In the Dark [30th of Yulember]

Lokisk found himself intrigued by Niamh, as she peered at him from behind the one-eyed man, tilting her head not altogether unlike a cautious rodent, a playful dog, or a curious bird. Bird. That's what Wigmore had called her. Lokisk had a habit of drawing comparisons between the people he met and animals he was familiar with, but in this case there was something that struck him as wild. Not crazy like the man that stood between them, but with a slightly feral edge. Fascinated, he watched as she darted forward to take in the landscape as it stretched off towards the Southern Cliffs. He'd caught a glimpse of her eyes as she passed them, wide eyes that made him imagine she was in a trance, or under the influence of something. The way she spoke was... to the point? He wondered if she was seeing things the rest of them couldn't.

Distracted, he barely noticed Wigmore approach until he was nearly upon him. "I have no food, nor do I need any," he barked, making the paler man jump. Watching the older man walk past him to join Niamh Lokisk relaxed a little. It didn't bother him if he had no desire to have any of his food. Crazy bastard.

Hex shouted to Niamh, but then returned her attention to Lokisk, motioning him to stop and hear her words. She welcomed the offer of sharing his food, clearly understanding the need to conserve their rations and their energy as they planned to head southwards into the unknown. He gratefully received the offer of the bear fat too, taking a moment to apply it, daubing black onto white. He nodded in answer to her question. "Yes. From Port Town, once upon a time, but I've spent many more years on this side of the wall." He looked up to see how far ahead the other two were before remembering his social graces. Hex, as terrifying as she had been the first time he'd met her - indeed, the first few burns of this meeting - seemed civil enough. Friendly? Maybe. Or maybe their interests temporaily aligned. Either way, it didn't hurt to keep the conversation going, to show interest.

"And you? Where do you hail from? And what brings you here?"

Hex nodded as Lokisk spoke. She knew he would be very useful as they moved further south, especially not knowing what they faced ahead. People liked to connect with each other, it gave reason to trust, to fight for one another. A simple thing some had forgotten.

Hex cocked her head and gave him a sidelong glance and a little smile.

"I hail from frozen wastes of Trothgard, as far to the north from here as you can go. As for what brings me here to this isle, the winds of fate. It seems that every decade or so I need to remind myself that there is more to life than living in a cave with wolves, loosing what little remains of myself in the cycle of hunting and killing. My fate is forever intertwined with the land, the petty power plays between Trothgard, its own people and the Citadel, but I grow tired of the politics. I am not what one would call an emissary, ambassador or diplomat. I come south to remind myself why I fight for people I do not know, to remember what being a normal person was like."

The smile caught Lokisk offguard slightly, but he listened as Hex related a little of her history. He nodded as she spoke of unknown Trothgard, kept his eyes firmly focussed ahead as she spoke of living with wolves, and then tried to reel his thoughts back in as she spoke of trying to avoid politics, and of trying to remember what a normal person was like. Lokisk had tried, and failed, to be accepted as normal when he was a child. He no longer knew what to measure normality by. Still, Hex was interesting, if still somewhat frightening, a bundle of contradictions, a wild thing that would neither be too wild nor too tame. But, more so than that, she was clearly well travelled and knew much more of the world than she did, and likely much more about the ways of man.

"I've never left this island," Lokisk mumbled. "I've heard of the wars and courtly politics from across the seas, but it's rarely had a great deal of impact here. Still, I've often wondered about the lands beyond this one. My father, I believe, was foreign born."

Lokisk fell quiet, not sure how much he should be opening up to a stranger, particularly one who admited to living with wolves. His mentor, Korrell, had told tales around the hearth of creatures that shifted shape between beast and man. Lokisk smiled nervously, then looked up to look at his other two companions, pushing onward down the trail ahead of them.