Companion ficlets
Jul. 4th, 2015 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wildwilled“And if we go down the river,” Zevran's fingers trailed down Theron's spine to the small of his back, “all the way to the coast, we are in the beautiful Antiva City.” His hand flattened against bare skin, warm and dry. “From a boat on the bay, you can see everything. You can hear the music and the dancing, and the drunk nobles getting sick while their pockets are picked. The sun sets behind the city from the water—I wish you could see, dear Warden. And if you go further...”
His tone went suggestive, his hand gliding down from its position over Antiva City to dive beneath the blanket covering Theron from the waist down.
Something hit the side of the tent from the outside.
“Not again,” came the muffled, disgruntled voice of Leliana.
“I need sleep,” complained Alistair loudly.
Silence ensued as Theron and Zevran held very still while the rest of the camp re-settled.
“Shemlen,” muttered Theron, rolling at last to embrace his lover and kiss his lips. “Wynne said something about discretion today and I still don't know what she meant. She seemed to think we have nothing to be ashamed of, but that we ought to be ashamed nonetheless.”
Zevran chuckled, scooping Theron close and planting kisses along his jawline. “It is the way of civilized conduct to be as contradictory as possible, my dear. That you are ignorant of it is an innocence I would preserve in you for as long as possible.”
Theron broke away suddenly with a frown and a blush. “That couldn't have been said...less...like that.”
“Ah,” Zevran said, peeling back from his attentions, “I should not have said ignorant. Let me explain what I mean.” His fingertips trailed the golden brow of his lover. “You...are life in its purest form. You are a wild creature, untamed and beautiful and deadly. And sexy.”
Theron was still frowning, but not precisely at Zevran. After a moment, he sighed and tucked himself into his arms, uneasy.
“I'm not,” he said. “I mean, that makes me sound...extraordinary, somehow. Better than I am. As if the fact that I don't know the rules of a civilization I only just met is...good or bad, either one.”
“I did not mean to say it is a virtue,” Zevran said gently, brown fingers touching his chin to lift his face. “It is endearing, to me, but not a virtue. But there are many, many bad rules you do not know, and I envy the freedom you have from them. And because you do not know them, you do things no one else even dreams of doing.”
“Like leaving the Crows?” Theron pointed out with a smile, dark mood lifting at Zevran's explanation.
“Well.” Zevran looked faintly embarrassed. “No, that is not what I was thinking. Now, your little display at the alienage, that is more what I was thinking.”
Theron blinked. “How was that against the rules?”
“Oh, something about raucous public displays, especially for elves in the city. 'Don't rock the boat' is the rule, nothing like what you showed there. Or incited, as the case may be. But the sight of you standing on the rooftop screaming 'Never again!' while the crowd screamed it back at you was terribly inspiring. And arousing.”
“They remembered who they are,” Theron said, still fairly bewildered. “And I wasn't on a boat.”
“Not a literal boat, dear. It means...keep your head down, I suppose. I think most are too afraid to look ridiculous to make such a scene, so they make a rule they can use as an excuse not to do it. Though I suppose the threat of being arrested for inciting rioting and rebellion also counts. If there are rules against it, they are not a piece of shit for not doing what they know they should do, no?”
“I see. So my behavior doesn't shame me, it shames...everyone else?” Theron asked dubiously.
“Most gloriously,” Zevran replied with a confidence that washed over flat doubt.
“Then what was Wynne saying about discretion?”
Zevran chuckled. “That, you will have to ask Wynne. I think Fereldans must not like sex very much, for all their pretending it does not happen. As for myself,” his voice went husky, “I like it when the whole camp knows how hard I am making you come.”
“NOT AGAIN,” shouted Alistair.
“Oh come off it!” Theron shouted back, patience ending with a whip-like snap. “You're making more noise over it than we are!”
“Then you clearly aren't listening to yourselves!” Alistair called back.
“If I can't get some sodding sleep,” growled Oghren, “I'll take the scalp off every one of you, whether you're shagging each other or not.”
Silence settled in again. At last, Theron spoke in a whisper.
“We could be quiet about it.”
Zevran pouted. “But lovemaking is meant to be wild and passionate. Especially with such a creature as yourself.”
Theron pursed his lips thoughtfully. “True, but...this way, we get to have sex twice in one night.”
“Ah. I concede the point.”
---
Theron Mahariel heard the rustle of footsteps and suddenly realized he had chosen his hiding spot poorly. There was no escape from the crevice in the cliff face. If his pursuer spotted him, he would be caught. Period. His only hope lay in the carelessness of the human. Surely he was no tracker, surely...
