The soup-thick stench of despair still settled over Lothering like a fog, even a decade and a half on down the line.
Across the wide green Bannorn the company had traveled, Garrett's acceptance among them insecure at best, the wolf grandfathered in by the good will of the Ledaal siblings and little more; the scuffle by the river had certainly not engendered any goodwill among the Grey Wardens, and Garrett was more reluctant than ever to reveal the truth about himself even as the need grew urgent. The deception had been entirely unintentional from the beginning, but it sat uneasily in his stomach, made him twitchy and restless. Being a wolf or being a true-man alone were difficult enough, but merging the two brought a great many complications, especially in a culture that both revered and hated his people.
Every time he thought about changing from four feet to two and apologizing for an identity mistaken, he remembered the horrified look on Lissa's face the last time he had seen her, and his heart was again steeled against the idea.
Lothering was a much-needed distraction, and as he padded into the village the scents of the place assaulted his keen nose, more memories than actual stench, really: fear hate sorrow blood blackness despair and though he had only heard stories of the destruction here, though it seemed a perfectly normal place to his roving eye, it still made his hackles prickle and his ears press backwards. No amount of cheerful rebuilding could cover over what had happened here. He wondered how many dogs had run away because of it, how many true-men had gone mad from the knowledge.
The little mage smelled incredibly upset, though she hid it well, and after a stuttering start made for the center of the town, her head slightly tilted down, and the wolf-mage knew that if she had had ears and a tail, they would have been at low-mast from some inner torment. Garrett almost sighed at himself as he moved after her, nudging his massive skull under her dangling hand, leaning some of his weight (not much; she was a little wisp of a thing by his standards, after all, and he didn't want to bowl her over) against her hip as she walked.
Damn his soft spot for females in distress. It was going to get him killed one day - had almost gotten him killed once, and his whole pack with him - but he couldn't just let her go on without any kind of support.