Thankfully she'd said it first. If there was one thing he wasn't skilled at it was disappointing people gently.
"I'm afraid it looks that way," he said with the slightest of shivers. Standing still with his back against a trunk was allowing the frigid air around them to get the best of his clothes, despite how heavy they were. The insides of his ears were starting to ache fiercely with the cold air, something they called skullcold--it was an uncreative term, but that's folk wisdom for you.
"If this harvest hadn't been thrust upon me I wouldn't have a second thought, but there'd be the wrong kind of hell if I vanished now."