Duncan walked straight up to him, face dark and angry as a storm cloud.
“I can sense the taint in you,” he growled, “and you have wasted half a day in making me chase you down.”
The strong hand grabbed Theron's arm and his heart sank. He broke the hold and shrank back futilely, but Duncan took his arm in both hands this time and dragged him out. Before he was all the way out, Theron felt the cool slide of a flax cord over one wrist. He dropped to his knees, trying to bend Duncan's wrist uncomfortably, trying to break his hold, anything, but Duncan quickly and expertly pinned him. Theron lashed out, teeth sinking hard into Duncan's hand. Duncan gave a sharp shout and shoved him against the rock so that his breath was knocked out. First one wrist was tied, then the other bound to it. The bonds were secured to a line, which Duncan looped several times around his good hand.
“I wish it had not come to this,” Duncan sighed, examining his bitten and bleeding hand. “But you leave me no choice. I said I would drag you kicking and screaming, and so I shall. We can waste no more time.”
---
“We all wind up in the Deep Roads sooner or later,” Alistair said softly, staring at the fire.
“Not me,” Theron said immediately.
“Oh?” Alistair turned his head. “How so?”
“I won't die in the Deep Roads.” Theron didn't look at him, or at anything else. His eyes looked straight ahead, at some distant future.
“I got that bit. What...are you going to do instead?” The question had some hesitation to it, as if Alistair was afraid to ask.
“I don't know.” Theron shrugged. “It doesn't matter. Maybe I'll die fighting the archdemon. Maybe it'll be protecting Zevran from the Crows. Maybe I'll get the wrong end of a wild boar when I'm hunting. But I'm not dying in the Deep Roads.”
“Well, I'm glad to know you're not...you know. Offing yourself presently.” Alistair still sounded worried. “But...what if nothing gets you before then?”
“Something will.”
“Ah...hah.” The last syllable sounded like hope hissing out of Alistair's body. “Please...Theron?”
“What?”
“Don't...do anything stupid, all right?”
“It's only stupid if I don't mean it to happen.”
“That's not what I meant.”
“Alistair,” Theron said in a dangerous tone, “I wasn't allowed to choose this life. Duncan chose it. He's not going to choose my death as well.”
“I...understand that,” Alistair said in a minor concession. “But...if it's all the same to you, maybe wait a good long time before you go off pursuing said death wish? I...honestly don't know what I'd do if I lost you right now.”
At last, Theron's eyes left that fixed point in time to land on Alistair's face. After a moment, his face softened, not quite a smile.
“You're my clan now,” he said. “Or maybe the Wardens are. But there's only the two of us, so you're the only clan I have. I'd be a shit clanmate if I left you all alone and defenseless.”
“Hey,” Alistair warned playfully, the worried tension leaving his body at last. “Wait. Do you really think of m...of the Wardens like that? Like your clan?”
“Well, I think of you like that. Who else is left to me?”
---
“She didn't sing that for you,” Theron said quietly when the voice of Leliana was still.
Leliana's delicate eyebrows rose. “I...beg your pardon?”
Theron's gaze settled on the fire contemplatively. “She sang it for your mother. That song...it's a mourning song of the elvhen. I've never heard of it being sung for a shemlen before. She must have really loved your mother.”
Leliana's lips parted in surprise. “I...did not know that.” She sat down on a blanket, eyes drawn to the fire. “But it makes sense now,” she continued. “She held me, and she sang. And together, we mourned. I did not know what an honor it was at the time. Thank you for telling me.”
Theron's brows rose. His lips parted in silent surprise. “I...most humans wouldn't understand that it is an honor.”
“Well. I do.” Leliana tipped her head to him.
After a moment, he tipped his right back.
---
“Are you all right?” Wynne's voice came from the flap of Theron's tent.
“I'm fine.”
“May I come in?”
“No.”
Theron felt Wynne settling at his side and immediately relaxed, despite his initial protest. She reminded him too much of Ashalle to be upset with her. He wanted Ashalle right now.
“What's on your mind?” Wynne asked, words she had used that exact tone with so many times before.
“Nothing.”
“That's not true. I'm led to understand the Dalish pride themselves in how seldom they cry.”
Theron wiped the last tear away from his cheek with the heel of his hand. “Only when it's over shemlen.”
“Ah. Did something happen between you and Zevran?”
“I think so.”
