"I used to be an adventurer like you..." (for Jingle)

[Silverstone]

Alenor looked around for the umpteenth time, looking for the way.
He was definitely lost.

That day had been profitable, with the dragonborn they had cleared a mine from bandits - even if it was actually Hjalmer who had done it all, given how small and inexperienced he was - and had been generously rewarded.
They then arrived near a refuge for hunters, where they had decided to stop, as the weather was changing.
Hjalmer had then sent him to look for wood, advising him not to take long, that a snowstorm was coming.

Alenor then set out along the path to look for branches dry enough for the fire.
To his chagrin he realized that all the wood he found was soggy, unsuitable for bonfire.
Until, in the distance, he had glimpsed a large stone ledge, under which there must have been dry wood. Alenor had therefore abandoned the path, they were only a few meters at the bottom. His idea had turned out to be right, he had picked up an armful of dry branches and turned to go back, realizing that he no longer saw the path he had strayed from.
He had tried to retrace his steps, but nothing had helped. He couldn't find his way.

And as if that were not enough it was starting to snow and it was getting dark.
Clutching the bundle of branches to his chest, as if it were his only grip, he ran a hand through the tangled red hair that had stuck to his face. He was starting to get cold, the cloak was not so heavy as to protect him from a blizzard ....

[Pseudosym]

Hjalmer crouched in the lean-to, a three-walled shack set up in a recess at the foot of the mountains. He watched a mist of snow sweep past as the wind picked up, and he was grateful for the shelter. It would be a hard night without it.

He dug in the bags and came up with the rabbit Alenor had downed earlier that day. He inspected the arrow wound: a nice, clean shot, straight through the neck. Impressive on such a small target. The boy was good with a bow.

Hjalmer took the rabbit’s scruff between large, callused fingers. In one practiced motion, he yanked the fur off the meat and stowed the pelt back in the bag. They could sell it in town. Hjalmer picked up his knife and set about cleaning the little animal.

When he’d finished this chore, Hjalmer ventured out of the lean-to. A biting wind whipped down the mountain pass and stirred the snow into a spray of tiny granules that struck his exposed face. Thick, gray clouds hung in the sky, foretelling the coming storm. The first few snowflakes had already started to fall.

Hjalmer squinted down the pass. He frowned. “Alenor?”

The white-frosted tree branches muffled his call. There was no response. He swore under his breath. He’d told the boy not to wander.

Hjalmer retrieved his sheepskin gauntlets and great sword from the lean-to. Alenor’s footprints, descending along the path, had already begun to fade in the new-fallen snow. He followed them, glancing this way and that, to the point where they veered suddenly off the path and into the wooded wilderness. Hjalmer felt a surge of dread. The boy would be lost in an instant.

“Alenor!” he called again. All he heard was the whistling of wind through the trees as the storm grew ever closer.

With the base of his great sword, he hacked a chunk of bark off the nearest evergreen. He stepped off the path, following what remained of his squire’s tracks, marking trees as he went. They would serve as a way back when the snowfall had erased their footprints altogether.

[Silverstone]

Further the darkness began to descend, more Alenor's panic grew.
The sound of his labored breathing was only surpassed by the chill wind blowing.
His heart was pounding and blood roared in his ears. Then, through the sound of the wind, he thought heard his name.
Had he perhaps imagined it?
Then he heard it again and hope rekindled in him. "Hjalmer!" He shouted, moving towards the sound of the voice, until he saw him.

Alenor brightened to see Hjalmer.
He had always seen him as a hero and a savior, but at that moment he seemed almost one of the nine divines had come down to earth.

He ran up to him, a look of relief painted on his face, stumbling among the roots.
He practically bumped into him, in what was a kind of very awkward half-hug, as the dragonborn was several feet out of him in size and height.
And above all since he was still holding the bundle of wood, his little treasure that in the worst case could perhaps have saved his life.
He was shivering from the cold, but also from the fear that had seized him at the idea of ​​having to spend the night in the midst of the storm.
He wore heavy woolen trousers and shirt, cloak and fur-lined boots, but he had seen people much more covered and stouter than him dying of cold after a night out in the open.
But Hjalmer had found him, he was almost on the verge of tears with relief.

