Traveling alone was boring. Not that Demetir was traveling with the merchants he just left. Their fire was warm and their food was filling, but neither were...meant for him, exactly. What had their problem been, anyway? Look how small he was! How much food did they think he was taking? Blasted uptight merchants. They been furious when they discovered him shadowing their caravan just outside that last village, driving him off like the misers they were.
And so, here he was, trudging through a forest with only the noise of birds and leaves to keep him company. Secrecy kept Demetir from talking to anyone in the caravan when he was still tagging along behind them, but even the rattle of wheels and the distant chatter was better than nothing. During most of the journey the conversation was quite boring to the young dwarf's ears: the price of wool, or the state of the roads in the north. But after they left the village it grew much more interesting. Among the tidbits picked up in the town, there were rumors of dark things ahead; some said Darkspawn, others said it was nonsense.
It didn't matter either way. He was no child, that a story would frighten him off! The only choice besides pressing on was to trek back to the village and wait until another merchant caravan or group of travelers passed by. There was no waiting for the rumors to blow over; once these started, they would keep on for weeks, whether there was any truth to them or no. Besides, he was already a day's journey from the village, and he was in no hurry to lose the distance he already gained towards Redcliffe. Redcliffe! Just the word itself made his heart pound in eagerness. Every human settlement Demetir had wandered across ever since he left Orzammar must be like a pig’s hovel compared to Redcliffe. True, some complained about the smell of the fish from the sprawling docks, but where there were fish there was food, maybe even some he could catch himself. Maybe he could stay there instead of going on to Denerim. There had to be something important a healthy young dwarf could set himself to in the city.
Demetir did not stop when the sun set. There was no need to hunt, with a loaf of stolen bread in his pack to keep hunger at bay, and he could go a while yet before making camp. The coming of night slowed him down only a little, but it made the traveling even more boring. Normally he would find something to look at or wonder about all the way he went: the way the clouds were moving and what sort of weather that would mean, the size and number of animal tracks and what sort of creature they belonged to, the thickness of the moss on the tree bark that kept his direction straight. Now, all blanketed in a gloomy dusk with just a circle of torchlight to go by, he could make out just enough to keep going.
His mind was not content to sit still, though. It hopped from one thing to another, most often on what all of this would be like as a story. The journey parts were always the most tedious, when the listeners stirred and shifted, or rose to get another ale. But then the exciting part would come. No one would dream of missing a word of that. One exciting part had already happened: there was no more snow. It would be very boring in a story, true, but when Demetir saw the sun rise to show not a single patch of snow on the ground, he knew that. It seemed like ages ago since he talked to the blue-painted woman who planted the thought of traveling to the Surface lands without snow, and now he was here. Whenever the realization struck him, with it came a rush of excitement. With the loathed snow, Demetir was leaving behind what little familiarity the Surface held for him. He met the newness with equal parts wonder and misgiving. He wouldn’t have to get used to an entirely new environment, would he? It had been so hard the last time.