining that to Frida would be awkward. But examining his handiwork had Caius chuckling evilly. Speaking English had worked just fine, and the results were everything he could have hoped for.

  While he had been concentrating all his efforts on a task that was definitely worth the time and not a frivolous waste of magic, Idunnir had been busy too. There was a fire burning in the kitchen, heating up the house and also some water.

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  She was at the table doing some maintenance on her armor. The leather was a bit worn in places, but clearly well taken care of. "Are you finished with whatever you were cackling about?"

  "Yes, and I can't wait to see your reaction when you experience it for yourself." Caius tried not to sound too smug, but probably failed. Belatedly, he noticed that she was wearing his spare clothes again. Glancing around, he spotted hers drying on a rack. Clearly he had spent much longer on the bed than he thought.

  In the end he ended up walking all the way back to the tanner's house to use the big tub again. He felt ridiculous doing it, but not ridiculous enough to stop. When he got back to Frida's house, Idunnir was finished with her gear and waiting with an eyebrow raised for him to reveal his surprise.

  Very skeptical, that expression. But he would have the last laugh. And she was playing along, straight into his hands. The bed didn't look too different, after all.

  "Back up and sort of fall backwards onto it." He instructed, imperiously.

  She stayed skeptical right up until the moment she landed on the bed and sort of... sank into it. For a moment she clearly thought she had broken it and was falling through it to the floor, because her limbs went rigid like someone bracing for impact.

  Caius waited, a patient hunter, as she slowly came to grips with the surface she was lying on. Naturally he had tried it himself and it kind of felt like sinking into a marshmallow. This was the most brilliant use of his power so far. Well, maybe the second best, his amulet had saved his life.

  Actually... she just kept lying there...

  Caius looked at her face, studying it properly. Eyes closed and lips curled into a small smile. He was fairly sure this was how genuine happiness looked on her. Watching her when she was so unguarded almost felt like a violation.

  He lay down next to her. It was a good thing the bed was big enough, but for a moment he wondered why Frida had a bed this large. Refocusing on the present, he decided he had won his little scheme to surprise Idunnir.

  Eventually, she spoke. "When I was little, I used to daydream all the time. I remember looking up at the clouds and wondering what they felt like. And until just now I forgot about those daydreams."

  Mentally, Caius stifled the urge to explain that clouds were made of water vapor. Even he could tell that was the wrong response. But he couldn't figure out what the correct response was, so he defaulted to keeping his mouth shut.

  An odd little half-snore, half-purring sound came from the other side of the bed and Caius sat up to look. She'd fallen asleep. Not that he could blame her, he had to grit his teeth to get up. He stuck the largest piece of firewood in the back of the fireplace, with the idea that it would still be there in the morning and could be kindled back into another fire. That had been in a story he read once.

  Remembering that he'd found Idunnir wrapped in two cloaks that morning, he collected two and pulled them over the sleeping woman.

  He really ought to sleep on the floor, but he hadn't spent all that effort on the bed just so he could do that. In retrospect he didn't know what he thought would happen? Had he been planning to dangle how comfortable the bed was in front of her and then smugly sleep in it alone?

  Lying down, he was asleep almost instantly.