“But you don't know.”
Theron lifted his chin, as if gravity could sink the remaining moisture back into his eyes, and let out a huff. “I don't know. I don't even know what I expected.”
Wynne brushed a stray strand of hair from his face, real or imagined. “Did he break up with you?”
“No. He probably will.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“He's acted...strange, sort of distant since Taliesin. He tried to give me his earring out of...something, I'm not sure what. Gratitude, maybe. He told me he didn't care what I did with it, it meant nothing.”
“And you believed him.” It wasn't a question.
“Not exactly. I was just...tired of him never saying what he means. I said I wouldn't take it unless it meant something.”
“And he is angry that you rejected his gift.”
“But then he rescued me from Fort Drakon and I thought everything was back to normal. He says nothing's wrong. He wouldn't come to bed with me. He snapped. He's never done that before.”
Theron's face burned when he heard Wynne give a low chuckle.
“I see,” she said. “Zevran declining sex is quite an alarming development.”
“He doesn't want me.”
“Oh, dear boy,” Wynne sighed. “Of course he wants you. I think he probably wants you more than he has wanted anyone else in the world.”
“What makes you think that?”
“If I have learned anything about Zevran, it is that the closer you get to sincerity with him, the more he evades you. And if I have learned anything about you, it is that you are unaccustomed to human society's reliance on underhandedness and speaking in code in order to communicate emotion.”
“It doesn't make any sense!” Theron burst out. “People should say what they mean!”
“Then you should understand that where Zevran comes from, it is not safe to say what you really mean, or how you really feel—or to feel much of anything, I suspect. It is not safe for people to know you love someone, because they can use it against you. If the Crows know he cares about you, they will hurt him through you.”
“They will try.”
“That is where you must keep an open mind, dear. Fear is not rational. Zevran cannot think himself out of this. He is so accustomed to treating love like a dangerous thing that he is entirely unaccustomed to expressing himself even when it is safe. He is not used to being safe.”
“And I am?”
“Even you are safe among your peers, child. So yes. You are.”
Theron blinked. Frowned. “Why doesn't he know he is safe with me?”
Wynne smiled. “Perhaps he needs some of your Dalish plain talk.”
There was a pause. Then, Theron chuckled suddenly, as if the laughter carried away all the weight that had been driving him to tears before. He dived forward to plant an affectionate, filial kiss on Wynne's delicate cheekbone.
“I know exactly what he needs. Thank you.”
Wynne's smile broadened as Theron stood and left the tent, presumably to find Zevran.
---
“Do you think most humans are as hairy as Alistair?”
Morrigan's eyes narrowed. “You do realize I am human?”
“Barely,” Theron said with total innocence. “You grew up in the wilds, away from other humans.”
“I suppose that would make city-elves barely elven,” she replied caustically.
“In a sense,” Theron replied, her remark making no impact. “They are elves, of course, but they have forgotten who they are.”
“Well. I have not forgotten who I am.”
“But you don't know if most humans are as hairy as Alistair,” Theron said, pressing back to the original point.
“In my experience,” Morrigan relented reluctantly, “Alistair has considerably less hair than many.”
“Oh.”
The conversation ended. Frogs and insects sang in the distance. Morrigan's sour look softened.
“Perhaps...you are not wrong about other elves forgetting who they are.”
Theron looked faintly surprised by the admission. After a few heartbeats had passed, he ventured, “But do they have any regrets about it?”
“I do not know,” Morrigan said softly.
---
“So,” Oghren grunted from under his flask between pulls, “Dalish, huh?”
Theron, already drunk, was lying back and stargazing. “So I'm told.”
“What's it like, bein' in a Dalish camp? Are...all your lovers moanin' and gruntin' every time they take a ride?”
“Is this about me and Zevran again? Did you hear what we were talking about?”
“Hard not to, eh? Kind of the point. Hear a lotta other things, too.”
“You hear the dog snoring, then?”
“Now that you mention it, yeah. Like an angry bronto.”
“Angry brontos are less sweet.”
“Angry brontos slobber less. Have you ever seen--” Oghren paused, then scowled. “Quit changing the subject.”
“I'm not. You were talking about nightly noises.”
“That ain't the same. Answer the question.”
Theron sighed, stretching his arms out wide against the grass as if he could embrace the whole starry sky. “You hear it, sometimes.”
“How do you bastards sleep?”
“We learn to sleep through it. I imagine underground with all that stone between you and everyone else it's not a skill you've developed.”
