we built this city on broken glass

Those weeks that had followed that evening at the hospital had been...tense. Those matters of emotion were so hardly those he was comfortable with. Frost, despite his efforts, struggled to find any words that might bring his mate some measure of comfort in those weeks that followed the loss of their child. The stallion simply was not....good at speaking about those very things. Such matters were the business of women, he was sure, the man oblivious to how distinctly old-fashioned those very views were inclined to be and yet he had been raised in just that very world. The mares had dealt with this sort of thing. Frost and the other young boys merely told to run along outside with little opportunity given for him to truly learn how best to support his own mate- or deal with his own emotions. Yet, too, by his very nature, Frost was so hardly inclined to those emotive response. The man having grieved that loss in his own way. Much of that emotion internalized, hardly expressed and pushed into the depths of his mind. That, after all, was how he had learned to survive in the world he lived in. Emotion brought nothing but pain, heartache and a weakness to be exploited. The stallion was nothing if not practical. That pregnancy had failed, as sometimes they did, Nadya had recovered well, they would try again. Frost having come to terms with those simple facts some weeks ago. Nadya's continued state of distress was....confusing, to say the least. Frost holding no true idea of just what she desired to hear from him or how to bring her out of that near private world she seemed to have found.

His trip with Alexander had, perhaps, been poorly timed and yet the Hunter had been secretive of their plans as was often the case with any work they participated in. That race had been nothing short of a surprise to Frost himself. The sheer remoteness of the Mongolian steppes having resulted in neither the time or the ability for him to contact Nadya and yet that prize money had surely been worth that effort. Frost, in his naivety, having nearly anticipated that time apart might have ...soothed whatever grief Nadya seemed to struggle to come to terms with and yet his return had hardly seemed to improve her mood. Nadya had seemed as distant as ever. Her thoughts, which he so often strove not to invade, had proven to be equally as confusing. The woman seeming to fear that his affections for her had changed somehow, that her inability to give him a child of his own had lessened his feelings. Frost entirely unsure of just how to....reassure her when his efforts to spend time with her seemed only to result in her focus becoming more and more fixated upon the twins. Perhaps he was.....doing something....wrong?

Nadya's moods so readily saw Frost withdraw all the more in confliction over his own actions. The man inclined to worry he was somehow making everything worse. Talking about that loss would surely only upset her more, wouldn't it? Yet his efforts to....ignore it, to move beyond it, seemed to be bringing her equal distress. Women, he had decided, were ...far more confusing then anyone ever gave them credit for. He had tried, on several occasions, to bring up that night at the hospital and yet he found those words stuck within his throat. That intimacy in turn seeming to have all but vanished from that relationship. Frost rather certain they were required to find it again if Nadya hoped to try for another child and yet she had made no effort to initiate his attention as she had done before. Frost near wary from attempting to coax it from her himself in case it upset her all over again. The stallion inclined to find himself left wanting of late and yet how unwilling he was to push all at once. The both of them, it seemed, having become distant of late. Frost having focused his attention largely on his own work and the rest of the pack in the hopes that Nadya would, in time, simply ...return to the way she had been before. This, it seemed, his solution to the problem. Frost oblivious to the idea that very distance seemed only to distress her more.

The text message upon his phone had been nothing short of surprising and yet Frost found himself lying that work aside for the afternoon as he rose from his desk only to make his way downstairs and out into the mid-afternoon sun. That walk to the very place Nadya had requested to meet him was hardly far, the snowy-haired stallion greeted with that sight of a picnic blanket laden with that food and drink. Nadya herself, despite the cool air, dressed in a decidedly summery outfit that appealed to him in far more ways than one.

"This seems familiar."

Those smooth, cool words left his lips with ease. Frost remembering well that first true 'date' he had ever taken her on. The vaguest hint of a simper daring to touch the very tips of his lip. The often stoic stallion eased his jean-clad figure down onto that blanket then to sit opposite his mate as his violet gaze roved over that spread before lifting to settle upon Nadya herself. Frost, in that moment, unable to prevent that slight wariness from lingering within his gaze as if near anticipating that conversation to come. His lack of ability with those emotive words an inadequacy he was often loth to allow to be seen and yet, he supposed, for Nadya, he had always been willing to try. She alone, perhaps, the only being whom had ever truly been made aware of the ...being that existed beneath that frosted exterior that kept all others at arm's length.

"Why are we eating outside today, Naja?"

How asured he already was of that answer and yet, he suspected, nadya would feel far more comfortable bringing up that conversation when she desired to do it. Frost, in the least, content to offer that very indication he was hardly opposed to talking- despite how difficult he was inclined to find it. His affinity extended smoothly all the same. Those warm tendrils of heat smoothly caressing his lovers skin before effortlessly encompassing her in warmth and chasing away the cool of the breeze in that soft, simple act of care.

FrosT