Ma Vhenan and Amatus

Forest Life

If it weren't for the damp, the muck, the insects buzzing through his ear, the voracious ones chewing apart his shins, and the smell of death wafting off the still creek he could almost consider this outside living passable. This was assuming a sword was held to this throat, he was out of mana, and found himself drunk enough to be easily persuaded to assail the outdoors in the first place. Maker, the things he'd put up with for a pretty face.

"You've been hunched over that dirt for the past hour," Dorian complained before slapping at some insignificant yellow and red terror flitting to chew apart his exposed shoulder.

The Inquisitor didn't rise off his well toned haunches. While Dorian was grateful to watch the man's muscles prodding up through his leathers he'd have preferred to do it indoors, and without trousers getting in the way. Gaerwn didn't respond as he continued to run a finger over the same dirt patch he'd been stirring for what felt the entire afternoon. It was growing so lugubrious and dull, Dorian even spent a few minutes speaking with the soldiers in charge of hoisting up the camp. Their life's greatest endeavor seemed to amount to beans and the preferred burning state there in, IE not too charred as to be blackened but far enough along one achieved a caramelizing flavor. The fact he now not only knew that but had birthed his own opinion was going to cost the Inquisitor dearly later.

"Blackwall," Gaerwn called to the walking mat of bear fur who'd been trailing the woods with him for what felt like the past lifetime and on to the next. "What do you make of this?"

The partial Grey Warden and full time ambulating beard grumbled, causing the lice's home to wobble as he spoke, "Not certain. Tracks, but never seen the like before."

Finally, Gaerwn staggered to his legs, not even bothering to knock off the mud across the fancy leathers. "My thoughts as well. One set seems to head off towards the north, but the other..." His words trailed away, those hauntingly pale blue eyes shifting through the forest. Dorian rarely bothered memorizing a man's eye color unless he feared he'd need to be reciting it to a guardsman later, but Gaerwn's were recognizable from across a battlefield. With the natural elven width giving an even greater depth to the icy sheen, they were the eyes a man could drown in without regrets, assuming he had half a mind to.

Blackwall grumbled again, having no doubt used up the few words he knew, before nodding his head, "I'll check north."

A whisper of a smile lifted up the Inquisitor's lips and he patted Blackwall's arm once. "Thank you."

For a moment the man-bear's eyes shifted over to Dorian who had his arms crossed in a pout, before Blackwall shook his head and slipped into the woods. Dorian was fairly certain that the biggest reason Blackwall was at such ease in the woods was because he was suckled by wolves as a babe until being kicked out of the pack for being such a bore. While Dorian watched him stumble through the trees, Gaerwn returned to the dirt.

"By the void, what do you find so interesting mashed up in that pile of twigs and leaves?"

"I could explain it," the Inquisitor said patiently, before he glanced up at Dorian and a smile broke through his armor, "but I rather doubt you'd care, or listen."

"You have me, I'm afraid," Dorian admitted. He'd had a witty comeback, but it fell apart from that so rarely glimpsed beacon of light glinting off his Amatus' teeth.

Gaerwn ran a finger over the twigs, sifting one up, but over his shoulder he whispered, "I certainly hope so."

Oh, now that was cruel. Slowly, Dorian ran a finger across the back of the man's neck. A sliver of his bronzed skin prodded between the gaps of his armor's neck and that untamed, chestnut hair. Gaerwn was clearly trying to focus, but at the contact of skin on skin, his lips parted and a sigh rustled the dead air of the forest. Encouraged, Dorian's fingers climbed up through the lush hair.