“Heh. You'd be surprised what echoes. Uh. Now you got me wonderin'.”
“What about?”
“Your white critters with the curly horns.”
“Halla is easier to remember.”
“Whatever. Do they snore?”
“No louder than the dog.”
His tone went suggestive, his hand gliding down from its position over Antiva City to dive beneath the blanket covering Theron from the waist down.
Something hit the side of the tent from the outside.
“Not again,” came the muffled, disgruntled voice of Leliana.
“I need sleep,” complained Alistair loudly.
Silence ensued as Theron and Zevran held very still while the rest of the camp re-settled.
“Shemlen,” muttered Theron, rolling at last to embrace his lover and kiss his lips. “Wynne said something about discretion today and I still don't know what she meant. She seemed to think we have nothing to be ashamed of, but that we ought to be ashamed nonetheless.”
Zevran chuckled, scooping Theron close and planting kisses along his jawline. “It is the way of civilized conduct to be as contradictory as possible, my dear. That you are ignorant of it is an innocence I would preserve in you for as long as possible.”
Theron broke away suddenly with a frown and a blush. “That couldn't have been said...less...like that.”
“Ah,” Zevran said, peeling back from his attentions, “I should not have said ignorant. Let me explain what I mean.” His fingertips trailed the golden brow of his lover. “You...are life in its purest form. You are a wild creature, untamed and beautiful and deadly. And sexy.”
Theron was still frowning, but not precisely at Zevran. After a moment, he sighed and tucked himself into his arms, uneasy.
“I'm not,” he said. “I mean, that makes me sound...extraordinary, somehow. Better than I am. As if the fact that I don't know the rules of a civilization I only just met is...good or bad, either one.”
“I did not mean to say it is a virtue,” Zevran said gently, brown fingers touching his chin to lift his face. “It is endearing, to me, but not a virtue. But there are many, many bad rules you do not know, and I envy the freedom you have from them. And because you do not know them, you do things no one else even dreams of doing.”
“Like leaving the Crows?” Theron pointed out with a smile, dark mood lifting at Zevran's explanation.
“Well.” Zevran looked faintly embarrassed. “No, that is not what I was thinking. Now, your little display at the alienage, that is more what I was thinking.”
Theron blinked. “How was that against the rules?”
“Oh, something about raucous public displays, especially for elves in the city. 'Don't rock the boat' is the rule, nothing like what you showed there. Or incited, as the case may be. But the sight of you standing on the rooftop screaming 'Never again!' while the crowd screamed it back at you was terribly inspiring. And arousing.”
“They remembered who they are,” Theron said, still fairly bewildered. “And I wasn't on a boat.”
“Not a literal boat, dear. It means...keep your head down, I suppose. I think most are too afraid to look ridiculous to make such a scene, so they make a rule they can use as an excuse not to do it. Though I suppose the threat of being arrested for inciting rioting and rebellion also counts. If there are rules against it, they are not a piece of shit for not doing what they know they should do, no?”
“I see. So my behavior doesn't shame me, it shames...everyone else?” Theron asked dubiously.
“Most gloriously,” Zevran replied with a confidence that washed over flat doubt.
“Then what was Wynne saying about discretion?”
Zevran chuckled. “That, you will have to ask Wynne. I think Fereldans must not like sex very much, for all their pretending it does not happen. As for myself,” his voice went husky, “I like it when the whole camp knows how hard I am making you come.”
“NOT AGAIN,” shouted Alistair.
“Oh come off it!” Theron shouted back, patience ending with a whip-like snap. “You're making more noise over it than we are!”
“Then you clearly aren't listening to yourselves!” Alistair called back.
“If I can't get some sodding sleep,” growled Oghren, “I'll take the scalp off every one of you, whether you're shagging each other or not.”
Silence settled in again. At last, Theron spoke in a whisper.
“We could be quiet about it.”
Zevran pouted. “But lovemaking is meant to be wild and passionate. Especially with such a creature as yourself.”
Theron pursed his lips thoughtfully. “True, but...this way, we get to have sex twice in one night.”
“Ah. I concede the point.”
---
Theron Mahariel heard the rustle of footsteps and suddenly realized he had chosen his hiding spot poorly. There was no escape from the crevice in the cliff face. If his pursuer spotted him, he would be caught. Period. His only hope lay in the carelessness of the human. Surely he was no tracker, surely...
Duncan walked straight up to him, face dark and angry as a storm cloud.
