The girl managed to get a few hours of dreamless sleep, which gave her a break from... everything. Until she had been awoken by one of her maids rustling about, getting everything ready for the day ahead. She had been criticised over the weeks she had been seeing Sage, mainly for getting dark bags under her eyes. She wasn't ever tired, per say, but she putting a bad look on her name, according to her father. The man was kind to Anya... and he always had been, but she wasn't treated like a daughter. More like a possession. Something thing that he turn a blind eye to whenever he so wanted. Anya didn't mind, not really, her mother was over bearing enough, she didn't need more of that harshness from her father. The day, like always, was slow... boring. She had a walk around the gardens, which was rather bland until snow started to fall from the sky. She was over joyed at the sight... it meant winter was coming. That soon, the ground would be covered in white and she could cozy up next to a warm fire. It was nice for Anya... mainly because she didn't have to do any hard work, and winter was one of the few seasons that made her days interesting.

Sage chopped as much wood as he could carry, and brought it back to the tavern, grateful for the hard work. He had to be careful not to sweat too much, though, or he would freeze. He had to move to keep himself warm...his thin tunic and trousers only did so much, and since he didn't wear shoes he just tied som scrap fabric around his feet, soley so he didn't get frostbite. But there was a fine line between staying active and getting too active...if he got sweaty it could very well kill him. Granted, the winter was when probably half of the population in the slums died anyway, from many reasons. He dumped the wood into a pile near a small shed next to the tavern, his breath showing in the cold air. It was definitely below freezing ... The snow was sticking to everything it touched, and Sage knew if he got wet it wouldn't be very good, so he slipped inside the shed as he split the wood into smaller pieces for the tavern stove and fireplace.

Eventually, Anya found herself speaking to the grounds men, who clearly weren't over joyed by her questioning. Stupid questions like, 'how do you keep everything alive during winter?' Or 'Doesn't the frost kill everything off?' All things she should probably know from the years of schooling she'd done. The air eventually got cooler though, and snow started getting heavier as it started to settle. It was pretty enough, and little robins hopped about on the grass, leaving tiny foot prints in the snow behind them. She had to wrap up more as the day went into night. which again, she didn't overly mind. It was all comfortable. But she did wonder about Sage for a little while. He had the clothes she gave him, but it wasn't exactly enough to keep him warm. She began to feel sorry for the boy... he must have been freezing, if not, then the chances were that he would be nearly dead. It made her more inclined to go and see him, to make sure he was still alive, but tried, hard, to wait until the night to fuss over him.

Sage hummed under his breath as he worked. He didn't mind this type of work, it was much better then being inside the noise, crowded tavern. And he would be spending much more time inside of it through the winter since he could no longer sleep outside. There was a cave near the lake, but hated how small it was, so it really wasn't a good place to sleep. He split wood for a few hours, and then brought some of it inside the tavern to start the fire. He found himself waiting to go out with Anya, and only half paying attention to his tasks as he set things up and cleaned a bit. Anything to keep him busy indoors.

The girl wandered around the castle for hours... aimlessly trying to find something new to peer at. Of course, there was nothing, everything had stayed the same. She quickly got bored again, so wandered up to her room to sit and not do an awful lot. The small fire pit in the corner had been lit, so the room had a nice cozy feeling to it. She sat there for a while, simply staring up at the ceiling until it started to get dark. She wandered for a moment if she should even go and see Sage... with the way she had started to feel about him, she was afraid that that the longer she spend with him, the stronger she would feel for him. But she wanted to see him, and there was no way she would just leave him there. It was cold... colder than it was during the day, and a strong wind had started rushing about. Still, Anya trudged along through the snow until she had gotten to the village. She wondered for a while where Sage would be... it was too cold to go to the lake, and she doubted he would be in his house. She sighed and wandered up to the tavern, knocking on the door to see if anyone was still there.

Sage heard the knock, but his arms were full of fire wood so he just yelled for the person to come in. It was most likely Anya, and if it wasn't then he would get an excuse to throw wood at someone, which he had to admit would be pretty satisfying. But, if it was Anya, then he could go do other stuff, so that was pretty great in itself. He just had to get the tavern fire going so it wasn't frozen by morning...the old building was made of wood and had a tendency to have to roof freeze and leak in the winter, and keeping a good fire going was the key to keeping the place at least somewhat dry.

(It's kinda short lol)

(All good lmao)

Anya slipped in and carefully shut the door behind her. She watched him carrying wood around for a while before giving a small smile. "Working hard?" She asked teasingly before going to sit down at a little round table, taking a heavy cloak off and hanging it over the chair. She rubbed her hands a little, getting used to the chill. The castle was so warm, so once she sat down and stopped moving in the cold, she started to feel a little more. She glanced over at Sage with a slightly raised brow. He was still wearing his tunic and tattered rags... and no shoes? Surely we couldn't be comfortable. "Are you not cold?" She asked with an inward chuckle.

Sage chuckled and dumped the firewood down in its place and looked over at Anya. "Not as long as I keep myself busy and moving." He shrugged. "I'm kinda used to it by now. I've been out here my entire life," he pointed out, though he knew Anya wasn't asking to be rude or anything, so he kept his voice light. "I'm about done in here. Do you have anything specific you want to do?" They could go walk around, though based off of her actions when she got here, she would rather stay somewhere warm than go wander around outside. He was fine with that...it was much warmer in the tavern than it was out on the streets. But he could also go walk around for a bit if she wanted...he could always come back to work again and warm up in the morning.

Anya shook her head slightly. "No, not really." She murmured, placing a thoughtful finger on her chin. Normally, she would come out with a plan... something she wanted to see or do, but now, she was just happy to have someone to talk to. Happy to have someone who didn't care about her title or how well presented she was, and for that person to be Sage. Though, she did suppose that might become slightly boring for the boy. His life was so fast, and he didn't need to be sat down listening to some girls life story all night. But even so, it was cold, and if she dragged him outside, he would be freezing, no matter how used to it he was. She pouted slightly she thought before sighing. "It's cold out, and I don't want you freezing to death, so ee can stay here for a while." She smiled softly, "is there anything to do though? We could do a little game night."

Sage chuckled and thought for a minute. "there might be something in the closet," he missed thoughtfully. "We can look. If not we'll just figure out something to do," he laughed. He dumped the last of the wood in the pile and went over to the closet, rummaging through all the junk inside of it. There had to be something in there...there was probably everything he could look for thrown in there. The trick would just be to look through all of the piles to find something.