Chapter 61: Monotonous
Monotonous was the only thing Irene could use to describe how the winter had panned out for her.
While inactivity was normal for anyone in that region during the snowy months, she hadn’t considered just how bleak it could feel to attend to the same schedule every single day. She would wake up motivated but finish the day tired as if she was going into hibernation like one of the monsters lying in wait in the forest.
At least when she was at home with her brother, Arne, she would have someone to chase around and bother the maids and her parents until they were forced to separate them. She never thought she would bitterly miss those days, but it was creeping up on her.
While Felix and Leif were her friends, the only time they could get up to mischief was when they were attending practices in the icy mornings and trying not to freeze off their fingertips.
So far, there had been a few mornings when they had to cancel practice because the ground was too frozen and too slippery to even walk on at all. Those days, the one thing she looked forward to was taken away and she realized just how much she relied on it.
Eventually, those with indoor duties had to switch with the others for outdoor duties and more excitement was introduced into their lives. However, it also introduced the very real need to figure out how to survive in such a bitter cold.
Only with double gloves on did Irene feel like her fingers weren’t going to fall off. It inhibited her finer movements a little bit but she felt it was worth it to not succumb to frostbite.
She also felt a bit of happiness as she saw Sorrel getting fatter for the winter just as she had promised him after the journey they endured during the monster culling trip. One of the first worries she had after being injured was where her horse was and how it was doing. It turned out that Sir Sven, who she was less familiar with, tied Sorrel’s reins to his horse’s and he brought the horse down.
While they were allowed to run their horses once a week even in winter, she had been begging the other apprentices to give him sweet oats whenever possible. The stagnant nature of his life at that time was certainly what was making it easy to gain weight.