“I can sense the taint in you,” he growled, “and you have wasted half a day in making me chase you down.”
The strong hand grabbed Theron's arm and his heart sank. He broke the hold and shrank back futilely, but Duncan took his arm in both hands this time and dragged him out. Before he was all the way out, Theron felt the cool slide of a flax cord over one wrist. He dropped to his knees, trying to bend Duncan's wrist uncomfortably, trying to break his hold, anything, but Duncan quickly and expertly pinned him. Theron lashed out, teeth sinking hard into Duncan's hand. Duncan gave a sharp shout and shoved him against the rock so that his breath was knocked out. First one wrist was tied, then the other bound to it. The bonds were secured to a line, which Duncan looped several times around his good hand.
“I wish it had not come to this,” Duncan sighed, examining his bitten and bleeding hand. “But you leave me no choice. I said I would drag you kicking and screaming, and so I shall. We can waste no more time.”
---
“We all wind up in the Deep Roads sooner or later,” Alistair said softly, staring at the fire.
“Not me,” Theron said immediately.
“Oh?” Alistair turned his head. “How so?”
“I won't die in the Deep Roads.” Theron didn't look at him, or at anything else. His eyes looked straight ahead, at some distant future.
“I got that bit. What...are you going to do instead?” The question had some hesitation to it, as if Alistair was afraid to ask.
“I don't know.” Theron shrugged. “It doesn't matter. Maybe I'll die fighting the archdemon. Maybe it'll be protecting Zevran from the Crows. Maybe I'll get the wrong end of a wild boar when I'm hunting. But I'm not dying in the Deep Roads.”
“Well, I'm glad to know you're not...you know. Offing yourself presently.” Alistair still sounded worried. “But...what if nothing gets you before then?”
“Something will.”
“Ah...hah.” The last syllable sounded like hope hissing out of Alistair's body. “Please...Theron?”
“What?”
“Don't...do anything stupid, all right?”
“It's only stupid if I don't mean it to happen.”
“That's not what I meant.”
“Alistair,” Theron said in a dangerous tone, “I wasn't allowed to choose this life. Duncan chose it. He's not going to choose my death as well.”
“I...understand that,” Alistair said in a minor concession. “But...if it's all the same to you, maybe wait a good long time before you go off pursuing said death wish? I...honestly don't know what I'd do if I lost you right now.”
At last, Theron's eyes left that fixed point in time to land on Alistair's face. After a moment, his face softened, not quite a smile.
“You're my clan now,” he said. “Or maybe the Wardens are. But there's only the two of us, so you're the only clan I have. I'd be a shit clanmate if I left you all alone and defenseless.”
“Hey,” Alistair warned playfully, the worried tension leaving his body at last. “Wait. Do you really think of m...of the Wardens like that? Like your clan?”
“Well, I think of you like that. Who else is left to me?”
---
“She didn't sing that for you,” Theron said quietly when the voice of Leliana was still.
Leliana's delicate eyebrows rose. “I...beg your pardon?”
Theron's gaze settled on the fire contemplatively. “She sang it for your mother. That song...it's a mourning song of the elvhen. I've never heard of it being sung for a shemlen before. She must have really loved your mother.”
Leliana's lips parted in surprise. “I...did not know that.” She sat down on a blanket, eyes drawn to the fire. “But it makes sense now,” she continued. “She held me, and she sang. And together, we mourned. I did not know what an honor it was at the time. Thank you for telling me.”
Theron's brows rose. His lips parted in silent surprise. “I...most humans wouldn't understand that it is an honor.”
“Well. I do.” Leliana tipped her head to him.
After a moment, he tipped his right back.
---
“Are you all right?” Wynne's voice came from the flap of Theron's tent.
“I'm fine.”
“May I come in?”
“No.”
Theron felt Wynne settling at his side and immediately relaxed, despite his initial protest. She reminded him too much of Ashalle to be upset with her. He wanted Ashalle right now.
“What's on your mind?” Wynne asked, words she had used that exact tone with so many times before.
“Nothing.”
“That's not true. I'm led to understand the Dalish pride themselves in how seldom they cry.”
Theron wiped the last tear away from his cheek with the heel of his hand. “Only when it's over shemlen.”
“Ah. Did something happen between you and Zevran?”
“I think so.”
“But you don't know.”
Theron lifted his chin, as if gravity could sink the remaining moisture back into his eyes, and let out a huff. “I don't know. I don't even know what I expected.”
Wynne brushed a stray strand of hair from his face, real or imagined. “Did he break up with you?”
