eyes in the dark

She looked on edge and exhausted, but he believed her Elvish strengths. Still, he levelled a long, haggard, worried look at her for a moment, before wandering over to the remains of the fire. The rabbit was still skewered, stuck between ashes and rocks to hold it upright, and Jorah scooped it up and gingerly peel off strips of the dry meat. Despite his filthiness, he ate with type of obvious daintiness. He peeled off the succulent dark meat first, pinching the strips with his dirty fingers as if he found touching his food unpleasant. He chewed slowly, lacking the sense of the crazed, devouring of those who grow up never knowing when their next meal would be. Jorah sat down to eat, looking uncertain about each morsel, and he thought for many moments after swallowing, glancing around at the trees, unhurried. Dawn leaned into the horizon, tossing its light enough into the clouds to make his eyesight comparable to the Warden's.

After several bites like this, he shot a long look at Rylee, still taking his time, studying her shadowed form at the edge of camp - the alert ears, how she seemed a statue in her repose, still as an owl on a branch. He wondered what she would have done if she'd had children like he did. He thought of young Tomas and Jaqueline, the way their faces echoed Elena's and forced him to always remember. To always go back in his mind. To always feel so empty and stuck. Was he so far from home just to escape them? Surrounded by darkspawn, with a Warden just as mad as he was deep down, did he feel more at peace? Was his need to find the cure for his son just a story he told himself? To justify why he did this. Why one drinks the blood of darkspawn. Why one seeks them out. Jorah saw himself reflected in the Warden, the part that wanted to be free and the part that wanted to die, and he thought of all this as he stared at her silhouette silently.

Have you ever been to Antiva? he asked tentatively, halfway through skin and bones of the small meal.