Stand and Deliver [Slaine]

[Aeirn Vryndîr]

"Stew, perhaps some bread if we have some." Hopefully that enticed her, it wasn't much but it was something filling and warm to keep you comforted up in the foothills of the mountain. He gave a small nod as he and the rest of his band made ready to trek back. Packs were tied to backs, body hidden and scavenged items stowed away, it was only a matter of minutes before they were ready to set off. Aeirn turned to Slaine, eyeing her a little, he wasn't quite sure if she'd be able to keep up, the small woman she was, one of the perks about being as tall as Aiern and indeed as any other elf was your walking speed, the sheer length of the legs making for almost large bounds for any of the other smaller races. "Will you be able to keep up...? Or will one of us need to carry you?" It came bluntly and to the point, a lot like Aiern in many ways and there wasn't much in the way of evidence to suggest he meant it as any sort of slight, though how Slaine would take it, was another thing.

The afternoon was winding down now, the sun slowly descending, to be replaced by the silver glow of the moon; it was a fair bit away but none the less, it gave the woodland an almost tranquil, lazy feel as the coolness of the air, coming down from the mountains stopped one from wanting to drift off under a tree for an hour or two.

Aeirn sighed a little as he knelt down, stowing away a few items he'd collected from a small crate not ten minutes ago, muddy eyes looking to Slaine again, he could at least tell her where they were heading, after all, he felt she was someone not accustomed to, or pleased with being kept out the loop. "We'll be heading east, through the trees, and into the hills just below the Slyscera range, it'll take a couple of hours, it's quite the trek." he indicated this by pointing in the vague direction they'd be moving off in, and looking in the direction, it seemed to be off into the woodland, not bothering to make use of the road, it was a little confusing as to why, but Aeirn surely had his reasons.

[Slaine]

Stew? Her stomach rumbled audibly, her expression flickering with a mixture of shame and contempt at the betrayal of her own bodily function. "Yes, of course. It sounds... agreeable." Not wanting to appear too eager she metered her enthusiasm, playing it cool for the audience of elves that she was almost certain were not buying it. A hint of color rose in her cheeks as she awkwardly fixed her pack, adjusting it in a way that looked busy but didn't appear to accomplish too much, the would be adventurer somewhat lost with an audience of men and women that practically seemed to live on the road from the sound of it, experts in ranging about the wild countryside.

"Carry?" She parroted the word with a note of indignation. The entire point of her being out on the road was that she wasn't a child - her feathers properly ruffled, she blinked at him, perhaps considering some sort of rebuttal when the thought of warm stew came to mind again. "What's in the stew?" She steered the conversation abruptly back to food, her stomach twinging at the thought, though she regarded the stew now with some mounting skepticism, uncertain how much to expect of Kerasokan cuisine. Having never really gotten into cooking and being spoiled by the luxury of a range in her gilded cage for when she absolutely needed to burn cook something, she had never actually sat down to make herself familiar with the concept of cooking over an open fire.

Adjusting her hat as he looked to her, puffing herself up and straightening her posture, her chin jutting up somewhat, her stance broad, probably thinking tall thoughts in the back of her mind somewhere. "Yes, of course, it'll be fine. I made it out here, didn't I?" Granted, there had been a road, but she was now too far in to back out. It was all quite mysterious and the concept of travelling off the beaten path had never occurred to her. It was so rebellious, so dangerous, so... "That old man, the wizard -" And to her, he was. A wizard, a practitioner of the arcane, his fault being in his focus. "Where was he going? Was he expecting you?" She looked behind them rather than ahead, chewing her lower lip as she hooked her thumbs through the straps of her pack and pulled it tight against her back.

[Aeirn Vryndîr]

Kersokan cuisine, it wasn't anything extraordinary, focusing perhaps more on vegetables and produce than a strictly human or dwarven diet, meat primarily coming from game animals, and perhaps 'exotic' creatures found in the untamed wilderness of Ninraih along with the odd lake fish. Aeirn eyed her as they walked, having chosen to lag behind his fellows to converse with her, slowing himself to her pace, lest they all be considered rude. "Rabbit perhaps, deer and various leaves and plants we've scrounged together, it's not much but it shall fill you up, I'm certain of it." he offered her a polite smile along with a nod. He exhaled, eyeing the trees, most of them of the pine variety, so used to the cooler climates that they effortlessly gave way to the shrill wind that cascade downward from the hills. Inhaling a breath he smiled a little, muttering a few choice words to himself, as if giving thanks to some unseen deity or phantom.

