Her path arcs up and down the Frostback Mountains. At the crest of an incline, she buries her boots in snow. At the valley, mud turns them brown again. She alternates between finding herself stifled beneath one too many layers of clothing and begging for one shirt more. The tide of weather is familiar, though. Almost comforting. She is a pilgrim on a well worn path, and it is muscle memory that navigates her across the border of nations.
That is, perhaps, why she doesn't notice her deviation from Gherlen’s Pass until her gaze slides over rising parapets. She expects mountaintops, jutting like crown tips from beneath the earth. She expects hawks circling the sun at midday, bears sticky with the juice of autumn fruits, wolves lazy at the mouths of caves. But a fortress, creature made and preserved against the growing chill?
She's taken a wrong turn somewhere. But that's unlike her — Her feet are better than any compass. They find trails before recollection thinks to speak. Surana buries fists in the pockets of her tunic and commits to turning back, perhaps trying again, when footfalls catch her by the collar.
She stiffens, breath held. Two legs. Steady gait. The weight behind them suggests Human. Perhaps Elven. Quiet, she tells her heart as it thrums in her ears. Blood obscures the count, but she guesses four people as five clear a small cluster of trees.
“Oi!” One calls, hand waving, body folding into a jog to close the distance between them. “Headed to Skyhold, too, eh? My mates and I have been traveling a good long while to get here — But what a sight, am I right? —, ” he turns to flash a thumbs up to the closest of his companions. A dimple forms in his left cheek, and, for a second, it reminds Surana of someone. The breath caught in her throat loosens. “Ain't it a beaut, Halden?”
“Ask me after I've eaten. Everything's looking a bit like food to me right now. About three hours back, I would've sworn George was a fine roast boar. ”
“He certainly smells like a boar!” Someone pipes up from the back. If he had any further additions, they were silenced by a well placed elbow.
“Ya don't see me complaining about the stench wafting from all y'all,” says the owner of the aforementioned elbow. George, probably.
Useless information. Surana makes note to discard it all when they leave her presence.
The man who spoke initially returns his attention to her, face still split by the smile, hands fixing back wayward strands of flaxen hair. “Seems like everyone's hoping to hook up with the Inquisition these days, huh? Nearly everyone we'd run into talked about it. ‘I want to be part of history’ ‘n all that. Can't say I've got such high aims. Just think it'd be nice to do something useful.”
Idly, Surana wonders when he'll stop talking. He doesn't seem to notice her silence, at least, not until her gaze shifts from him and from Skyhold back toward the trail down. “Oh, shite. My bad. I've been running my mouth this whole time. I'm Collin. Collin Fischer. From Denerim. And these are my boys — ”
Maybe he won't stop. Maybe he'll keep her drowned in conversation until the tide of his enthusiasm carries her to the front door of the Inquisition. And maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Something drew her to the frantic energy of a good cause.
Gossip? Hardly. She keeps a finger on the pulse of the world, but only thinly. Enough to stay out of harm's way. Purpose, then? Uncertain. It's communication with her is vague at best. Which isn't a criticism she can consciously aim at another when her own lacks so thoroughly.
It could've been a dream, she supposes, dismissed as useless information that managed to bury itself in the marrow of her bones anyway.
“ — And, uh, your name? What brings you to Skyhold?”
“I don't know.”
