There had been an impromptu celebration that night, complete with contests of strength, archery, fighting, and then, after, music and dancing. Both the Huntmaster and Strife had sat out of the contests, though they had helped to judge. It was a relief to have their claw off and allow their arm time to heal from the strain of constantly wearing it.
“Let the young ones show their skill,” said Strife, raising his mug in their direction of the clustered competitors, victorious and not. “Us, we’re old. We don’t need to do that any more.”
“Unless it is needed to remind them that they do not know everything,” remarked the Huntmaster, with a tip of their own mug.
“There is that,” said Strife. “Better it be us, than something that won’t pull the killing blow.”
They noticed his eyes slid over again to where Mahanon and Ghillen were talking animatedly with Professor Volkarin, Rook, and Bellara. They had also noticed that Emmrich’s eyes kept wandering over to where they sat with Strife.
“The tall human mage,” questioned the Huntmaster. “Emmrich. Your bondmate?”
“Nothing official,” he said, “But we’ve been seeing each other when we can.”
“Mmm,” said the Huntmaster. “You said that you did not grow up among the Dalish. Do you dance?”
“When I was young, I was one of the best dancers in the alienage,” he said. “Still pretty good.”
They jerked their head at Emmrich.
Strife looked Emmrich up and down.
“Looks like he should,” he said.
“Perhaps,” they said, “you should find out. Show the da’len how a courtship is conducted. They are too shy. Look at them. They only stand and make halla’s eyes at one another.”
Strife quirked his mouth at the Huntmaster.
“Careful,” he said. “don’t want them to think you’re getting soft.”
“Hardly,” they said, with a small quirk of their own mouth, and Strife laughed and pulled a flustered Emmrich into the ring of dancers by the fire.
They watched with a small smile. They themselves had no interest in bonding with another, but it was good for those that did to take those moments when they found them. They had lived too long to think that there would always be another moment, when there so often was not. If they had been younger, they might have bothered to find a like-minded hunter to slip past the fire with for a few hours, as they had at Arlathvhens or when clan Lavellan met another clan, but they were older now, and the fighting had been hard. They were content to watch the celebrations of others this night.
Chapter 17: To Rust Unburnish'd
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