“No. He probably will.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“He's acted...strange, sort of distant since Taliesin. He tried to give me his earring out of...something, I'm not sure what. Gratitude, maybe. He told me he didn't care what I did with it, it meant nothing.”
“And you believed him.” It wasn't a question.
“Not exactly. I was just...tired of him never saying what he means. I said I wouldn't take it unless it meant something.”
“And he is angry that you rejected his gift.”
“But then he rescued me from Fort Drakon and I thought everything was back to normal. He says nothing's wrong. He wouldn't come to bed with me. He snapped. He's never done that before.”
Theron's face burned when he heard Wynne give a low chuckle.
“I see,” she said. “Zevran declining sex is quite an alarming development.”
“He doesn't want me.”
“Oh, dear boy,” Wynne sighed. “Of course he wants you. I think he probably wants you more than he has wanted anyone else in the world.”
“What makes you think that?”
“If I have learned anything about Zevran, it is that the closer you get to sincerity with him, the more he evades you. And if I have learned anything about you, it is that you are unaccustomed to human society's reliance on underhandedness and speaking in code in order to communicate emotion.”
“It doesn't make any sense!” Theron burst out. “People should say what they mean!”
“Then you should understand that where Zevran comes from, it is not safe to say what you really mean, or how you really feel—or to feel much of anything, I suspect. It is not safe for people to know you love someone, because they can use it against you. If the Crows know he cares about you, they will hurt him through you.”
“They will try.”
“That is where you must keep an open mind, dear. Fear is not rational. Zevran cannot think himself out of this. He is so accustomed to treating love like a dangerous thing that he is entirely unaccustomed to expressing himself even when it is safe. He is not used to being safe.”
“And I am?”
“Even you are safe among your peers, child. So yes. You are.”
Theron blinked. Frowned. “Why doesn't he know he is safe with me?”
Wynne smiled. “Perhaps he needs some of your Dalish plain talk.”
There was a pause. Then, Theron chuckled suddenly, as if the laughter carried away all the weight that had been driving him to tears before. He dived forward to plant an affectionate, filial kiss on Wynne's delicate cheekbone.
“I know exactly what he needs. Thank you.”
Wynne's smile broadened as Theron stood and left the tent, presumably to find Zevran.
---
“Do you think most humans are as hairy as Alistair?”
Morrigan's eyes narrowed. “You do realize I am human?”
“Barely,” Theron said with total innocence. “You grew up in the wilds, away from other humans.”
“I suppose that would make city-elves barely elven,” she replied caustically.
“In a sense,” Theron replied, her remark making no impact. “They are elves, of course, but they have forgotten who they are.”
“Well. I have not forgotten who I am.”
“But you don't know if most humans are as hairy as Alistair,” Theron said, pressing back to the original point.
“In my experience,” Morrigan relented reluctantly, “Alistair has considerably less hair than many.”
“Oh.”
The conversation ended. Frogs and insects sang in the distance. Morrigan's sour look softened.
“Perhaps...you are not wrong about other elves forgetting who they are.”
Theron looked faintly surprised by the admission. After a few heartbeats had passed, he ventured, “But do they have any regrets about it?”
“I do not know,” Morrigan said softly.
---
“So,” Oghren grunted from under his flask between pulls, “Dalish, huh?”
Theron, already drunk, was lying back and stargazing. “So I'm told.”
“What's it like, bein' in a Dalish camp? Are...all your lovers moanin' and gruntin' every time they take a ride?”
“Is this about me and Zevran again? Did you hear what we were talking about?”
“Hard not to, eh? Kind of the point. Hear a lotta other things, too.”
“You hear the dog snoring, then?”
“Now that you mention it, yeah. Like an angry bronto.”
“Angry brontos are less sweet.”
“Angry brontos slobber less. Have you ever seen--” Oghren paused, then scowled. “Quit changing the subject.”
“I'm not. You were talking about nightly noises.”
“That ain't the same. Answer the question.”
Theron sighed, stretching his arms out wide against the grass as if he could embrace the whole starry sky. “You hear it, sometimes.”
“How do you bastards sleep?”
“We learn to sleep through it. I imagine underground with all that stone between you and everyone else it's not a skill you've developed.”
“Heh. You'd be surprised what echoes. Uh. Now you got me wonderin'.”
“What about?”
“Your white critters with the curly horns.”
“Halla is easier to remember.”
“Whatever. Do they snore?”
“No louder than the dog.”