Wizard? A general name that was for sure, he eyed her, puzzled for a moment before nodding a little, serious tones sliding from his mouth, as if talking about the gravest of matters. "He was known to us, but we were not known to him. As is the nature of hunts; he was not made aware of, until the business back there." he gestured with a movement of his head. Though, he was curious as to why she seemed to show a fascination with him, as if she'd been his niece, come to see her uncle for a friendly visit. Suspiciously he raised a brow. "Does it matter where he was heading however? Such information hardly seems relevant. He has passed, and the dead should be remembered in silence, lest we disturb them from slumber, as he forgot to do." the quip was filled with venomous dislike, laced with a slight reverence for the now dead man.

"Where was it you said you were from again?" he asked quickly, having not previously asked such a question, words slyly trying to get information out of her in the subtlest way he could; they flowed so casually and calmly that the pair could have been sitting down at a tavern enjoying a nice drink, had it not been for the slight panting and puffing of hasty feet, moving cross country.

[Slaine]

Scrounged leaves, yum yum! And yet, despite her misgivings it sounded good. Meat sounded delicious. She only hoped that one of them could cook, not certain if she trusted the tall man or his cohort yet to make something delicious from scrounged leaves. She was so busy contemplating dinner that she hadn't really cared to noticed that they had lagged behind, actually finding it rather agreeable to walk with someone rather than alone, a pleasant distraction from the the muddy misery of cutting through the forest, the leaf-coated floor unnervingly damp. Where Aeirn gave thanks Slaine felt no such connection to the natural world, at least none that she could recognize. This became particularly true as she found a patch of sodden leaves and mud giving way beneath her boots. While the ranger said his muttered prayers, she looked at him and wondered what it was he had heard in the call of the breeze, now periodically toeing the ground with caution here and there as she tried again to catch up, hardly noticing the smear of gray mud streaked up the back of her ankle. This was worse than the house by far, even when she had really let the cleaning go after Nigel's death, too engrossed in her newfound freedom to practice magical tomfoolery. At least she had charmed the apartment to more or less keep itself over the years.

Having better learned to recognize dependably solid ground, she made up for lost ground rather quickly once her confidence had been restored, giving the ranger a skeptical look, her lips turning down in a frown. "Why wouldn't it matter? I study the arcane - the movements of necromancers is of course a concern of mine, as it ought to be a concern to us all." Slaine rolled her eyes so hard that they almost got lost back there at his broody "respect for the dead" and "superstitions" and "racial grudges". "In fact, just uh-" She squinted, counting on her fingers, muttering dates beneath her breath. "Fifty... Sixty years ago?" Had it been so long? With furrowed brow, she checked her math again and again, though it never quite added up the same. She really needed to write this sort of stuff down. "Huh-"

Tilting her head she looked up at him, shifting the pack up again, rolling her shoulders. "South side of Fellsgrad. Why?" She leaned away, looking him over with suspicion. "Are you going to try and stab me again?"

[Aeirn Vryndîr]

He offered a shrug of his shoulders, eyes not caring to look down at her, for the question had not be said in genuine interest, truthfully, merely for conversational reasons. "No reason, merely curious.". Pondering for a moment he relented, letting out a exasperated sigh before continuing. "If you so wish, he was traveling over into Ninraih; for what person? We weren't able to assertain that, but we stopped him before he could get there, so our job is done. Now, come, we've a good ways to go yet."

The day drew on as the party made their way over the ever steeper terrain, where soft grass, clustered trees and green once lay, it was starting to be replaced by larger rocks, patches of frost laden grass and less denser woodland. It took another forty or so minutes to finally reach the campsite; it was a modest set-up, located within a small clearing, both protected from prying eyes and cooler weather. Four tents, seemingly much larger and almost palatial, in comparison to human ones, surrounded a central communal area, where logs at been shifted into place for sitting and a campfire lay and with it a pot, suspended by a makeshift hook carved from wood. It was a quaint little area, though everything seemed just that bit larger, as if Slaine had entered a camp for giants- and well, giants they could have been, so tall and lithe were they in stature, compared to many of the other races that inhabited the world.