[Pseudosym]

Shnkk!

Hjalmer sunk his blade into another tree, striking harder as his anxiety grew. When he pulled away, his sword took with it a wedge of wood the size of his hand. He paid it little mind.

“Alenor!”

Hjalmer stopped for a moment to listen. The woods were eerily quiet. Anything might come upon him. He had to be on his guard.

He heard a shout. He turned, his hands tightening instinctively on his great sword, before Alenor burst into view, a bundle of wood clutched to his chest.

The boy careened into him, and Hjalmer nearly lost his balance. He planted a heavy foot in the snow behind him and wrapped one hand around the back of Alenor’s head, partially to keep them both from falling.

When he’d regained his footing, Hjalmer let his hand linger another second on the boy’s head, in what a bystander might have called an affectionate gesture, before pulling roughly away.

Alenor was shivering. No surprise, dressed as he was. Hjalmer undid the clasp at his neck and draped his own heavy cloak around the boy. It swamped him, reaching past his knees, and was undoubtedly heavier than he was accustomed to. But it would keep him warm.

Hjalmer placed a large hand on Alenor’s back. “Move.”

He steered the boy before him, following the trees he’d marked (their footprints were barely distinguishable by now), until they had found the path. Hjalmer released him then, and they walked side-by-side up the path the way they’d come.

“Collect wood,” Hjalmer growled as they trudged through the gathering snow. “Do not stray. Were these difficult commands to follow?”

[Silverstone]

Alenor huddled in Hjalmer's cloak. He probably would have stopped shaking just in front of the fire, but at least his teeth had stopped chattering.

He let himself be guided by the man, through those trees that all seemed alike to him. He noticed that some were marked and called himself stupid for not having thought of doing it the same.

The tension left him only once he put his feet back on the path and recognized in the distance the shape of the refuge from which he had started.

At those words he looked up, trying to decipher Hjalmer's expression to understand if he was angry.
Or rather: how much it was.
It was assumed that his mood at the moment was not the best.

"I ... I'm sorry," he finally murmured, after a long moment of silence. "It was only a few meters. I didn't think ...", he bit his lower lip, he felt so stupid!
"All the wood I found was soaked and useless ... Then I saw that ledge and I thought there might be some dry wood under it," he motioned to the bunch of branches and twigs he was holding, as if somehow that little success justified reckless execution.
"It was only a few meters," he repeated, stumbling from time to time, awkward from the load and bulk of Hjalmer's cloak. "I thought I could get back on the path in a moment."

[Pseudosym]

Hjalmer listened in silence to the boy’s explanation. As they walked, he paused here and there to pull a branch out of the snow. He said nothing more until they’d reached the shelter. The little nook was warm compared to the wind whipping outside, and the stillness was a relief.

Hjalmer watched the snow, falling now in thick swaths outside. Much longer, and they would barely have been able to see the path before them.

As they unloaded their wood bundles, Hjalmer held up one of the snow-covered branches he’d collected. “Wet,” he said, “but see how light it is? It’s dry on the inside.” He broke it over his knee and showed Alenor the pale, dry center. “It may hiss and smoke. But it will burn.”

There was a little stone oven at the back of the shelter. “Start the fire,” said Hjalmer. “Warm up.”

He fully intended to continue the conversation about what exactly had driven the boy to leave the path. Hjalmer hadn’t fully decided what that conversation would entail, but disobedience was not a habit that could be allowed to develop. He sat in brooding silence as he watched his squire work.

[Silverstone]

Alenor's face, already flushed from the cold, turned an even brighter red at Hjalmer's words.
"I had no idea," he admitted, looking at the wood from the dry inside.

When the man had taken him with, Alenor had assured that he would not be a burden, which he learns quickly.
And Instead ...
It was not the first time that his inexperience was revealed so clearly, retorting against him what seemed like fantastic ideas.

