48. A Dwarf's Guide to Surface Weather
If there was one thing about the surface that he would never get used to, it was the weather.
When Garott had first stepped out of Orzammar with the Wardens (and Marnan), it had been cold. Not the still, old kind of cold that you found in the Deep Roads, but a stinging, active kind of cold that bit at your fingers and toes.
As Duncan and the new recruits had originally descended the path along Lake Calenhad, things had gotten warmer and more pleasant. Then, in the Korcari Wilds, the air had felt sticky, but cool. Finally, after Lothering, the air had warmed up to the point of discomfort.
Except, now, they were ascending into the mountains again, and it was back to the first kind of weather: stinging, windy cold.
Garott didn't know how the topsiders coped with all this change all the time.
He rubbed his hands against the fur beneath him to warm his fingers up, earning a snort from his mount.
"Laugh it up, missy," he chuckled. "Let's see how well those pretty assets of yours hold up when that scarf thing is all that protects them against the cold."
The beast beneath him rumbled, and Garott was sure it would have been an acidic response had she been able to speak. But, no, Morrigan kept her bear form and continued plodding up the slope. Her warm, furry bear form.
Sten loped alongside the bear-witch and her dwarven rider, as usual seemingly unaffected by the cold bite in the air. Then again, Sten wasn't typically affected by much. After a week of traveling with just him and the ice witch for company, Garott was honestly starting to miss even the princess. At least needling her had been entertaining. Now, he was sodding bored.
The three of them had taken the western route up through the mountains. It hadn't taken long for them to realize that Garott, with his stubby legs and laden tinkerer's pack, was by far the slowest of the group. Over dinner the first night, he'd joked that perhaps Morrigan could transform into a griffon and fly him there like Wardens of old.
The next morning, Morrigan had shapeshifted into a bear, and Sten had picked the dwarf up and set him on her back like one might a saddlebag. Garott wasn't about to complain… not if it got them to their destination faster. And he wasn't about to turn down the free ride, either, though he had no doubt Morrigan was keeping a mental tally of every time he accidentally tugged her fur or kicked her.
Apparently, a bear-witch and a Qunari could make really good time when they wanted to. It had taken them nearly a month to get from Orzammar to Ostagar, all told. Now, a week in, they were probably about halfway there… if the map Felicity had drawn was any indication, anyway. The mage was annoying, but he couldn't help but defer to her in these sorts of things.
Too bad the map hadn't indicated how sodding cold it would be. Amell could have at least mentioned that. She couldn't expect a dwarf to figure these things out his first time on the surface.
Garott glanced sidelong at the Qunari as a thought occurred to him. "Hey, big guy, why aren't you cold? Isn't your homeland… kinda tropical?"
The Qunari didn't answer right away. Only after a minute of Garott's pointed staring did he relent. "It is irrelevant."
"Sod that. You're cold. Just admit it."
"Why does it matter?"
"It'd make me feel better about complaining, for one."
"I am not here to indulge your feelings." Anyone else would have made that line drip with contempt, but from Sten, it was flat and matter-of-fact. Below him, Morri-bear rumbled with what the dwarf could only assume was a laugh.
Garott wasn't one to give up easily, though. He was bored. "Then why are you here, big guy?"
"I am fulfilling a need," the Qunari said. "You had need of help against the darkspawn, and so here I am."
Garott eyed the giant curiously. "I thought you were atoning?"
"I atone by fulfilling this need."
"So at what point will the debt be repaid?"
Sten cast him a flat look. "I do not understand the question."
Garott leaned back, running his hands through Morrigan's rough fur. "How many darkspawn heads do you need to squish before you've atoned? Twenty? A hundred? A thousand? When are you done settling your mental ledger?"
Finally, there was an expression on the giant's face… he looked slightly insulted. "The worth of lives cannot be measured by arbitrary increments."
"Good point." Garott gave the Qunari a sharp smile. "Where I come from, they're usually measured by who their daddy is."
"And that is a failing of your society, not mine." Sten turned forward, and seemed content to end it there.
Not sodding happening. "No need to get philosophical about it. I just wanted to make sure you weren't gonna walk away mid-fight just because you'd cleared your conscience."
"I will not leave until the task is done," Sten said, starting to actually sound impatient. Good, it proved the guy wasn't a golem. "I said I would help the Wardens combat the Blight, and so that is what I will do."
Garott snorted. "You've got a lot of honor, for a guy who killed a bunch of people." The Qunari's look would have been extremely intimidating, if Garott hadn't been riding a sodding bear. "Not that I'm judging, big guy. I ain't exactly got a clean conscience, either. I was a thug and hitman for a crime boss, before the Wardens scraped me out of the dung pile. But the thing is, it's kinda bad for the brain to let it bother you. Leads people to drink, and there is nothing worse than wallowing uselessly in a bottle. So yeah. We killed people. It happens."
"You were serving your role. I was not. It is different." Then, the Qunari huffed, "Enough of this. Let us move on."
"Ain't got anywhere to go, big guy."
"I do not wish to discuss this."
"Fair enough. Admit you're cold, and I'll stop."
The look. Stone, this Qunari was intimidating. That was kinda the point of bringing him along, actually. "Very well. If it will cease this pointless line of questions."
Garott waved his hand in a 'do go on' gesture.
The giant sighed through his nose shortly and turned forward again. "I admit that the… climate here is certainly far different from that of Par Vollen."
"Colder, you might say?"
"Yes. Are we done now?"
Garott leaned back in his seat with a smirk. "Yeah, I think so."
Sten nodded and turned his attention forward. They walked in silence for a while, minus the occasional snuffling from the Morri-bear.
Then, the quiet was pierced by a distant, echoing roar.
The trio paused and looked up to identify the source. A moment later, a gigantic dark shape swooped into view high above them, appearing from behind the Frostback Mountains to the west. It circled around a peak for a moment, then swooped low below the treeline behind them. When it rose again, it had something in its talons—it looked like a deer, if Garott knew his surface animals.
The creature roared again, its mighty wings sending out gusts of wind that they could feel even from a distance. Painstakingly, it rose, angling off to disappear back behind the mountain peaks with its doomed prize.
Garott let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Was that what I think it was?"
"That depends what you thought it was."
"Not one for rhetorical questions, are ya, Sten?"
"If you continue talking, you may draw it closer and be able to confirm whether it was what you thought it was."
Morrigan rumbled a chuckle, and Garott kicked her pointedly. "Laugh all you like, missy. A dragon that size could probably pick even you off the ground. Bet you look a lot more filling than little old me." The bear huffed, and Garott smirked. "Anyway, let's hope it doesn't come any closer."
Sten eyed him. "You do not wish to pointlessly fight it?"
"What? Sodding Stone, no! I'm not suicidal." He snorted a laugh at the very thought, and Morrigan rumbled her approval as she started moving along the mountain road again. Garott cast a glance back at the peaks behind which the dragon had disappeared. "In the immortal words of one of my dimmer colleagues: 'swooping is bad'."
Morrigan rumbled again, and Garott couldn't decide whether it was amusement or irritation. Ah well, he'd never been all that good at reading her in human form either.
"Perhaps you could ask it whether it is cold," Sten deadpanned.
Garott took a moment to stare at the Qunari, then threw his head back and laughed. "You know what, big guy? You're all right."
