He spent the cold season in the hut almost hibernating with his criorde and Kollet. The thing was that they had to move their departure after the chelone convinced them that going now would result in immediate death. Either by falling further in the ravin or getting buried by the snow.  Even if at first, Astir had some trouble considering the humanoid as something else than a beast, now it was quite close to being a friend. A friend that he can depend on. He found him amusing, between its weird ways of moving, the things it does sometimes that show affection like rubbing his forehead against your leg or making small noises with his tongue against his teeth producing acute musical notes. He was also very careful with his guests, always looking after them even when they were sleeping. Yes, it wasn’t the same as Septem but it was close to the relationship he has with Gwalarn. 

Once, on a very cold morning where the snow was covering everything, he saw Kollet draw on it some intricate symbols. At some point he realized that he was just doodling on the snow. Loving that every one of his moves would leave a trace on it. Some doodlings looked like animals, some others would be plants and at some point he started to draw Astir, Gwalarn and him. That showed to Astir that Kollet had a conscience of himself. Even if it was blurry. Probably due to the lack of mirrors here. 

Life in this glade was quite nice, no worries except the cold, no big project to conclude, nothing mattered actually except the boring passing of time. Astir was feeling that if he was staying here longer than anticipated he would eventually end up like Kollet, lost in the track of time, out of society and the world. Motivated by this thought, he started to prepare more actively for his journey to Commelina. Even if the frost would still be strong in the early days of pluton, it had become necessary to quit this place and go back to civilization. 

Astir put Kollet to work. Since his bags got destroyed along his fall it would be better to make new ones instead of just patching the older ones back together. Processing the leather was quite a long process especially with no designed tools instead it was replaced by rocks and some old rusty knives. The chelone handiwork was quite useful at times like this. The creation of the new bags was proceeding smoothly. Astir chose to adjust the size for Gwalarn instead of his. It was starting to look like the ones on donkeys except they were larger and thinner. Due to the preparations to leave this place, Astir was beginning to feel alive again.