Without saying another word, he took off the two cloaks, arranging them so they dried out of the dampness once he had lit the fire, before devoting himself to arranging the branches.
That was one of the things he did best, albeit with a bit of effort from trembling fingers, he arranged the branches so that once the flames took hold, they burned out as slowly as possible.

Finally the fire began to crackle as the elements raged outside.
The heat began to spread around them, Alenor taken a sigh of relief and stop shaking.
Then, silent and aware of Hjialmer's stern gaze, he sat cross-legged, taking one of the travel knives he carried with him, grabbed one of the thicker branches and began carving it, throwing the shavings into the flames, to create a rudimentary skewer on which to skewer the rabbit for dinner.
He didn't dare raise his eyes, already felt guilty and stupid enough for having forced Hjalmer to go and rescue him.

[Pseudosym]

Hjalmer watched as Alenor busied himself with chores. He made a good little fire—that much, at least, could be said. The boy was not entirely unskilled.

When the fire had been burning a little while, and Alenor had set about skewering the skinned rabbit, Hjalmer raised his hand.

“Hold a moment,” he said. “Dinner can wait. First, we talk.”

Many feared Hjalmer, and rightly so. He could crush a man’s head as easily as a sweet roll. He suspected Alenor feared his wrath, from the boy’s uneasy stance, the way he avoided meeting Hjalmer’s eyes.

But Hjalmer was slow to anger. He had spent enough time braving the wilderness that he saw things more or less as they were. A man’s words could hardly offend him.

Alenor had not yet seen him angry. Not really. And he was not angry, now. Instead, Hjalmer felt a bit frustrated. This was not the first time Alenor’s lack of experience had led to questionable decision-making. He felt annoyed at having been disobeyed, especially given said lack of experience. And he felt a bit afraid. Afraid of what would happen should Alenor make a more costly mistake, when the stakes were higher. If Hjalmer were truly being honest, he feared for the boy’s safety more than his own.

Hjalmer’s expression betrayed none of this. He remained ever stoic, lounging on the shelter’s packed earth floor with one knee hiked to his chest, regarding the boy he’d agreed to train.

Well. Train, he would.

“To find dry wood for a fire is vital,” said Hjalmer in his constant, steady rumble of a voice. “A good instinct. You were wise to seek it out.” He tilted his head slightly, as if to get a different view of the boy. “So tell me,” he said. “Where did you go wrong?”

[Silverstone]

Alenor, at Hjialmer's words, had put down the food and finally looked up at the man.
His hands were in his lap, nervous fingers playing with one of the shavings that had stuck to his clothes.
The fact that the dragonborn didn't seem angry cheered him up a little, even though all the rest of the tangle of emotions he felt kept stirring in his chest.

The firelight illuminated his pale face, the blush of cold was just a memory.
Alenor raised a hand to scratch the back of his neck. "I assumed that, since the path was a few meters away, I would have no difficulty finding it," he finally said.
"I didn't think I needed to leave traces, like you did" he murmured, then sighed, after a moment of reflection.
"If there had been enough light and it hadn't started snowing, I probably would have found the path immediately ... Ignoring the weather conditions were a mistake in turn…" he had to admit, his face vermilion again.

Knowing he was wrong made him feel stupid.
Having to say out loud what he was wrong made him feel twice as bad.

[Pseudosym]

It wasn’t the response Hjalmer had been expecting, and he frowned. “Predicting the weather, finding your way in a snow storm… These are things that come with experience. They can be learned.” He fixed Alenor with a steely-eyed gaze. “I told you not to leave the path because I knew you might be lost. It is no crime to be inexperienced, Alenor.”

He raised his eyebrows, wondering whether the boy would take his meaning. He wasn’t trying to be cruel, asking him to revisit his mistakes like this. But Hjalmer was approaching a decision to punish the boy. There was one crucial point Alenor seemed to be missing, and it would be unthinkable to punish him for something he didn’t know he’d done. Better if the boy could work it out for himself.