Aeirn came to a stop next to Slaine, having kept light conversation for most of the way, he offered her a smile, gesturing with a sweeping motion. "This is it." The rest of his compatriots busied themselves away, moving to do various tasks, but not before stowing any equipment they didn't need, taking a few of the more obscuring bits of clothing off. Everyone seemed to pitch in, no one of them seemed to slack in any one department, so ingrained was the communal spirit. Aeirn eyed Slaine again, raising a slender brow to see what she made of all this. He didn't exactly believe she'd have seen an elven camp before. "Please, make yourself comfortable, we'll be starting a meal soon." And that soon couldn't come fast enough, the sun now slowly descending, to make way for the moon, as dusk began to make its first appearance over the horizon.

[Slaine]

"Curious, right." She huffed, turning her attention back to the path ahead of them. She still had so many questions but Aeirn seemed rather closed on the topic, leaving Slaine unsatisfied, though not entirely surprised. She hadn't expected him to simply answer question, but she had hoped.

By the time they reached the camp, she had reached a sort of peaceable calm, quietly watching the woods around her with a quiet sort of fascination, trudging up the incline. It was exhausting but also rewarding in a way that she couldn't quite understand. Normally she didn't like to be uncomfortable or dirty, but there was a certain charm about it. The chill made her budle the cloak closer about her shoulders, though the aching burn of exertion left her somewhat red in the face, damp with sweat. Too stubborn to admit her own limits, however, she pushed on. When they arrived at the clearing she stumbled to a halt, panting as she leaned against a rough-barked conifer, carefully rubbing her brow dry on the silk lining of her cloak.

She felt like a child, everything overlarge by just a bit too much to be comfortable. The largeness of everything made her acutely aware of her diminutive stature, feeling strangely vulnerable in a way that she had learned early to ignore in a world scaled for people a few inches taller than her. People a few feet taller were just unreasonable. "Ought to have grabbed one of the crates," the mage muttered, pushing off of the tree to join him before veering toward the fire several paces only to pause and turn toward Aeirn as if to gauge his reaction to her choice... and then wandered off anyway, fully intending to do exactly as he bid and make herself comfortable, perching on the end of a log and shouldering off her pack with a sigh of relief and a bit of wriggling to loosen stiff joints.

As she took down her hat, shaking out her hair, she turned to look for him. "Aeirn? Who did you say is cooking?" Carefully she reached to unfasten the cloak about her shoulders, shrugging it off despite the chill entering the air, rather enjoying a brisk respite from the sweaty hell of exercise. Beneath a calm veneer, she panicked, seeing many elves but none she recognized easily, only having seen his merry band of Ears in brief passing and hooded shadows, largely knowing them by their vicious accuracy with a bow.

[Aeirn Vryndîr]

The group of elves were indeed going about at quite a pace, turning themselves to individual tasks, washing clothes, chopping wood, cutting vegetables to add to the cooking pot, laughing and joking in their native tongue without paying much heed to little Slaine. Aeirn seemed to have disappeared, or... was he among the group, going about tasks? To the untrained eye, a lot of elven features seemed similiar, especially from a distance, they were all roughly the same height with virtually the same build and they seemed to walk so effortlessly, and quietly like phantoms that it was hard to really keep track of who was who. Nonetheless, they worked away as Slaine watched from her safety tree.

"Stew, we'll be having rabbit tonight." Aeirn's voice was directly behind her, so eerie was his ability to simply just appear from nowhere with such silent steps, it made for some truly startling moments. Aeirn on the other hand thought nothing of it, himself leaning against the tree casually, arms folded lazily, foot resting against the rough bark, a small smirk on his lips as if he knew what he was doing and enjoyed doing it to people not use to Kerasoka.

"You can help if you like- we're rather community based so service is its own reward- plus a meal at the end." he stated, nodding his head in gesture to the a few potatoes that were laying on the grass, ready to be chopped. He was indeed right however, Kerasokan's had always liked being together, as a community, and this had been doubly true when they'd finally sought refuge with the Fae, as really the common good was far more important than selfish, individual needs and wants... so Aeirn thought anyway, but he'd always been a bit of a traditionalist.

[Slaine]

With a start Slaine turned toward the voice, puffing through her nose in annoyance. She did not quite feel that her book had portrayed the eerie grace of the Kerasoka accurately, though it hadn't been a Kerasoka's grace that the narrative had focused on too closely - she glanced at him with another, softer huff as she recalled vividly his impromptu reading. In that moment, She wanted to tear her bag apart to find that damnable book and fling it into the fire. But it had been such a good read, the bookworm in her whined. There was no reason to punish the book for Aeirn's behavior, and yet...

