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“Don’t let me fall!” Isolde yelped as Guy led her down the stairs, one hand around her waist and the other over her eyes. When they had woken that morning he told her that she must stay in bed, that it was “Far too cold for you to get out just yet” , though neither of them could make it through that sentence without laughing. Isolde did stay, though, idly plucking at stray threads of the quilt until Guy had returned later that morning, a pair of hose and her boots in hand.
“Are we going somewhere?” Isolde asked with a smile, for Guy practically floated across the room, in much higher spirits than he had been in for the past week.
“You’ll see.”
It was rare to see him smile so much in the wintertime, and as she dressed she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. Snow dusted the shoulders of his overcoat and melted as he moved about to hand Isolde her clothes, pressing a kiss to her knuckles as he gave her a pair of gloves.
When they were both dressed she made to leave the bedroom, but Guy immediately pulled her back by her shoulders and shushed her, covering her eyes with his hand, and that was how they ended up on the stairs, Guy attempting to maneuver his wife down them without taking a spill. It would have been a disaster if she was in a dress, surely, but she was in men’s clothes today, and so there was no issue, save for her coat becoming caught on the banister.
When they did finally make it to the door, Guy wrapped his arm around Isolde as they stepped outside, as if she needed to be shielded from the cold - it wasn’t all that bad, he just wanted to be as close to her as conditions could allow, as usual.
“You don’t intend for us to walk the whole way like this, surely?”
“We’re nearly there, actually.”
They stopped outside of the barn, Guy drawing away from her so that she could get her bearings, and with a chuckle he failed to contain, lifted his hand.
“Oh, Guy !” Isolde exclaimed, and practically leapt forward.
Hitched just outside of the barn was, of course, Catriona, Guy’s raven-black mare, who simply pricked her ears at the commotion, entirely uninterested. Next to her, though, was something new - a smaller, stockier bay, whose stockings went from a rich dark brown to a deep black, with snow stuck to her feathers. Her mane shined in the daylight as she turned her head to acknowledge Isolde with a snort.
Isolde looked back at Guy with an astonished smile, and then stepped closer to the new horse, stroking her cheek and running her hand underneath her forelock, revealing a tiny white star. She laughed, pressing a kiss to the horse’s nose.
“Oh, Guy, you shouldn’t have…”
"Happy Christmas, my love." Guy said with a grin, and pressed a kiss to his wife's hair.