Cold had never bothered Bragi too much before. He'd grown up with freezing winters, and ice and snow. He'd thought he was built for it a bit better than Idun. But this place made him reassess that. No one alive was built for a place like this. Moving helped, but the wind made the air colder standing up. Snow snuck in through the cracks and crevices in his coat. Even under all those layers, Bragi could feel his muscles tighten and convulse a little at the same time. It brought a different sort of pain than the biting and stinging sensation in the tips of his fingers before Bragi stopped feeling them as much. And it messed with his perception. Bragi struggled figuring out where his feet were going when he put them down. They didn't go quite where he planned on them going, and that slowed them down worse when Bragi knew they could not afford to slow down.
The white might have been spinning around Idun, but Bragi couldn't tell because it was all white. It disturbed Bragi how quiet the place was. He could feel the wind, but he couldn't hear it. He kept trying. All he wanted to do was curl up on the ground and go to sleep. The terror and all rational thought from before slowly started burying itself in the ice. Bragi felt too sluggish to follow his own thoughts so he focused on Idun. Her eyes reminded him of spring. He focused on the way her breath warmed his neck for a second before the cold took it away, and hung onto every word she said. They didn't have to even mean anything. The sound alone soothed him. But they did. They meant everything. Idun said they would be alright and sounded so sure that even though Bragi was an inch away from collapsing into a juddering spasmodic heap before stopping altogether, he believed her. He felt comfort in the coldest place there was.
“I'm afraid we'll have to be, dove,” Bragi whispered, “There's no way that Heimdall would do this story justice.” He smiled and ignored the fact that his feet didn't really know what they were doing anymore. His teeth had stopped chattering. He wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing. But he kept catching her eye, and that reminded him why he couldn't go that last inch. He couldn't judder, spazz or stop. Bragi had to keep going for her. He'd carry her home if he needed to. “You fell really close to the edge,” Bragi said, “We aren't too far in.” He was telling himself as much as he was telling her.
So far even though they were not watching where they were going very well, they had managed to not run through any shades. It was another sign that they had to make it out of there. The shades clearly didn't think they were welcome. Bragi thought about Idun's words, and their steps. Everything else was too slow. He laughed in the silence. “Bed without supper is a little too harsh.” Bragi thought it would probably punish him more anyway. Then he'd have to try and cook. Water didn't like boiling for him. It got angry. “Maybe you can teach me one of your withering glares” Bragi suggested. He shook his head, and pressed his forehead to hers for a second. “You can't go the rest of our lives without worrying me again. Things happen that are beyond our control. You didn't mean to fall down here.” The joke was still on her. He still would have settled for no spying on dead people. Bragi thought he saw the edge, but he wasn't sure. A few seconds earlier, he'd thought he'd seen his great grandfather.