Cold floor, cold fire
As the meager embers in the fireplace lay dying, Shepard and the innkeeper sat beside the glowing logs sipping ale trying to soak up the last bit of warmth from the flames. The squall outside had died down to a light drizzle and the soft patters on the thatch roof echoed serenely down to the ears of the patrons below. The smoke of the damp firewood burning lazily wafted through the whole place and smelled of maple. A dozen tallow candles melted down to stumps flickered desperately to keep from dying out. The innkeeper stared blearily at Shepard, eyes irritated by the thick smoke which could not bleed through the narrow chimney quickly enough and billowed over into the main room of the inn.
"The name's Kenley by the way," the young man said after taking a long sip of his mug. "Kenley Farris. Me folks came to Ferelden when I was still a babe, a'fore that me kin hailed from Nevarra." He looked around at the haggard state of his establishment and sighed, almost contentedly it seemed. "An' now that me folks're gone, this run down shack in the woods is all I have left to remember 'em by."
Shepard nodded silently at Kenley as he took a long sip of the warm ale, letting the gentle burn linger in his mouth before swallowing, fully letting the taste seep in to his palate. The drink did it's best to warm him up since he had taken his armor off. He had removed it earlier to move more freely when he and Kenley had carried the bodies of the dead mercenaries out of the bar and buried them. "So have you ever been back to Nevarra?" he asked the weary-looking innkeep.
"Nah, I never had cause ta go. Nothing left for me there and barely anything keeping me 'ere, but I've never had cause t'be anywhere else so this is where I'll be, 'til this damned shanty falls down 'round me ears." Kenley's somber look spoke volumes at just how dissatisfied he was with his lot in life. It was hard to make a living in the world these days, particularly in Ferelden. It was still just a babe of a country after winning its independence from Orlais but a few decades ago, whereas before the Orlesian occupation Ferelden had been nothing more than a conglomeration of various tribes fighting against eachother for plots of land, caring nothing for the greater nations beyond their borders.
"I can tell ye this though," his mood changed suddenly, from somber to serious and focused, as though he regarded the information he was about to share as little-known and valuable. "Nevarra was once the most respected nation in Thedas. No country could boast o' its pride and prowess more so than she could. A country o' dragon slayers and heroes, naught but two ages ago when dragons could still be found aplenty and they needed slayin' as they made a nasty habit o' terrorizin' the people, Nevarra became famous because her warriors found a way ta kill them dragons wi'out gettin' burned ta ashes in the process." Pausing his speech to take the last draught of his mug, Kenley sighed contentedly and continued on.
"Those warriors and knights trained others on how ta fight and soon their ranks swelled enough that they became a company of dragon slayers, travellin' Thedas slayin' dragons for coin and glory. Eventually it got ta the point that they could find no more dragons across the reaches o' the world, and the years rolled on by without so much as a sighting of a single one o' the beasties. Years passed and the dragon slayers found themselves poor and all but forgotten." Shepard nodded every few words, already knowing that much about Nevarra. Kenley shifted in his chair and scooted a little closer to the fire and stoked the orange embers, trying to squeeze the last bit of fuel from their crumbling forms.
"So as the years went by and the dragon slayers found that they were out o' work, they had no choice but ta take their skills where they'd be best served, the military. Most o' the company o' dragon slayers had no choice but ta enlist in the Nevarran militia after they spent the last bit o' their coin from their glory days, and did it ever frighten the pants off o' the other nations once they realized that Nevarra had men and women who killed dragons for a living serving in the regular army. Needless ta say, nobody wanted ta mess with Nevarra for a good long while after that occurred and the country knew peace for decades. But that was two ages ago, and all o' them that once slew dragons 'ave been in the dirt for a long time now," upon saying that Kenley looked over to the fireplace where the embers were now a cold grey and no longer gave off any warmth at all.
Curling his upper lip in dissatisfaction, the innkeep rose up from his chair and tried futilely to rekindle the fire, alas to no avail. Slapping the poker down on the brickwork of the fireplace he grumbled and shuffled off to the back room of the inn rubbing his arms to ward off the cold. He returned a few minutes later with a bedroll and some bedding for Shepard to sleep on. Most of the other patrons had bedded down for the night already as near to the fire as they could be and had been snoring cacophonously during Kenley's tale. The innkeep handed over the blankets and the Lieutenant accepted them graciously, already feeling the wet cold outside creeping in.
"See to it that when you go to Nevarra that you have a healthy respect for the warriors there," Kenley began. "The dragon slayers may all be dead but they passed on their training ta the ones beneath them in the military afore they died. Even some of the mercenaries you might meet on the streets or in the taverns there are likely to 'ave some o' that training too, so mind yerself while yer there." Shepard nodded his understanding and set his bedroll down on the cold wooden floor near the others and bedded down for the night, knowing he would have to get an early start at dawn to reach Jader by the time the ship sailed.