on the road again.

[dinadhal]

WHO: Aenor Din'adhal, James Flint, Ellis Noclanname
WHAT: An elf, a Grey Warden, and a Tevinter go talk to some Dalish. The Tevinter waits in the car.
WHEN:
WHERE: The Hundred Pillars
NOTES: Part of Network Connectivity Issues.

The camp they've made is several hours' ride from the Dalish encampment. It hadn't seemed wise--to Aenor, at least--to encroach much more than that. For all the fearfully polite goodwill with which they were met, she suspects it would all evaporate if they'd chosen to bring a man of Commander Flint's origins too near.

As it is, she suspects they weren't ecstatic about the presence of a human towering beside her. Worse, though, would have been going alone. They know now that she'd have suffered little, but they couldn't have been certain before. The Litwyn clan wouldn't have been the first to close itself off to all outsiders, regardless of race. (It would certainly explain their lack of interest in hosting them for more than an hour or two. True hospitality might have seen them staying the night.)

By the time she and Ellis return, the sun has long since slipped behind a mountain, the stars and moons occasionally interrupted by the straight, strange columns that jut up further than any natural peak.

"Jim!" she calls--not too loudly--as she slides off her dracolisk's back. Then'Harel makes an impatient sound as they approach the edge of the firelight, something between a hiss and a snort. "Your cooking, is it edible? We bring hunger as a guest."

Comments

[katabasis]

From the dark beyond the edge of the firelight, Flint steps forward with a loaded crossbow under his arm. His hold on it has gone easy in the wake of the familiar(ly grating) name, the nose of the weapon directed toward the rocky ground. This near to the border warrants that any hoofbeat or clack of dracolisk claws be met with some measure of caution.

"Edible enough," he says, toe of his boot hooking up onto one of the campfire's border stones. The crossbow's stock is seated comfortably against the joint between hip and thigh, the loaded arrow drawn from it and strung tight string unratcheted.

One of two rabbits lies draped on the cool stone slab flanking the fire; the other must be what's on the flat rock being kept warm in the edge of the fire's red embers. A warmer whickering greeting from the shadowed picket line strung between two scrubby bushes suggests that Flint's bay gelding, having taken a shine to Ellis' horse somewhere between Kirkwall and here, has been making a nuisance of himself in the lonely interim.

"I trust you made contact with our new friends."

[heorte]

Crossbow dispatched, Ellis' raised hands drop to take up the reins again.

"Aye," Ellis answers, tone tepid. "They were welcoming enough."

Unspoken: welcoming for Aenor's benefit, not for Ellis'.

Rather than give detail, Ellis spurs his mount onwards, circling towards the gelding before further greeting can be vocalized between them. He slides from the saddle, bending to secure his own horse in spite of the obvious ambivalence of the beast to it's newfound, enthusiastic friend.

[dinadhal]

"Our friends, they fear outsiders," Aenor clarifies, as she leads the dracolisk somewhat away from Ellis and his horse. Theni, unlike the poor gelding, has not longed to make friends of any but their human companions--when she stakes him out, it's well beyond nipping range of the horses. "Their old Keeper, his blood feeds a river to the east. And their new Keeper, I think, was happy to see our backs. Mine as much as Ellis'."

It's the closest she'd like to come to speaking aloud of the reasons she was given this particular assignment. And considering just how much Flint has missed in his hours alone, there's little need to spare for the fact of her Dalishness. She takes the measure of him in the flickering light as she removes Theni's saddle and begins wiping down his scales, tasks so familiar they require no sight whatsoever.

"But as they say! All, it is not lost." They've all night to discuss the matter at hand, fortunately. Tired and hungry though they might be, Aenor suspects they'll be awake some time yet. "And you. You have been unmolested here?"

[katabasis]

"So long as you discount the insects," is almost drowned out by the enthusiastic whuffing and puffing of the bay gelding breathing hard into the nose of Ellis' horse.

It's spring and at these latitudes that means all manner of flying, nipping things. But the cool night promises at least a few hours free of the indignity of swatting after assaults on bare skin.

The crossbow having been discarded, leaned against some ready stone, Flint takes up a stick to stoke the fire. With the three of them here, there's less need to mind its height and heat so relentlessly and they will want the embers with heat to maintain in the hours to come. The ground is still cold and wet.

"Did they say what killed him?"

Who, more likely.

forgive me i forgot to track this

[heorte]

"The inhabitants of Seleny," Ellis answers, voice pitched above the sound of joyous equine reunion. Having securely tethered his own mount, Ellis draws back towards the fire to occupy the ground crossways from Flint.

They had more or less guessed this between the three of them, and the confirmation of it hadn't come as much of surprise. Ellis cracks the first buckle of his breastplate, beginning the process of stripping it off.

"Their new Keeper agreed to our request, but it was not..."

Ellis trails into uncertainty, looks to Aenor to better describe Keeper Fiomaya. It's not that Ellis distrusts her in particular but he is not unaware that she had been wary of them, and that there is something uncertain in the quickness of her agreement.