Little But Not Less | ✓

Follow Me in the Fallow Mire

Dorian gagged a little as he sniffed the murky waters running along his legs, the liquid soaking into his woollen socks and making the skin of his feet pucker. Little speckles of mud creeped up his knees just above the line of the water, the hem of his robes swishing in the goo. Dorian had long since given up on remaining dry from all angles, the cold rain pouring down as the dirt ran slick.

"This place is abysmal," Dorian huffed, not bothering to hide his annoyance. Bull just snorted as rain dribbled down his horns and onto his scarred face, his dark tongue flicking out to lick his lips. 

"You volunteered to be here, Dorian. Or did you forget?" Gael reminded him, his voice weary. Dorian had been whining (though he was adamant that he does not 'whine') from the moment they were debriefed by Scout Harding, complaining about how the muck would ruin his new Quillback boots. Bull had not-so-subtly kicked up a mound of dirt straight onto his boots to break them in, Gael having to conjure up a last-minute ward to prevent Dorian's fireball from lighting Bull up like a matchstick. 

"Unfortunately, I didn't forget," Dorian grumbled, picking at the crusted mud on his thighs. "But please tell me that the mad Apostate isn't far from here." Gael rolled his eyes as Dorian cast doe eyes at him, the grey hue gleaming in the eery lighting of the foggy night. Gael's situation was far worse than Dorian's, as his shorter height meant that the water level reached far past his knees and to his mid thigh, the worryingly sticky slush wetting more of his leg than he cared for. 

"Bull, cover," Gael ordered briefly, Bull nodding as he pulled out a large square of tarp from his pack, raising it above Gael's head. The Qunari was a tower compared to Gael, and swamped him in height effortlessly, the tarp overlying him providing him with a high ceiling that he would have to jump up to scrape. Cassandra quietly stepped under the tarp's domain, shaking the water from her shortly cropped hair. Dorian tried not to stare as Gael wrung out his own growing braid, some rainwater dripping down the side of his face to linger on the edge of his rounded lips. Feeling the droplet there, Gael's pink tongue slithered out to lap at it. Dorian gulped and cleared his throat.

"If you were any taller, this column may have to retire from his day-job. It's a good thing you're nug-sized, Inquisitor," Dorian quipped, Bull blinking at his words as Gael gave him an annoyed glance, before opening up his own pack to pull out Harding's map of the area. Looking at it for a moment to orientate himself, Gael flipped the map around and tapped on a small clearing on the crinkled page. 

"We're here," Gael started, flipping his wet braid behind his head as it began to drip onto the ink of the map. "A few paces this way, and we'll get to the location mentioned in the journal."

"Oh, a few paces," Dorian whined, throwing up his hands in the air as Gael stuffed the map back into his pack, Bull dismantling his role as the makeshift tent's skeleton. "You said a few paces forty minutes ago!"

"If you're tired, you can go back to the camp first," Gael sighed, gesturing to the path they had just trekked across. Their footprints were already disappearing as mud slipped across the ground as the rain picked up its momentum with newfound vigour.

"The camp is a 'few paces' in the other direction, so no, thank you," Dorian said glumly, Gael grinning a little at the other mage's pouty lips, his moustache drooping along with his energy. Stepping in front of the group towards their target location, Dorian crinkled his nose as he began to lead the small group. "Let's just get on with it, then."

Gael laughed as Dorian trudged on ahead of them, the elf skipping lightly on his feet despite the mud trying to suck him down. Dorian's lips twitched as he felt the Dalish elf fall into a steady gait beside him, a flurry of ashy hair bobbing in his periphery.