When she met his gaze again she appeared unusually flustered by the proposal she earn her supper and perhaps realized it, opening her mouth to speak as she looked toward the potatoes and then again to him, closing her mouth. After a pause, she heaved a sigh of relief, laughing as she reached to loosen the laces of her boots some. "I was worried there a moment you thought I could cook - I'll cut potatoes." Wiggling her toes and stretching her ankles she took a moment longer perched on the log, rising to her feet slowly as she moved to collect the potatoes, crouching down to collect the spuds in the front of her untucked shirt.

"Do you have a bowl? Water to scrub them? They look a bit dirty." Slaine didn't care if dirt wouldn't hurt, she didn't want to eat it, picking at an eye. Gathering the shirt in one fist and keeping the potatoes in check, she used her off hand to pull a small dirk from a scabbard at her belt, spearing it into one of the vegetables as she steered toward her little perch again. At least they weren't leaves.

[Aeirn Vryndîr]

Aeirn casually ran a hand to the back of his neck, rubbing it for a moment as he watched Slaine wander off toward the potatoes, he exhaled and pushed his slender self from the tree, proceeding to wander after her toward the centre of the camp. "Do I?" he said, brow raising in feigned surprised. "I personally don't but you're more than welcome to use that bowl or water over there." he gestured to a small stump with a wooden bowl filled with what looked to be water. Aeirn grinned a little, he enjoyed playing with her like this, the needling and teasing all part of some elaborate game, a flash of impish delight flared in his eyes as he looked at her still, arms now folding again.

"I would offer you a knife but I fear they're a tad too cumbersome for you." and indeed they might've been, seeing as no doubt they were designed for a people with a larger everything, it didn't seem too beyond the realms of possibility that their tools and weapons would be designed for a bigger hand size. "However... I shan't deny you the chance to try if you wish to peel them." From a strapped sheath resting on his chest, by his heart he produced a carved, wooden handled knife, in the same vain as most other Kerasokan designs. It seemed more for combat than cookery, but no doubt it could double as more of a tool, knives were so versatile after all. He tossed it up, the blade side landing on his palm as he paced over, closing the last bit of distance before offering the handle. "Try not to cut yourself, put the potatoes in the pot when you're done- I'll come find you in a little later."

Aeirn paced off, moving to do his own share of the tasks, the first task being to part the flaps of a tent, no doubt his own and disappear from sight, leaving Slaine alone for the time being, surrounded by unfamiliar elves.

[Slaine]

The book also hadn't captured the elvish propensity toward being an absolute asshole quite accurately either, Slaine was comforted to realized, the "plot" and "merit" of Elven Midnight quickly dissolving the longer she spent in the company of the ranger. Maybe she would burn it after all.

Turning toward the bowl, she sighed. "It's not like I know how you do things, you know." She wanted to say more, felt she might be dangerously close to admitting she didn't know what she was actually doing, assuming that the ranger and his merry band hadn't already figured it out.

Frowning down at the knife speared into the potatoes she compared the shorter blade to his own massive thing, more similar to a chef's knife than a paring knife in her tiny hands, but she took it, fixing him with an intentionally flinty stare as he again vanished into a tent that could have housed a family her size comfortably. A cool wind cut through her sweat-dampened shirt, making her shiver, making back for the bowl and stump, slightly too short to comfortably wash the potatoes, but here she was just barely hanging on to her confidence and could not fuck this up.

Tipping the water from the bowl she left her task a moment, her dirk and massive knife nestled under the belly of the bowl side by side, one an elegant Kerasokan design, the other looking more like a sharpened letter opener. She returned, a jug of water in hand, rinsing the potatoes again before pulling the bowl down to the ground with her, cradling it in her lap as she carefully cut the potatoes with as much precision as she could manage, not even trimming her fingers in the process. She kept his knife on her thigh as she worked, appreciating the design but finding herself a bit too aware of the wickedly sharp blade to want to put her fingers near it.

As the last of the potatoes tumbled into the stew, she grabbed her cloak and gratefully bundled into it, chilly now that she'd ventured away from the fire and to the tent, not content to be found again as she went looking for him instead. Snuggling into her cloak with a sleepy yawn (it was late and had been such an active day) she reached out to paw at the flaps as if knocking at a door only to realize the futility of that. "Knock knock." Too tired to bemoan her failure, she instead made due. She'd been made fool off plenty today, what harm could a few more times be?